Scientific reasoning in kindergarten: Cognitive factors in experimentation and evidence evaluation

The personal epistemology of parents predicts the development of scientific reasoning in children aged 6-10 years

The influence of the epistemological beliefs of parents on the development of comprehensive scientific reasoning abilities was investigated in a five-wave longitudinal study from kindergarten to elementary school. The 161 German 5-10-year-olds (89 girls, 72 boys) were assessed yearly on their scientific reasoning abilities using comprehensive measures for experimentation and data-interpretation skills, as well as understanding of the nature of science. The children were also tested on their language abilities and intelligence. Their parents completed a sociodemographics questionnaire and answered ten questions about their epistemological beliefs regarding (1) the interpretive nature of science, (2) the tentative nature of knowledge, and (3) the role of scientific framework theories. The personal epistemology of the parents significantly predicted the scientific reasoning development of their children regardless of the parents' education level and the children's general cognitive abilities. However, the effect of the epistemology of parents on their children's scientific reasoning was limited to the intercepts, suggesting that the epistemic understanding of parents affects how scientific reasoning develops in their children, but not the development speed. Although parental epistemology exerts substantial effects on scientific reasoning of their children, it did not affect their reading ability, suggesting an involvement of science-specific mechanisms rather than generalized family-based influences. These findings highlight the importance of family as a variable in the development of scientific reasoning, which is an area lacking in research, and it suggests that early interventions targeted at the epistemic understanding of caregivers can provide useful ways for promoting the reasoning of children. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: A five-year longitudinal study shows significant development of scientific reasoning from kindergarten to elementary school. Caregivers' personal epistemology predicted scientific reasoning development-independent of children's general cognitive abilities and caregivers' level of education. The effect was most-pronounced for caregivers' understanding that social framework theories determine which aspects of science are accepted and how they are conducted. Caregivers' personal epistemology did not predict children's reading abilities, suggesting that the effect of the caregivers' epistemology on children's scientific reasoning is domain-specific.

A Role for Visual Memory in Vocabulary Development: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Although attention and early associative learning in preverbal children is predominantly driven by rapid eye-movements in response to moving visual stimuli and sounds/words (e.g., associating the word "bottle" with the object), the literature examining the role of visual attention and memory in ongoing vocabulary development across childhood is limited. Thus, this systematic review and meta-analysis examined the association between visual memory and vocabulary development, including moderators such as age and task selection, in neurotypical children aged 2-to-12 years, from the brain-based perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Visual memory tasks were classified according to the visual characteristics of the stimuli and the neural networks known to preferentially process such information, including consideration of the distinction between the ventral visual stream (processing more static visuo-perceptual details, such as form or colour) and the more dynamic dorsal visual stream (processing spatial temporal action-driven information). Final classifications included spatio-temporal span tasks, visuo-perceptual or spatial concurrent array tasks, and executive judgment tasks. Visuo-perceptual concurrent array tasks, reliant on ventral stream processing, were moderately associated with vocabulary, while tasks measuring spatio-temporal spans, associated with dorsal stream processing, and executive judgment tasks (central executive), showed only weak correlations with vocabulary. These findings have important implications for health professionals and researchers interested in language, as they advocate for the development of more targeted language learning interventions that include specific and relevant aspects of visual processing and memory, such as ventral stream visuo-perceptual details (i.e., shape or colour).

The complex associations between scientific reasoning and advanced theory of mind

This 6-wave longitudinal study (2014-2018) of 161 German 5- to 10-year-olds from a midsized city and rural area in southern Germany (89 females, 72 males; predominantly White; mostly middle class) found that scientific-reasoning abilities first develop at 6 years. Abilities were highly stable, with the kindergarten score predicting 25% of end-of-elementary-school variance. Individual but not developmental differences were related to language abilities (0.39), mindreading skills (0.33), and parental education (0.36). In early elementary school, mindreading skills predicted scientific reasoning (0.15), but not vice versa; in late elementary school, bidirectional associations emerged (0.11-0.33). Our findings suggest that mindreading is a precursor for the development of scientific reasoning and that older children use scientific reasoning to revise their advanced theories of mind.

Young children's metacognitive awareness of confounded evidence

Young children selectively explore confounded evidence-when causality is ambiguous due to multiple candidate causes. This suggests that they have an implicit understanding that confounded evidence is uninformative. This study examined explicit understanding, or metacognitive awareness, of the informativeness of different qualities of evidence during early childhood. In two within-participants conditions, children (N = 60 5- and 6-year-olds) were presented with confounded and unconfounded evidence and were asked to evaluate and explain their knowledge of a causal relation. Children more frequently requested further information in the confounded condition than in the unconfounded condition. Nearly half of them referred to multiple candidate causes when explaining confounded evidence. Our data demonstrate that young children can reason explicitly about the informativeness of different kinds of evidence.

Preschoolers' Induction of the Concept of Material Kind to Make Predictions: The Effects of Comparison and Linguistic Labels

Analogical reasoning by comparison is considered a special case of inductive reasoning, which is fundamental to the scientific method. By reasoning analogically, learners can abstract the underlying commonalities of several entities, thereby ignoring single objects' superficial features. We tested whether different task environments designed to trigger analogical reasoning by comparison would support preschoolers' induction of the concept of material kind to predict and explain objects' floating or sinking as a central aspect of scientific reasoning. Specifically, in two experiments, we investigated whether the number of presented objects (one versus two standards), consisting of a specific material and the labeling of objects with the respective material name, would benefit preschoolers' material-based inferences. For each item set used in both experiments, we asked the children (N = 59 in Experiment 1, N = 99 in Experiment 2) to predict an object's floating or sinking by matching it to the standards and to verbally explain their selections. As expected, we found a significant effect for the number of standards in both experiments on the prediction task, suggesting that children successfully induced the relevance of material kind by comparison. However, labels did not increase the effect of the standards. In Experiment 2, we found that the children could transfer their conceptual knowledge on material kind but that transfer performance did not differ among the task environments. Our findings suggest that tasks inviting analogical reasoning by comparison with two standards are useful for promoting young children's scientific reasoning.

