  Curiosity is a vital metacognitive skill in educational contexts. Yet, little
is known about how social factors influence curiosity in group work. We argue
that curiosity is evoked not only through individual, but also interpersonal
activities, and present what we believe to be the first theoretical framework
that articulates an integrated socio-cognitive account of curiosity based on
literature spanning psychology, learning sciences and group dynamics, along
with empirical observation of small-group science activity in an informal
learning environment. We make a bipartite distinction between individual and
interpersonal functions that contribute to curiosity, and multimodal behaviors
that fulfill these functions. We validate the proposed framework by leveraging
a longitudinal latent variable modeling approach. Findings confirm positive
predictive relationship of the latent variables of individual and interpersonal
functions on curiosity, with the interpersonal functions exercising a
comparatively stronger influence. Prominent behavioral realizations of these
functions are also discovered in a data-driven way. This framework is a step
towards designing learning technologies that can recognize and evoke curiosity
during learning in social contexts.
