Scientific reasoning should be transparent and logical and aim to create scholastic discourse not declarative ultimatums that reduce discussion of ideas. The scientific reasoning process should be transferable to a plethora of disciplines once the learner has developed the intellectual capacity to perform diverse patterns of reasoning as well as reflect on their process for creating an idea that allows for contradictory evidence.
One reason scientific reasoning is difficult to teach is that the student has many hierarchical rungs of learning to master before being able to produce a “fallible” scientific argument. Popper (1959) argues that each planned test must render the working hypothesis falsifiable and allow for contradictory evidence. Another reason a student’s scientific reasoning often breaks down when criticized is because their modeling and testing throughout K-12 education focused on testing lower-level cognitive demands and declarative scientific knowledge without engaging in holistic, analytic and reasoning skills (Kind, 2016, pg.9).
So the aim is for every student to be able to show their scientific reasoning as the combination of: procedural/operational knowledge + contextual knowledge + pattern of reasoning. Some patterns of reasoning are Abduction (Analogy) for Puzzling Observation, Combinatorial: “systematically generate all possible combinations of real or imagined objects, events, or situations” (Lawson, pg. 311) used for creating Hypotheses, If/and/then and Identification and control of variables for testing, and Probabilistic, Proportional, and Correlational reasoning for data analysis.
However that goal only meets the expectations of the past and fails to begin finding solutions for future “post-scientific” societies whom will value the ability to draw on a range of disciplinary knowledge, to think creatively, and to evaluate and critique new ideas (Kind, 2016, pg. 9). Students will retain and apply diverse patterns of reasoning to new contexts and form logical arguments when expectations for modeling and testing set the goal posts on higher-order analytic and reasoning skills and beyond.
The same expectations hold true for moral and reflective reasoning which is the core of educational advocacy. The high standards outlined for scientific reasoning are the same standards for creating and maintaining an educated society where policies and standards should be routinely criticized and expected to hold up to dissenting arguments while remain logical and morally sound. Peckover (2013) states that “education provides society with the capacity to continuously re-form cultural customs, mores, associations, and institutions in order to better pursue and perhaps achieve a community structure that allows individual and collective pursuit of goals” thus many of the same patterns of reasoning in scientific reasoning present themselves in shaping educational advocacy.
References
The Brain Factory | ReverbNation. (2021). Retrieved February 9, 2021, from https://www.reverbnation.com/thebrainfactory
Kind, P., & Osborne, J. (2017). Styles of Scientific Reasoning: A Cultural Rationale for Science Education? Science Education, 101(1), 8–31. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21251
Lawson, A. E. (2004). The nature and development of scientific reasoning: A synthetic view. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 2(3), 307–338. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10763-004-3224-2
Peckover, C. A. (2013). Generative Community as a Regulative Ideal [University of Iowa]. In Theses and Dissertations. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.n0nkfqi9
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