1-029 - The emergence of scientific reasoning skills in early childhood

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

There are many skills required for mature scientific reasoning, many of which find their origin early in development. For example, in science, it is often necessary to revise an initial belief in light of new information; children possess the rudiments of this ability by 4 years (Sobel, Erb, Tassin, & Weisberg, 2017). Despite these important connections between early reasoning skills and later scientific abilities, little is known about how young children’s success on these tasks might underpin the skills required for mature scientific reasoning (e.g., designing controlled experiments). This symposium presents three papers that investigate children’s emerging scientific reasoning skills, exploring the cognitive mechanisms and contextual factors that influence the development of these abilities.

Paper 1 explores how 4- to 8-year-olds revise their beliefs in light of counterevidence, showing that both the type of initial belief (held by another or themselves) and the way that counterevidence is presented (as verbal testimony or through direct observation) differentially impact children’s belief revision abilities across this developmental range.

Paper 2 demonstrates that preschoolers can evaluate whether an experiment generates conclusive or inconclusive evidence and can transfer this ability to a novel self-generated experiment.

Paper 3 deepens our understanding of preschoolers’ abilities with control-of-variables testing by showing that they can correctly understand the value of contrastive tests but are less able to select fully controlled experiments.

Our discussant, an expert in the development of causal reasoning, will explore how these results can form a bridge between early causal thinking and mature scientific reasoning.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chair

• Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Villanova University

Discussant

• Alison Gopnik, University of California - Berkeley

Individual Presentations

• Children’s resolution of their own and others’ beliefs in light of counterevidence - Presenting Author: Zoe Finiasz, Brown University; Non-Presenting Author: Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Villanova University; Non-Presenting Author: David Sobel, Brown University

• Evidence for early recognition of inconclusive data in children’s evaluation of evidence - Presenting Author: Caren Walker, University of California, San Diego; Non-Presenting Author: Disha Goel, University of California, San Diego; Non-Presenting Author: Angela Nyhout, University of Toronto; Non-Presenting Author: Patricia Ganea, University of Toronto

• Preschoolers’ understanding of the control of variables strategy - Presenting Author: April C Moeller, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Non-Presenting Author: Beate Sodian, LMU Munich