Learning to Innovate Launches Eight-Site Study of Children’s Tool Innovation

Learning to Innovate is supported through a UK Research & Innovation collaboration jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, led by Bruce Rawlings, and the U.S. National Science Foundation, led by Cristine Legare.

The project examines the cognitive processes that support tool innovation, why children differ in these abilities, and how educational access and experience shape their development across culturally and geographically diverse populations.

Key Milestones

  • Culturally adaptable versions of the cognitive task battery are being finalized for eight international sites.

  • Shared training materials and harmonized data-collection procedures are being established across collaborating teams.

  • Piloting is assessing task difficulty, administration time, and cultural appropriateness.

  • School-context measures are being developed to examine educational access and quality.

  • Shared coding and data-processing pipelines are being established across the United Kingdom, United States, Brazil, Ghana, Namibia, Ecuador, South Korea, and Hong Kong

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