Museum-based tinkering and engineering learning opportunities among Latine families with young children.

This study addressed whether and how tinkering experiences in a children's museum can provide informal engineering learning opportunities for Latine families. Forty-two Latine parents and their children (20 girls, 22 boys;  M age = 8.00,  SD  = 1.59) were observed tinkering to make something that rolls. Immediately after tinkering, researchers elicited the children's reflections on their learning. Parents' formal schooling was positively associated with parents' engineering conversations during tinkering. In the children's post‑tinkering reflections, older children, and children of parents with higher schooling, included more engineering talk in their reports. Finally, parents and children who during tinkering referenced the engineering information reviewed during a pre‑tinkering orientation talked the most about engineering during and after tinkering. These results suggest ways that Latine families engage in tinkering to advance children's learning about engineering, and how museum practices can support early engineering learning in informal educational settings.