Fostering scientific reasoning in education – meta-analytic evidence from intervention studies

ABSTRACT

Scientific reasoning skills are not just for researchers, they are also increasingly relevant for making informed decisions in our everyday lives. How can these skills be facilitated? The current state of research on supporting scientific reasoning includes intervention studies but lacks an integrated analysis of the approaches to foster scientific reasoning in primary through secondary education. This meta-analysis evaluates effect sizes taken from 30 interventions in experimental and quasi-experimental studies and shows a medium mean effect of interventions on scientific reasoning. Interventions successfully facilitate scientific discovery, scientific argumentation, or nature of science in all age groups. Moderator analyses show that interventions set in constructive and interactive learning activities yield positive effects but do not differ substantially. Although the meta-analysis is limited by the number of studies included, we can conclude that scientific reasoning can successfully be facilitated and we show which characteristics are beneficial in educational interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Scientific reasoning
• intervention
• meta-analysis
• science education
• learning activities

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Andreas Hetmanek and Freydis Vogel for their helpful input and comments. This article is partly based on a paper that was presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) in 2014 and included in its proceedings (Engelmann & Fischer, 2014). It has been substantially revised and extended.

Notes on contributors

Katharina Engelmann is preparing her dissertation at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in the international graduate programme “Reason”. She is interested in facilitating learning through collaborative processes in the area of scientific reasoning and argumentation.

Birgit J. Neuhaus is a full professor in the field of biology education. Her main research interests deal with quality of pedagogical instructions, teacher professionalism, video studies in biology, and subject-specific conceptions of teachers and students about teaching and science.

Frank Fischer is a full professor in educational science and educational psychology and director of the Munich Center of the Learning Sciences. His main research interests are learning with digital media, scientific reasoning and argumentation, collaborative learning, use-inspired basic research, and evidence-based practice in education.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Elite Network of Bavaria [K-GS-2012-209].