Scientific reasoning in a real-world context: The effect of prior belief and outcome on children's hypothesis-testing strategies

Fokus Experimentiermaterial: Was sollten Studierende vom Blickwinkel der Praxis zur Einschätzung der Schwierigkeit wissen?

Studierenden sollte bereits im Studium eine theoretisch fundierte und systematisch verknüpfte Wissensbasis vermittelt werden, die ihnen die spätere berufliche Tätigkeit erleichtert. Hierzu erscheint eine begründete Auswahl an Wissenselementen notwendig, die über mehrere Phasen der Lehrerbildung relevant bleiben und die zu professionellem Handeln führen. Am Beispiel der Bewertungssituation von „Schülerschwierigkeiten beim Experimentieren“ werden aus theoretischer und empirischer Sicht Merkmale abgeleitet, die die Schwierigkeit von Experimentiermaterial beeinflussen und die Studierenden bereits im Studium als Wissenselemente für spätere Bewertungssituationen vermittelt werden könnten. Im Rahmen einer Befragung mit N= 101 Lehrpersonen wurde untersucht, inwieweit diese Merkmale auch von Lehrpersonen für Bewertungen in der Praxis herangezogen wurden. Es konnten sowohl Merkmale identifiziert werden, die von Lehrpersonen über verschiedene Experimente und Materialien hinweg als schwierigkeitserzeugend genannt wurden, als auch solche, die nur bei spezifischen Experimentiermaterialien relevant scheinen. In der Lehre könnte somit zwischen generellen und spezifischen Merkmalen zur Einschätzung der Schwierigkeit von Experimentiermaterialien unterschieden werden. Zusätzlich zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass Lehrpersonen materialspezifische Merkmale nicht losgelöst von Lernvoraussetzungen der Schülerinnen und Schüler betrachten. Dementsprechend sollte den Studierenden auch vermittelt werden, dass eine Betrachtung der Schwierigkeit des Experimentiermaterials losgelöst von Schülervoraussetzungen und aufgabenspezifischen Schwierigkeiten nicht zielführend erscheint.

Modellierung der Struktur der Variablenkontrollstrategie und Abbildung von Veränderungen in der Grundschule

Die Variablenkontrolle ist bei der Planung und Durchführung von Experimenten von besonderer Bedeutung, weil sie eindeutige Aussagen über Beziehungen zwischen Ursache und Wirkung zulässt. Ihre Anwendung ist daher ein eigenständiges Lernziel des naturwissenschaftlichen Sachunterrichts und Gegenstand zahlreicher empirischer Studien. Entsprechende Fähigkeiten werden unter dem Begriff Variablenkontrollstrategie (VKS) zusammengefasst und beinhalten die vier Teilfähigkeiten: 1) Planung kontrollierter Experimente, 2) Identifizierung kontrollierter Experimente, 3) Interpretation der Ergebnisse kontrollierter Experimente und 4) Verständnis der fehlenden Aussagekraft unkontrollierter Experimente. Bisherige Studien zeigen starke positive Veränderungen bezüglich der VKS während der Grundschulzeit. Allerdings erfassen sie oft nur eine Teilfähigkeit bzw. differenzieren in ihren Analysen nicht zwischen unterschiedlichen Teilfähigkeiten oder dem Einfluss der Fachkontexte der Aufgaben. Wir haben zur Erfassung der VKS in der Grundschule ein Testinstrument im Multiple-Choice-Format entwickelt, welches Aufgaben zu den Teilfähigkeiten Identifizierung und Interpretation in unterschiedlichen Fachkontexten enthält. Das Instrument wurde in einer Querschnittstudie mit N = 415 Zweit- bis Viertklässler*innen eingesetzt. Entgegen bisherigen Befunden zeigen die Ergebnisse einer Rasch-Analyse eine mehrdimensionale Struktur der VKS entsprechend den Teilfähigkeiten. Die Fachkontexte der Aufgaben haben keinen Einfluss auf die Dimensionalität. Die Schwierigkeitsstruktur von Aufgaben wird durch die angesprochene Teilfähigkeit (Identifizierung ist einfacher als Interpretation) und den gewählten Aufgabentyp (z. B. Wahl der Distraktoren nach Schülervorstellungen) beeinflusst. Darüber hinaus wurde eine unterrichtliche Förderung der VKS untersucht (N = 44), um abzuschätzen, inwiefern das entwickelte Testinstrument erwartete Veränderungen hinsichtlich der VKS abbildet. Die gemessenen Veränderungen werden in diesem Beitrag in Relation zur Querschnittsstudie gesetzt. Abschließend werden die Konsequenzen unserer Befunde für die Messung und Förderung der VKS in der Grundschule diskutiert.

