Researchers know that certain factors give children a leg up when it comes to school performance. Family income, access to early childhood programs and home environment rank high on the list.

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Now, researchers are looking at another potentially advantageous element: curiosity.

The more curious the child, the more likely he or she may be to perform better in school — regardless of economic background — suggests a new study published in Pediatric Research.

Researchers at University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and the Center for Human Growth and Development analyzed data from 6,200 kindergartners from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort. The cohort is a nationally representative, population-based study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education that has followed thousands of children since birth in 2001.

The U-M team measured curiosity based on a behavioral questionnaire from parents and assessed reading and math achievement among kindergartners.

The most surprising association offered new insight: Children with lower socioeconomic status generally have lower achievement than peers, but those who were characterized as curious performed similarly on math and reading assessments as children from higher-income families.

“Our results suggest that while higher curiosity is associated with higher academic achievement in all children, the association of curiosity with academic achievement is greater in children with low socioeconomic status,” says lead researcher Prachi Shah, M.D., a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Mott and an assistant research scientist at U-M’s Center for Human Growth and Development.

The findings present an opportunity for families, educators and policymakers.

“Curiosity is characterized by the joy of discovery and the desire for exploration and is characterized by the motivation to seek answers to the unknown,” Shah says. “Promoting curiosity in children, especially those from environments of economic disadvantage, may be an important, underrecognized way to address the achievement gap.”