Poster #24 - Scientific Thinking From Kindergarten to Elementary School: A Longitudinal Study

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Numerous studies have revealed emerging scientific-thinking competencies in children as young as preschool age (e.g., Piekny & Maehler, 2013; for a review, see Zimmerman, 2007), but the mechanisms that bring about the emergence of scientific thinking are not yet well understood. On the one hand, gains in scientific thinking, especially in experimentation skills, are attributed to children’s increasing general information-processing abilities (e.g., intelligence, inhibition). Relatedly, impressive short-term benefits of a direct instruction of correct experimentation strategies were found (Chen & Klahr, 1999). On the other hand, gains in scientific thinking are attributed to the development of a conceptual understanding of the nature of science (NOS), which includes an epistemological understanding. This account is backed up by studies showing impressive effects of a NOS training on experimentation skills (Sodian, Thoermer, Kircher, Grygier, & Günther, 2002) and by a recent study, which demonstrated that elementary-school children’s experimentation skills were not only influenced by their general information processing, but that they were even more closely related to epistemological understanding (Osterhaus, Koerber, & Sodian, 2017). Although this highlights the importance of children’s epistemological understanding for the emergence of broad scientific thinking skills, longitudinal studies, which reveal the directionality of the relations between components are still lacking, especially in younger children.
In a longitudinal study 64 kindergartners (6-year-olds) were tested at two times of measurement (kindergarten, T1, and at the end of grade 1, T2) for their understanding of the nature of science (epistemological understanding), their experimentation skills, and their abilities in data interpretation using a 30-item instrument that was administered verbally. In addition, as a control variable children’s language abilities were assessed.
The results revealed substantial competencies in kindergarten in all three components of scientific thinking. Significant intraindividual development from kindergarten to grade 1 was observed for NOS (from 43 to 57%) and for experimentation skills (from 51 to 59%), not however for data interpretation. Significant correlations between nature of science understanding and experimentation skills, and between experimentation and data interpretation emerged at both times of measurement, suggesting a close relation between children’s epistemological understanding and their knowledge of the more strategic aspect of experimentation. NOS and language abilities at T1 significantly predicted experimentation at T2; there was however no significant influence of experimentation at T1 on experimentation and T2.
This result clearly supports the idea that children’s epistemological understanding plays an important role in their emergence of broad scientific thinking skills. Competencies in NOS and in experimentation increased significantly from kindergarten to grade 1, and both showed a substantial stability in interindividual differences. Importantly, this shows how important the early fostering of scientific thinking is. Because scientific thinking and NOS have been related to the educational background of the family (Koerber, Mayer, Osterhaus, Schwippert, & Sodian, 2015), this is not only important for increasing children’s scientific-thinking competencies on the long-term but also it is an important question of social justice. Our data suggest that training children’s NOS may, to this end, be an especially helpful means.

Authors

• Susanne Koerber, Freiburg University of Education
  Presenting Author

• Christopher Osterhaus, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
  Non-Presenting Author