Rethinking the "gap": Self-directed learning in cognitive development and scientific reasoning

To improve upon their current knowledge, learners must be able to generate informative data and accurately evaluate this evidence. However, there is substantial disagreement regarding self-directed learners' competence in these behaviors. Researchers in cognitive development have suggested that learners are "intuitive scientists," generating informative actions and rationally coordinating their current observations and prior beliefs from an early age. Conversely, researchers in scientific reasoning report that learners struggle with experimentation and often fail to reach appropriate conclusions from evidence, even as adults. According to the prevailing narrative, these inconsistent findings must be "bridged" to explain the gap between learners' successes and failures. Here, we advocate for an alternative approach. First, we review the research on scientific reasoning and find that there may be less evidence for learners' failures than is typically assumed. Second, we offer a novel interpretation that aims to account for both literatures: we suggest that self-directed learners may be best understood as competent causal reasoners. That is, many seemingly uninformative or irrational behaviors are consistent with the goals of causal learning. This account not only resolves the apparent contradictions in the existing research, but also offers a way forward towards a more accurate and integrated understanding of self-directed learning. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Development and Aging Psychology > Learning Psychology > Reasoning and Decision Making.

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.

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.

Children's science learning: A core skills approach

BACKGROUND

Research has identified the core skills that predict success during primary school in reading and arithmetic, and this knowledge increasingly informs teaching. However, there has been no comparable work that pinpoints the core skills that underlie success in science.

AIMS AND METHOD

The present paper attempts to redress this by examining candidate skills and considering what is known about the way in which they emerge, how they relate to each other and to other abilities, how they change with age, and how their growth may vary between topic areas.

RESULTS

There is growing evidence that early-emerging tacit awareness of causal associations is initially separated from language-based causal knowledge, which is acquired in part from everyday conversation and shows inaccuracies not evident in tacit knowledge. Mapping of descriptive and explanatory language onto causal awareness appears therefore to be a key development, which promotes unified conceptual and procedural understanding.

CONCLUSIONS

This account suggests that the core components of initial science learning are (1) accurate observation, (2) the ability to extract and reason explicitly about causal connections, and (3) knowledge of mechanisms that explain these connections. Observational ability is educationally inaccessible until integrated with verbal description and explanation, for instance, via collaborative group work tasks that require explicit reasoning with respect to joint observations. Descriptive ability and explanatory ability are further promoted by managed exposure to scientific vocabulary and use of scientific language. Scientific reasoning and hypothesis testing are later acquisitions that depend on this integration of systems and improved executive control.

A Prospective Cognition Analysis of Scientific Thinking and the Implications for Teaching and Learning Science

With increased focus on the importance of teaching and learning in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines, both educational researchers and cognitive psychologists have been tackling the issues of how best to teach science concepts and scientific thinking skills. As a cultural activity, the practice of science by professional scientists is inherently prospective. Recent calls to make science education more “authentic” necessitate an analysis of the prospective, cumulative, and collaborative nature of science learning and science teaching. We analyze scientific thinking through the lens of prospective cognition by focusing on the anticipatory, social, situated, and multiscale aspects of engaging in science. We then address some of the implications for science education that result from our analysis.