Individual Differences in Early Scientific Thinking: Assessment, Cognitive Influences, and Their Relevance for Science Learning

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.

Perception of the Level of Competency of Candidates for Graduation: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Complex Thinking

Complex thinking is a cognitive skill that focuses on the integrated analysis and synthesis of information with a systemic and critical perspective that enables creative decision-making in the face of complex realities or challenges. At the educational level, it is valued as a transdisciplinary competency, meaning it is relevant for individuals regardless of their profession or field of study. This article presents the results of measuring the perceived achievement of complex thinking among 830 graduating students from a technological university in Mexico, aiming to identify possible significant differences based on their discipline or major. Methodologically, a multivariate descriptive statistical analysis was performed using R and RStudio software, including calculation of means and standard deviations, violin plots, boxplot and ANOVA significance analysis, and t-test. The results show that the differences were not statistically significant in all the disciplines, although it is possible to note significant differences, which reveals a differentiated behavior in the process of formation and development of complex thinking according to the discipline of study. In conclusion, the present study shows that the students' areas of training are associated with differences in perception of complex thinking and its associated sub-competencies, thus differentiating this ability in their graduation profile. This article contributes to the existing literature on the formation and development of complex thinking and its sub-competencies as relevant professional skills for lifelong learning.

Social Entrepreneurship, Complex Thinking, and Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy: Correlational Study in a Sample of Mexican Students

This article presents the results of a study conducted on a sample population of students attending a technological university in western Mexico. The development of the entrepreneurial self-efficacy competency was evaluated within a process of ideation of social entrepreneurship projects to develop social entrepreneurship and complex thinking competencies. A multivariate descriptive analysis was implemented to demonstrate possible statistically significant correlations between the competencies of social entrepreneurship, complex thinking, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The results confirm the correlations between the competencies of social entrepreneurship, complex thinking, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy, concluding that there is statistically significant information to indicate that the complex thinking competency positively impacts not only the process of generating social entrepreneurship projects but also the scaling of entrepreneurs’ perceptions about their capabilities at the time of entrepreneurship. At a practical level, this study presents results that argue for the need to develop complex thinking in students in social entrepreneurship programs, both in universities and in organizations that promote entrepreneurship. It confirms that complex thinking is a valuable competency in the ideation and generation of entrepreneurial proposals.

Business Decision-Making and Complex Thinking: A Bibliometric Study

Complex thinking is an important tool for effective decision-making, as it helps people to better understand uncertain situations by considering the multiple variables and relationships involved in a situation, thus being able to identify patterns and connections that would not otherwise be evident. This article presents the results of a bibliometric study to identify academic publications that consider the correlation between decision-making in the business area and complex thinking competency and its sub-competencies. The intention was to have a theoretical horizon that provides a complete overview of the current academic situation regarding the correlation of both professional skills to identify areas of opportunity for new studies. Methodologically, we conducted a literature review using Scopus and Web of Science databases under the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) protocol from which a sample of 339 articles related to both topics was obtained. R, Rstudio, and Bibliometrix were used for the quantitative analysis of the data. The results showed an academic tendency to associate decision-making in business with critical thinking, paying little attention to the other sub-competencies of complex thinking. Furthermore, we found a concentration of research in specific universities and countries, repeating a tendency to study only a few sub-competencies. Overall, this work sheds light on the broad opportunity to link the complex thinking macro-competency with decision-making in business, to provide more extraordinary skills and tools to future professionals.

Complex thinking and social entrepreneurship. An approach from the methodology of compositional data analysis

This article describes a study that sought to identify the correlation between social entrepreneurship and complex thinking competencies in a population of Mexican students. The article uses the novel approach of compositional data analysis. Compositional data analysis focuses on studying data that are part of a whole, whose importance lies in the relative information between its parts and not in absolute values. The analysis allows us to identify an association between the competencies and find statistically significant relationships between sub-competencies. In particular, correlations can be seen between the sub-competencies of scientific thinking and critical thinking with the sub-competency of self-control, leadership, and social awareness and social value. Furthermore, a correlation is observed between systemic thinking with the sub-competency of social awareness and social value, self-control, and leadership sub-competencies. In a practical way, this article introduces the compositional data analysis methodology to the academic educational literature focused on the study and measurement of competencies, opening possibilities for more precise, broad, descriptive analyses not achieved with other methodologies.

