Learning to innovate: Development and diversity

We often hear that humans are 'the great tool users'. Our ability to create and use tools is unique among all animals. All human cultures make tools, many with amazing complexity and diversity.

Our homes, smartphones, and biomedicine are products of tool innovation. Given these achievements, it is particularly puzzling that children seem to remarkably bad tool innovators. A decade of research has shown that children find making very simple tools strikingly hard, and they fail to solve tool innovation tasks that crows easily can. Consequently, many have concluded that children are 'poor innovators'.

Why is this? And is this true of all children around the world? Most research studying children's tool innovation is based on children in western countries - particularly North America and Europe.

We have little understanding of whether the struggles that these children face are shared globally. A core aim of this project is to systematically study the development of tool innovation over childhood in eight culturally and geographically diverse countries, including the UK, USA, Brazil, Ecuador, South Korea, China, Namibia, and Ghana. Children in these communities live very different lives, have different ecological environments, social systems, and norms, and varying opportunities for, and attitudes towards, innovation.

There are good reasons to expect that children outside of postindustrialsed western ones may be skilled innovators. Children in the postindustrialsed west are exposed to (increasingly digital) pre-manufactured toys and structured educational systems in which they engage in tool use under close adult supervision. This reliance on pre-made toys and learning tool use from adults may reduce opportunities for developing innovative skills.

Conversely, children in less industrialised societies typically have less exposure to pre-manufactured toys and are encouraged to engage in self-initiated learning.

We will also study the cognitive skills that support tool innovation over childhood. Specifically, we will examine the role processes such as executive functions, planning, creativity, and spatial ability play in children's tool making ability. Tool innovation is complex and we think it requires multiple cognitive skills such as these. Importantly, as these ones improve over childhood, so do children's tool innovation success rates, across populations.

Children in our communities also have very different exposure to formal education. Some communities, such as those in the UK or South Korea have schooling systems typically performing at the top levels in global charts. Conversely, some of our other communities have far less access to schools, and the schools they can attend have fewer resources.

Another core aim of this project is to study whether, and how, access to formal schooling and schools of differing quality, impacts the development of tool innovation. Attending school also increases children's exposure to peers, which provides collaborative opportunities and introduces them to new ways of thinking and therefore potentially may improve children's creative and innovative skills.

Innovation is increasingly seen as a critical skill of the 21st century. Recently, several high profile global institutions have highlighted the value of innovation for future generations. The World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Reports in 2021 and 2023 outlined innovative and creative thinking as the first and second most important skill for future generations, respectively.

By providing knowledge on how children in diverse communities thrive and/or struggle at innovation challenges, this project will significantly improve our understanding of how to harness it from a young age.