University students' assessment of the explanatory content of justification statements

Abstract

A test was devised involving familiar chemical examples and administered to samples of Portuguese university chemistry students in order to establish to what extent they recognised and correctly assessed the explanatory content of statements presented in the form of justifications, usually beginning with the word ‘because’. It was found that a high percentage of the students selected as the ‘best explanations’ statements that either involved tautology or simply invoked a rule, principle or general observation. Also, low‐level interpretations and correlations between facts and/or variables (or mathematical concepts) were also frequently taken as valid explanations; more surprising, however, was the finding that a significant proportion of statements involving high level interpretation in terms of fundamental concepts were rated as providing the least intellectual satisfaction.