Predicting grade school scientific literacy from aspects of the early home science environment

Fostering scientific literacy has become an increasingly salient goal as evidence accumulates regarding the early emergence of foundational skills and knowledge in this domain, as well as their relation to long-term success and engagement. Despite the potential that the home context has for nurturing early scientific literacy, research specifying its role has been limited. In this longitudinal study, we examined associations between children's early science-related experiences at home and their subsequent scientific literacy. Following on our previous work, we specifically considered parent causal-explanatory talk, as well as the degree to which parents facilitate access to science-related materials and experiences. A group of 153 children from diverse backgrounds were evaluated across 5 annual waves of data collection from preschool entry (M _age = 3.41) through first grade (M _age = 7.92). Results demonstrate that parent invitations for children to explain causal phenomena had strong concurrent relations to scientific literacy but showed little relation to subsequent literacy. In contrast, the broader home science environment at preschool entry, particularly in the form of exposure to science-related activities, predicted scientific literacy over the next 4 years. The directionality and specificity of these relations were clarified through the inclusion of measures of cognitive and broader home experiences as controls in regression analyses. Overall, our investigation revealed that exposure to science-related input provided by parents has particularly powerful potential for shaping scientific literacy when children are very young. Implications for parent-focused interventions that promote science literacy are discussed.

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.

Home science interactions and their relation to children's science core knowledge in preschool

A limited body of work has examined the nature and scope of young children's science-related activities outside of the school context, and thus there is little understanding or consensus regarding what comprises the home science environment (HSE; e.g., interactions, activities, resources) and how specific factors of the HSE relate to children's science performance. The two primary goals of this study were to (a) examine the factor structure of a parent-report measure of home science interactions and (b) evaluate how these factors relate to the science core knowledge of young children from families with low incomes. A total of 125 families with children aged 3 to 5 years (52 girls) participated in the study. Children were assessed on a measure of science core knowledge, and parents completed a brief questionnaire on their home science interactions that included questions pertaining to both home science disciplinary core idea (DCI) engagement and home science and engineering practice (SEP) engagement. Findings revealed that although separating home science interactions into distinct DCI and SEP factors represented the data well, the best overall representation of home science interactions was a one-factor model that included only home DCI engagement items. In addition, home DCI engagement was significantly predictive of children's science core knowledge over and above a large group of covariates, including children's age, race/ethnicity, sex, and performance on math, executive function, and vocabulary tasks as well as their parents' education.

Contributions of causal reasoning to early scientific literacy

Although early causal reasoning has been studied extensively, inconsistency in the tasks used to assess it has clouded our understanding of its structure, development, and relevance to broader developmental outcomes. The current research attempted to bring clarity to these questions by exploring patterns of performance across several commonly used measures of causal reasoning, and their relation to scientific literacy, in a sample of 3- to 5-year-old children from diverse backgrounds (N = 153). A longitudinal confirmatory factor analysis revealed that some measures of causal reasoning (counterfactual reasoning, causal learning, and causal inference), but not all of them (tracking cause-effect associations and resolving confounded evidence), assess a unidimensional factor and that this resulting factor was relatively stable across time. A cross-lagged panel model analysis revealed associations between causal reasoning and scientific literacy across each age tested. Causal reasoning and scientific literacy related to each other concurrently, and each predicted the other in subsequent years. These relations could not be accounted for by children's broader cognitive skills. Implications for early STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) engagement and success are discussed.

Development of the Perception of Achievement of Complex Thinking: A Disciplinary Approach in a Latin American Student Population

This paper aims to identify whether there are statistically significant differences in the level of perceived achievement of complex thinking competence in a population of Latin American students from different disciplines. The intention is to corroborate or question the academic literature that categorizes certain types of thinking (systemic, scientific, and critical) as characteristic elements of some disciplines. Methodologically, the validated eComplexity instrument was applied to a sample of 370 undergraduate students from a Mexican university. The results showed that the highest means for systems thinking can be found in the disciplines of Engineering, Business, and Humanities, while the highest means for critical thinking can be found among architecture students. However, statistically, the results showed no significant differences upon an overall comparison of all disciplines. In conclusion, the findings of this study prove to be valuable for educational institutions seeking to develop complex thinking in their students, demonstrating that the disciplinary area is not a limiting factor in developing a perception of achievement in a particular competence and its sub-competences.

