The Development of Scientific Reasoning Skills

Zimmerman, Corinne

doi:10.1006/drev.1999.0497

Cited by 388 publications

(298 citation statements)

References 138 publications

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“…(Similar accounts appear in Box & Hill, 1967;Over & Jessop, 1998;and Zimmerman, 2000. ) Most experimental research in this area (Table 1) assesses the adaptiveness of information-gathering behavior by considering whether people choose highly useful queries, as identified by a particular sampling norm.…”

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confidence: 59%

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Finding Useful Questions: On Bayesian Diagnosticity, Probability, Impact, and Information Gain.

Nelson

2005

Psychological Review

221

403

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Several norms for how people should assess a question's usefulness have been proposed, notably Bayesian diagnosticity, information gain (mutual information), Kullback-Liebler distance, probability gain (error minimization), and impact (absolute change). Several probabilistic models of previous experiments on categorization, covariation assessment, medical diagnosis, and the selection task are shown to not discriminate among these norms as descriptive models of human intuitions and behavior. Computational optimization found situations in which information gain, probability gain, and impact strongly contradict Bayesian diagnosticity. In these situations, diagnosticity's claims are normatively inferior. Results of a new experiment strongly contradict the predictions of Bayesian diagnosticity. Normative theoretical concerns also argue against use of diagnosticity. It is concluded that Bayesian diagnosticity is normatively flawed and empirically unjustified.

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confidence: 59%

“…161-183;Kuhn, 1989Kuhn, , 2002Zimmerman, 2000) frequently uses similarly rich tasks. Another related area is contingency, the degree to which one variable predicts another variable's occurrence later in time (Jenkins & Ward, 1965;Allan, 1993;Anderson & Sheu, 1995).…”

Section: Kullback Liebler (Kl) Distancementioning

confidence: 99%

Finding Useful Questions: On Bayesian Diagnosticity, Probability, Impact, and Information Gain.

Nelson

2005

Psychological Review

221

403

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“…Our study focuses on domain-specific knowledge. This distinction has been discussed extensively in the literature on cognitive development (e.g., Zimmerman, 2000) and science education (e.g., Lehrer & Schauble, 2006). See text for explanation of cell lettering scheme.…”

Section: Instructional Materials: Physical or Virtual?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hands on what? The relative effectiveness of physical versus virtual materials in an engineering design project by middle school children

2006

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''Hands-on'' activities play an important, but controversial, role in early science education. In this study we attempt to clarify some of the issues surrounding the controversy by calling attention to distinctions between: (a) type of instruction (direct or discovery); (b) type of knowledge to be acquired (domain-general or domain-specific); and (c) type of materials that are used (physical or virtual). We then describe an empirical study that investigates the relative effectiveness of the physical-virtual dimension. In the present study, seventh and eighth grade students assembled and tested mousetrap cars with the goal of designing a car that would go the farthest. Children were assigned to four different conditions, depending on whether they manipulated physical or virtual materials, and whether they had a fixed number of cars they could construct or a fixed amount of time in which to construct them. All four conditions were equally effective in producing significant gains in learners' knowledge about causal factors, in their ability to design optimal cars, and in their confidence in their knowledge. Girls' performance, knowledge, and effort were equal to boys' in all conditions, but girls' confidence remained below boys' throughout. Given the fact that, on several different measures, children were able to learn as well with virtual as with physical materials, the inherent pragmatic advantages of virtual materials in science may make them the preferred instructional medium in many hands-on contexts. ß

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“…Some researchers think of science inquiry as domain-general reasoning or heuristics (e.g., Chen & Klahr, 1999;Klahr & Dunbar, 1988;Kuhn, 1989;Kuhn, Garcia-Mila, Zohar, & Andersen, 1995;Kuhn, Schauble, & Garcia-Mila, 1992;Zimmerman, 2000). This work centers on two key questions: (1) Can children control variables in controlled experiments?…”

Section: Different Views On Children's Abilities To Conduct Science Imentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although we acknowledge and value the collaborative aspects of science inquiry and the importance of peer dialogue as part of the learning process, we believe that, before we can make sense of more complex collaborative interactions, we should first better understand how individual students from diverse backgrounds learn to do inquiry. There is a long tradition in developmental and cognitive psychology (see review by Zimmerman, 2000) of striving to understand individual learning before moving on to group interactions. Thus, while we acknowledge the removal of the elicitation task from the classroom context as a limitation of the design, we believe that individual elicitations are an essential starting point for the emerging line of research on science inquiry with nonmainstream students.…”

Section: Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Science inquiry and student diversity: Enhanced abilities and continuing difficulties after an instructional intervention

et al. 2006

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This study examines elementary students' abilities to conduct science inquiry through their participation in an instructional intervention over a school year. The study involved 25 third and fourth grade students from six elementary schools representing diverse linguistic and cultural groups. Prior to and at the completion of the intervention, the students participated in elicitation sessions as they conducted a semistructured inquiry task on evaporation. The results indicate that students demonstrated enhanced abilities with some aspects of the inquiry task, but continued to have difficulties with other aspects of the task even after instruction. Although students from all demographic subgroups showed substantial gains, students from non-mainstream and less privileged backgrounds in science showed greater gains in inquiry abilities than their more privileged counterparts. The results contribute to the emerging literature on designing learning environments that foster science inquiry of elementary students from diverse backgrounds. ß

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The Development of Scientific Reasoning Skills

Cited by 388 publications

References 138 publications

Finding Useful Questions: On Bayesian Diagnosticity, Probability, Impact, and Information Gain.

Finding Useful Questions: On Bayesian Diagnosticity, Probability, Impact, and Information Gain.

Hands on what? The relative effectiveness of physical versus virtual materials in an engineering design project by middle school children

Science inquiry and student diversity: Enhanced abilities and continuing difficulties after an instructional intervention

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