How Good Are Students at Testing Alternative Explanations of Unseen Entities?

Lawson, Anton E.; Drake, Nicole; Johnson, Jennifer A.; Kwon, Yong‐Ju; Scarpone, Christopher

doi:10.2307/4450890

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Following these three initial lessons, an extended lab activity based on materials contained in Gases and Airs, by the Elementary Science Study (1974), was undertaken to elicit a written sample of student argumentation for analysis. See also Peckham (1993), Lawson (1999a), and Lawson et al (2000). The activity began during an 80-min class period, with students working in teams of two.…”

Section: Designsupporting

confidence: 74%

“…On the other hand, Lawson et al (2000) found that instruction was not successful at producing many students who could generate a similar pattern of argumentation to test hypotheses in contexts in which the proposed causal agents were unobservable. More speci®cally, only 21% of the students constructed a sound argument and supplied evidence to test a hypothesis about why water rose in an inverted jar placed over a burning candle in a pan of water.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sound and faulty arguments generated by preservice biology teachers when testing hypotheses involving unobservable entities*

Lawson

2002

J Res Sci Teach

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A sample of preservice biology teachers (biology majors) enrolled in a teaching methods course formulated and attempted to test six hypotheses to answer a causal question about why water rose in a jar inverted over a burning candle placed in a pan of water. The students submitted a lab report in which arguments and evidence for testing each hypothesis were presented in an if/then/therefore hypothetico‐predictive form. Analysis of written arguments revealed considerable success when students were able to manipulate observable hypothesized causes. However, when the hypothesized causes were unobservable, such that they could be only indirectly tested, performance dropped, as shown by use of three types of faulty arguments: (a) arguments that had missing or confused elements, (b) arguments whose predictions did not follow from hypotheses and planned tests, and (c) arguments that failed to consider alternative hypotheses. Science is an enterprise in which unobservable theoretical entities and processes (e.g., atoms, genes, osmosis, and photosynthesis) are often used to explain observable phenomena. Consequently, if it is assumed that effective teaching requires prior understanding, then it follows that these future teachers have yet to develop adequate hypothesis‐testing skills and sufficient awareness of the nature of science to teach science in the inquiry mode advocated by reform guidelines. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 39: 237–252, 2002

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Section: Designsupporting

confidence: 74%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sound and faulty arguments generated by preservice biology teachers when testing hypotheses involving unobservable entities*

Lawson

2002

J Res Sci Teach

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“…Although attempts at teaching formal and post-formal reasoning patterns in the classroom do not achieve the same degree of success as one-onone sessions such as those just described, students do show marked improvements as a consequence of the right sort of classroom instruction (e.g., Cavallo, 1996;Germann, 1994;Harrison, Grayson & Treagust, 1999;Johnson & Lawson, 1998;Lawson, 1992Lawson, , 1999Lawson et al, 2000aLawson et al, , 2000bNoh & Scharmann, 1997;Shayer & Adey, 1993;Shymansky, 1984;Shymansky, Kyle & Alport, 1983, 2003Westbrook & Rogers, 1994;Wong, 1993;Zohar, Weinberger & Tamir, 1994). In general successful classroom instruction begins with explorations in which students encounter puzzling observations.…”

Section: Hypothesis and Theory Testing In The Classroommentioning

confidence: 92%

“…Let's see how this might work in terms of Piaget's well-known concrete and formal operational stages of intellectual development (e.g., Inhelder & Piaget, 1958;Piaget & Inhelder, 1969) as well as a possible "post-formal" stage (Lawson, Clark, Cramer-Meldrum, Falconer, Kwon & Sequist, 2000a;Lawson, Drake, Johnson, Kwon & Scarpone, 2000b). Note that use of the Piagetian stage labels does not imply acceptance of his theory concerning their underlying operations (e.g., combinatorial system and INRC group).…”

Section: The Course Of Intellectual Developmentmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Also as mentioned, because the proposed cause and the independent variable are not the same, a warrant, or theoretical rationale, is needed to link the two so that a reasonable test can be conducted. For these reasons, such reasoning is considered post-formal or theoretical, is more difficult than formal reasoning (e.g., Lawson et al, 2000aLawson et al, , 2000b, and is presumably not achieved until late adolescence after the final brain growth spurt at age 18 (Thatcher, Walker & Giudice, 1987;Thatcher, 1991), if at all.…”

Section: The Post-formal or "Theoretical" Stage (Late Adolescence Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Nature and Development of Scientific Reasoning: A Synthetic View

Lawson

2004

Int J Sci Math Educ

151

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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.

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Assessment of the ways students generate arguments in science education: Current perspectives and recommendations for future directions

2008

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Theoretical and empirical research on argument and argumentation in science education has intensified over the last two decades. The term "argument" in this review refers to the artifacts that a student or a group of students create when asked to articulate and justify claims or explanations whereas the term "argumentation" refers to the process of constructing these artifacts. The intent of this review is to provide an overview of several analytic frameworks that science educators use to assess and characterize the nature of or quality of scientific arguments in terms of three focal issues: structure, justification, and content. To highlight the foci, affordances, and constraints of these different analytic methods, the review of each framework includes an analysis of a sample argument. The review concludes with a synthesis of the three focal issues and outlines several recommendations for future work. Ultimately, this examination and synthesis of these frameworks in terms of how each conceptualizes argument structure, justification, and content is intended An earlier version of this article, entitled "Assessment of Argument in Science Education: A Critical

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How Good Are Students at Testing Alternative Explanations of Unseen Entities?

Cited by 7 publications

References 15 publications

Sound and faulty arguments generated by preservice biology teachers when testing hypotheses involving unobservable entities*

Sound and faulty arguments generated by preservice biology teachers when testing hypotheses involving unobservable entities*

The Nature and Development of Scientific Reasoning: A Synthetic View

Assessment of the ways students generate arguments in science education: Current perspectives and recommendations for future directions

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