Models as Epistemic Artifacts for Scientific Reasoning in Science Education Research

Models are at the core of scientific reasoning and science education. They are especially crucial in scientific and educational contexts where the primary objects of study are unobservables. While empirical science education researchers apply philosophical arguments in their discussions of models and modeling, we in turn look at exemplary empirical studies through the lense of philosophy of science. The studied cases tend to identify modeling with representation, while simultaneously approaching models as tools. We argue that such a dual approach is inconsistent, and suggest considering models as epistemic artifacts instead. The artifactual approach offers many epistemic benefits. The access to unobservable target systems becomes less mysterious when models are not approached as more or less accurate representations, but rather as tools constructed to answer theoretical and empirical questions. Such a question-oriented approach contributes to a more consistent theoretical understanding of modeling and interpretation of the results of empirical research.

Developmental Trajectories in Diagnostic Reasoning: Understanding Data Are Confounded Develops Independently of Choosing Informative Interventions to Resolve Confounded Data

Two facets of diagnostic reasoning related to scientific thinking are recognizing the difference between confounded and unconfounded evidence and selecting appropriate interventions that could provide learners the evidence necessary to make an appropriate causal conclusion (i.e., the control-of-variables strategy). The present study investigates both these abilities in 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 57). We found both competence and developmental progress in the capacity to recognize that evidence is confounded. Similarly, children performed above chance in some tasks testing for the selection of a controlled test of a hypothesis. However, these capacities were unrelated, suggesting that preschoolers' nascent understanding of the control-of-variables strategy may not be driven by a metacognitive understanding that confounded evidence does not support a unique causal conclusion, and requires further investigation.

Describing the Development of the Assessment of Biological Reasoning (ABR)

Assessments of scientific reasoning that capture the intertwining aspects of conceptual, procedural and epistemic knowledge are often associated with intensive qualitative analyses of student responses to open-ended questions, work products, interviews, discourse and classroom observations. While such analyses provide evaluations of students’ reasoning skills, they are not scalable. The purpose of this study is to develop a three-tiered multiple-choice assessment to measure students’ reasoning about biological phenomena and to understand the affordances and limitations of such an assessment. To validate the assessment and to understand what the assessment measures, qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed, including read-aloud, focus group interviews and analysis of large sample data sets. These data served to validate our three-tiered assessment called the Assessment of Biological Reasoning (ABR) consisting of 10 question sets focused on core biological concepts. Further examination of our data suggests that students’ reasoning is intertwined in such a way that procedural and epistemic knowledge is reliant on and given meaning by conceptual knowledge, an idea that pushes against the conceptualization that the latter forms of knowledge construction are more broadly applicable across disciplines.

Individual Differences in Children’s Scientific Reasoning

Scientific reasoning is an important skill that encompasses hypothesizing, experimenting, inferencing, evaluating data and drawing conclusions. Previous research found consistent inter- and intra-individual differences in children’s ability to perform these component skills, which are still largely unaccounted for. This study examined these differences and the role of three predictors: reading comprehension, numerical ability and problem-solving skills. A sample of 160 upper-primary schoolchildren completed a practical scientific reasoning task that gauged their command of the five component skills and did not require them to read. In addition, children took standardized tests of reading comprehension and numerical ability and completed the Tower of Hanoi task to measure their problem-solving skills. As expected, children differed substantially from one another. Generally, scores were highest for experimenting, lowest for evaluating data and drawing conclusions and intermediate for hypothesizing and inferencing. Reading comprehension was the only predictor that explained individual variation in scientific reasoning as a whole and in all component skills except hypothesizing. These results suggest that researchers and science teachers should take differences between children and across component skills into account. Moreover, even though reading comprehension is considered a robust predictor of scientific reasoning, it does not account for the variation in all component skills.

The Development of Advanced Theory of Mind in Middle Childhood: A Longitudinal Study From Age 5 to 10 Years

This 5-year longitudinal study investigated advanced theory-of-mind (AToM) development in 161 German 5- to 10-year-olds (89 females, 72 males). Core aspects of AToM developed nonlinearly, with children reaching a milestone at the age of 7 years, around when they attained the conceptual insight that mental states can be recursive. In late elementary school, a multicomponent battery was used. Performance on many aspects of AToM was predicted by information-processing skills (intelligence and language at 6 years), but not by the age when children acquired the basic conceptual insight; only some naturalistic, social-interpretative tasks were correlated with children's age at acquisition. This study documents significant developmental progressions in middle-childhood AToM and suggests that different mechanisms may underlie diverse aspects of social cognition.