Developing an Understanding of Science

Young children are adept at several types of scientific reasoning, yet older children and adults have difficulty mastering formal scientific ideas and practices. Why do “little scientists” often become scientifically illiterate adults? We address this question by examining the role of intuition in learning science, both as a body of knowledge and as a method of inquiry. Intuition supports children's understanding of everyday phenomena but conflicts with their ability to learn physical and biological concepts that defy firsthand observation, such as molecules, forces, genes, and germs. Likewise, intuition supports children's causal learning but provides little guidance on how to navigate higher-order constraints on scientific induction, such as the control of variables or the coordination of theory and data. We characterize the foundations of children's intuitive understanding of the natural world, as well as the conceptual scaffolds needed to bridge these intuitions with formal science.

Scientific Reasoning in Biology - the Impact of Domain-General and Domain-Specific Concepts on Children's Observation Competency

Research on the development of scientific reasoning has put the main focus on children's experimentation skills, in particular on the control-of-variables strategy. However, there are more scientific methods than just experimentation. Observation is defined as an independent scientific method that includes not only the description of what is observed, but also all phases of the scientific inquiry, such as questioning, hypothesizing, testing, and interpreting. Previous research has shown that the quality of observations depends on specific knowledge in the domain. We argue that observation competency shares the domain-general ability to differentiate hypotheses from evidence with other scientific methods. The present study investigates the relations of both domain-general scientific thinking and domain-specific knowledge in biology with observation competency in grade K children. We tested relations between observation competency, domain-general scientific reasoning, domain-specific knowledge, and language abilities of 75 children (age 4;9 to 6;7). Both scientific reasoning and domain-specific knowledge proved to be significant predictors of observation competency, explaining 35% of the variance. In a mediation analysis, we found a significant indirect effect of language via these two predictors. Thus, the present results indicate that observation skills require not only domain-specific knowledge but also domain-general scientific reasoning abilities.

Logical Reasoning, Spatial Processing, and Verbal Working Memory: Longitudinal Predictors of Physics Achievement at Age 12-13 Years

To date, few studies have tried to pinpoint the mechanisms supporting children’s skills in science. This study investigated to what extent logical reasoning, spatial processing, and working memory, tapped at age 9–10 years, are predictive of physics skills at age 12–13 years. The study used a sample of 81 children (37 girls). Measures of arithmetic calculation and reading comprehension were also included in the study. The multiple regression model accounted for 24% of the variation in physics achievement. The model showed that spatial processing (4.6%) and verbal working memory (4.5%) accounted for a similar amount of unique variance, while logical reasoning accounted for 5.7% variance. The measures of arithmetic calculation and reading comprehension did not account for any unique variance. Nine percent of the accounted variance was shared variance. The results demonstrate that physics is a multivariate discipline that draws upon numerous cognitive resources. Logical reasoning ability is a key component in order for children to learn about abstract physics facts, concepts, theories, and applying complex scientific methods. Spatial processing is important as it may sub-serve the assembly of diverse sources of visual-spatial information into a spatial-schematic image. The working memory system provides a flexible and efficient mental workspace that can supervise, coordinate, and execute processes involved in physics problem-solving.

Use of Recast Intervention to Teach Causal Adverbials to Young Children With Developmental Language Disorder Within a Science Curriculum: A Single Case Design Study

Purpose Language serves as an essential resource to learn about cause and effect throughout childhood. Causal adverbial sentences use causal conjunctions (e.g., because, so) to join 2 clauses to express cause-effect relationships ( Diessel & Hetterle, 2011 ). Causal adverbial sentences are frequently used to explain causal relationships in academic contexts, such as elementary school science and social studies classes ( Kinzie et al., 2014 ; J. Williams et al., 2014 ). Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are at risk for failure in these academically relevant language skills. Here, we investigated the effect of language intervention focused on causal adverbials on both causal adverbials and acquisition of science content in young children with DLD. Method A multiple-probe design was used to examine the effect of language intervention using recasts on production of causal adverbials and acquisition of science content for 7 preschool/kindergarten children with DLD. Child production of causal adverbials and an untreated control structure were analyzed. Results Six of 7 participants exhibited gains in production of causal adverbials containing because, with effect sizes ranging from small to large. Performances on daily probes of science content learning and science unit tests indicate that participants are able to learn science content, but the magnitude of gains may not relate to skill in causal adverbial production. Conclusion Language intervention for young children with DLD can effectively treat complex syntactic targets such as causal adverbials in the context of science instruction, but it is unclear whether this can affect science content learning.

Reasoning Abilities and Potential Correlates Among Jordanian School Children

Objectives To investigate factors related to reasoning skills in 434 school children aged 5-9 years. Methods The Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised was used to assess reasoning skills. Demographic, work and family income data, information on child's daily behavior and school academic achievement were provided by the participating children's parents. Results Reasoning scores increased by 4.56 points with increasing subject's age, 1.71 points with increasing level of father's occupation, 1.86 points with each increase in the subject's GPA, 1.13 points with consumption of breakfast at home and 1.81 points when child slept more hours. Having a father who smoked and living in a rural area decreased scores in reasoning. Conclusions for Practice Screening of reasoning and associated factors is essential for a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the child's abilities and limitations. Understanding the child's reasoning abilities is critical for establishing intervention goals and planning therapeutic activities.