The Nature and Development of Scientific Reasoning: A Synthetic View

Abstract

This paper presents a synthesis of what is currently known about the nature and development of scientific reasoning and why it plays a central role in acquiring scientific literacy. Science is viewed as a hypothetico-deductive (HD) enterprise engaging in the generation and test of alternative explanations. Explanation generation and test requires the use of several key reasoning patterns and sub-patterns. Reasoning at the highest level is complicated by the fact that scientific explanations generally involve the postulation of non-perceptible entities, thus arguments used in their test require sub-arguments to link the postulate under test with its deduced consequence. Science is HD in nature because this is how the brain spontaneously processes information whether it basic visual recognition, every-day descriptive and causal hypothesis testing, or advanced theory testing. The key point in terms of complex HD arguments is that if sufficient chunking of concepts and/or reasoning sub-patterns have not occurred, then one's attempt to construct and maintain such arguments in working memory and use them to draw conclusions and construct concepts will "fall apart." Thus, the conclusions and concepts will be "lost." Consequently, teachers must know what students bring with them in terms of their stages of intellectual development (i.e., preoperational, concrete, formal, or post-formal) and subject-specific declarative knowledge. Effective instruction mirrors the practice of science where students confront puzzling observations and then personally participate in the explanation generation and testing process -a process in which some of their ideas are contradicted by the evidence and by the arguments of others.

Moon, Mars and Mundus: primary school children discover the nature and science of planet Earth from experimentation and extra-terrestrial perspectives

“…This is strikingly similar to how scientists learn and many related similarities in attitudes, skills and reasoning have been demonstrated, such as curiosity, logical thinking and the ability to recognise fair testing (see Lawson, 2004, andGopnik, 2012, for reviews). Engaging in questioning and experimenting is not merely important for cognitively more talented children (regardless of how talent is defined and measured).…”

“…Pupils aged 4-7 appeared to have difficulty dealing with scenarios in the process of hypotheses generation, for example with asking 'what if' questions (e.g. Lawson, 2004). Many pupils in this age group are able to recognise fair and unfair tests in simple set-ups, but based on the amount of dependency on the scientists with formulating and refining hypotheses, they are unable to devise experimental set-ups that are fair tests of isolated variables (also see Lawson, 2004).…”

Measuring Critical Thinking in Physics: Development and Validation of a Critical Thinking Test in Electricity and Magnetism

“…The Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (CTSR) is the most commonly administered test in the domain of science focused on measuring scientific reasoning skills (Lawson, 1978(Lawson, , 2004. It is a multiple-choice test that measures scientific reasoning skills that include probabilistic reasoning, combinatorial reasoning, proportional reasoning, and controlling of variables in the context of the broader science domain (Lawson, 1978).…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, there are no available CT tests in the domain of physics that build on students' mastery of physics. The Lawson's CTSR does measure a range of scientific reasoning skills in the context of science domains and that are based on Piaget's stages of intellectual development (Lawson, 1978(Lawson, , 2004. However, the CTSR focuses on the assessment of general scientific reasoning in the broad domain of science rather than the assessment of students' mastery of a specific domain of physics.…”

Analysis of Reasoning Paths of Engineering Students

“…To measure scientific reasoning, Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (Lawson, 1978(Lawson, , 2004 is an instrument that has been extensively used. This multiple choice test includes probabilistic reasoning, combinatorial reasoning, proportional reasoning, and controlling of variables in the context of the broader science domain (Lawson, 1978).…”