The Predictive Value of Children's Understanding of Indeterminacy and Confounding for Later Mastery of the Control-of-Variables Strategy

Prior research has identified age 9–11 as a critical period for the development of the control-of-variables strategy (CVS). We examine the stability of interindividual differences in children's CVS skills with regard to their precursor skills during this critical developmental period. To this end, we relate two precursor skills of CVS at age 9 to four skills constituting fully developed CVS more than 2 years later, controlling for children's more general cognitive development. Note that N = 170 second- to fourth-graders worked on multiple choice-assessments of their understanding of indeterminacy of evidence and of confounding. We find relations between these two precursor skills and children's CVS skills 2 years later at age 11 in planning, identifying, and interpreting controlled experiments, and in recognizing the inconclusiveness of confounded comparisons (understanding). In accordance with the perspective that both indeterminacy and confounding constitute critical, related yet distinct elements of CVS, both precursor skills contribute to the prediction of later CVS. Together, the two precursor skills can explain 39% of students' later CVS mastery. Overall, the understanding of indeterminacy is a stronger predictor of fully developed CVS than that of confounding. The understanding of confounding, however, is a better predictor of the more difficult CVS sub-skills of understanding the inconclusiveness of confounded comparisons, and of planning a correctly controlled experiment. Importantly, both precursor skills maintain interactive predictive strength when controlling for children's general cognitive abilities and reading comprehension, showing that the developmental dynamics of CVS and its precursor skills cannot be fully ascribed to general cognitive development. We discuss implications of these findings for theories about the development of CVS and broader scientific reasoning.

Inquiry-Based Learning and Conceptual Change in Balance Beam Understanding

Inquiry-based learning has the potential to foster conceptual change, but whether it can induce an advancement in strategy use is not yet known. Such an advancement seems plausible, because conceptual change can be reflected in the use of new strategies. Whether inquiry-based learning leads to advancement in strategy use can be tested with strategy-based tests, such as the balance beam test. Distinct strategies have been proposed and identified for this test. Therefore, the present study compared response patterns on the balance beam test before and after an inquiry-based lesson. The experimental condition completed a digital inquiry-based lesson about the balance beam (n = 113), and the control condition completed a similar inquiry-based lesson but investigated a different topic (n = 44). The participants were aged 8–13 years old and were unfamiliar with the law of moments. The balance beam test (pretest and posttest) consisted of 25 items. Overall accuracy in solving balance beam problems improved after the inquiry-based lesson in the balance beam (BB) condition but not in the control condition. Classes, identified with latent transition analysis (LTA), appeared to be globally in line with previously identified strategies in the balance beam test. Condition was entered as a covariate in the LTA to identify which changes in strategy use could be attributed to the experimental intervention. First, changes from pretest to posttest were found, which supported that a change in strategy use occurred in some children. Second, there were more improvements in the BB condition, and these improvements indicated larger gains compared to the control condition. This means that in science education, it is important to map out prior knowledge and its effect on learning paths. Overall, results suggested that conceptual change could be measured as a change in strategy use and modeled with LTA to reveal that 26% of the children showed conceptual change after a single inquiry-based lesson.

Individual Differences in Children's Development of Scientific Reasoning Through Inquiry-Based Instruction: Who Needs Additional Guidance?

Scientific reasoning involves a person's ability to think and act in ways that help advance their understanding of the natural world. Young children are naturally inclined to engage in scientific reasoning and display an emerging competence in the component skills of, for example, hypothesizing, experimenting and evaluating evidence. Developmental psychology research has shown that same-age children often differ considerably in their proficiency to perform these skills. Part of this variation comes from individual differences in cognition; another part is due to the fact that the component skills of scientific reasoning emerge at a different age and mature at a different pace. Significantly less attention has been paid to children's capacity to improve in scientific reasoning through instruction and deliberate practice. Although elementary science lessons are generally effective to raise the skill level of a group of learners, not all children benefit equally from the instructional treatment they receive. Knowing what causes this differential effectiveness is important as it can inform the design of adaptive instruction and support. The present study therefore aimed to identify and explain how fifth-graders (N = 138) improve their scientific reasoning skills over the course of a 5-week inquiry-based physics unit. In line with our expectations, significant progress was observed in children's achievements on a written scientific reasoning test, which was administered prior to and after the lessons, as well as in their responses to the questions and assignments that appeared on the worksheets they filled out during each lesson. Children's reading comprehension and mathematical skillfulness explained a portion of the variance in children's pretest-posttest gain. As these overall results did not apply equally to all component skills of scientific reasoning, we recommend science teachers to adapt their lessons based on children's past performance in reading and math and their actual performance of each scientific reasoning skill. The orchestration and relative effectiveness of both adaptive science teaching approaches is an interesting topic for future research.