Experimental design heuristics for scientific discovery: the use of “baseline” and “known standard” controls

Baker, Lisa M.; Dunbar, Kevin

doi:10.1006/ijhc.2000.0393

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In the right-hand branch, he proposes that instead of cellular mechanisms filling in the gaps, viral enzymes fill in the gap and join the two pieces of DNA. He then designs When designing experiments, scientists know that unexpected findings occur often and have developed many strategies to take advantage of them (Baker & Dunbar, 2000). Scientists build different causal models of their experiments incorporating many conditions and controls.…”

Section: Scientific Thinking As Hypothesis Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Thinking and Reasoning

Dunbar

Klahr

2012

The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning

112

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What is Scientific Thinking and Reasoning? Scientific thinking refers to the mental processes used when reasoning about the content of science (e.g., force in physics), engaged in typical scientific activities (e.g., designing experiments), or specific types of reasoning that are frequently used in science (e.g., deducing that there is a planet beyond Pluto). Scientific thinking involves many general-purpose cognitive operations that human beings apply in nonscientific domains such as induction, deduction, analogy, problem solving, and causal reasoning. These cognitive processes are covered in many chapters of this handbook (see Sloman & Lagnado, Chap. 5 on induction; Holyoak, Chap. 6 on analogy; Buehner and Cheng, Chap. 7 on causality; Evans, Chap. 8 on deduction; Novick and Bassok, Chap. 1 4 on problem solving; Chi and Ohllson, Chap. 1 6 on conceptual change). What distinguishes research on scientific thinking from general research on cognition is that research on scientific thinking typically in

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Section: Scientific Thinking As Hypothesis Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Thinking and Reasoning

Dunbar

Klahr

2012

The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning

112

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“…In addition, although students recognized the need for independent variables in their hypotheses and chose relevant independent variables, they often missed part of the comparison statement for the independent variable. This is particularly interesting given that one of the key differentiators found between undergraduate students who are nonscience majors, undergraduate students undertaking a biology major, and biological scientists is the extent to which the group identified baseline controls as a necessary control for testing hypotheses (1). Therefore, incorporating baselines or nontreatment controls as part of the independent variable condition represents an important learning goal in developing hypothetic-deductive reasoning in biological science and needs particular attention in curricular design, implementation, and assessment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

A set of vertically integrated inquiry-based practical curricula that develop scientific thinking skills for large cohorts of undergraduate students

Zimbardi

Bugarčić

Colthorpe

et al. 2013

Advances in Physiology Education

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Science graduates require critical thinking skills to deal with the complex problems they will face in their 21st century workplaces. Inquiry-based curricula can provide students with the opportunities to develop such critical thinking skills; however, evidence suggests that an inappropriate level of autonomy provided to underprepared students may not only be daunting to students but also detrimental to their learning. After a major review of the Bachelor of Science, we developed, implemented, and evaluated a series of three vertically integrated courses with inquiry-style laboratory practicals for early-stage undergraduate students in biomedical science. These practical curricula were designed so that students would work with increasing autonomy and ownership of their research projects to develop increasingly advanced scientific thinking and communication skills. Students undertaking the first iteration of these three vertically integrated courses reported learning gains in course content as well as skills in scientific writing, hypothesis construction, experimental design, data analysis, and interpreting results. Students also demonstrated increasing skills in both hypothesis formulation and communication of findings as a result of participating in the inquiry-based curricula and completing the associated practical assessment tasks. Here, we report the specific aspects of the curricula that students reported as having the greatest impact on their learning and the particular elements of hypothesis formulation and communication of findings that were more challenging for students to master. These findings provide important implications for science educators concerned with designing curricula to promote scientific thinking and communication skills alongside content acquisition.

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“…To exclude such false negatives the researcher will include a positive control which verifies that the protein of interest is active under the conditions chosen (Baker and Dunbar 2000). The positive control will usually contain a known binding partner of the protein of interest that is tested in parallel to the other samples of the binding assay.…”

Section: The Positive Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Account of Replication in the Experimental Life Sciences

Güttinger¹

2019

Philos. of Sci.

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The natural sciences are in the midst of a reproducibility crisis. Scientists don't replicate existing data and when they attempt to do so they often fail. Nevertheless, survey data shows that scientists largely trust the non-replicated data they are using. The question of why this is so has not been raised in the debate about the reproducibility crisis. Here I will claim that one reason for this trust is a hitherto unidentified form of replication, which I will call 'micro-replications' (MRs). Using a case study from the experimental life sciences I will illustrate how MRs depend on a crucial part of the experimental sciences that is poorly understood, namely experimental controls. The existence of MRs suggests that more replication is taking place in the life sciences than current analyses imply.

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Experimental design heuristics for scientific discovery: the use of “baseline” and “known standard” controls

Cited by 20 publications

References 13 publications

Scientific Thinking and Reasoning

Scientific Thinking and Reasoning

A set of vertically integrated inquiry-based practical curricula that develop scientific thinking skills for large cohorts of undergraduate students

A New Account of Replication in the Experimental Life Sciences

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