The central assumption underlying this project was that children may differ in a number of important wonder-related respects (described in more detail under project 5).
14 November 2017
These wonder-related respects were: a) in their proneness to wonder; b) in the things (situations, objects, experiences) that evoke their wonder; c) in the type(s) of wonder they are (most) prone to; and d) in the emotions that accompany their wonder or to which their wonder leads. To be able to test these hypotheses we required a new instrument; the purpose of this project was to develop such an instrument: the Wonder Chart.
By mapping these aspects of children’s experiences of wonder we hoped to be able to get a detailed and comprehensive overview of each child’s sense of wonder. We mapped these different aspects through self-report questions connected with carefully constructed vignettes – short stories, sometimes supported by pictures, in which particular situations and people’s responses in those situations were described. The questionnaire ended with a short section in which children were asked directly about wonder; whether they knew what it meant, how often they experienced it, and what elicited it.