Spontaneous Analogies in Elementary Student Writing: An "Untapped" Resource for Constructing Scientific Explanations

• In Event: 26.081 - Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: 26.081-2 - Creating Science and Literacy Connections

Abstract

This study examined fifth-grade students’ spontaneous use of analogy as a resource for constructing written scientific explanations in the context of a science assessment with extended constructed response items. Comparative qualitative analyses of students’ written scientific explanations with and without analogies revealed that students were not only capable of constructing cogent analogies to support well-formed explanations of various natural phenomena, but also that responses without analogies – even those awarded full-credit – could be argumentatively less sophisticated than their analogical counterparts. Conversely, student responses featuring analogies, even those possessing all three components of a theoretically complete scientific explanation, were liable to be penalized by scoring rubrics that privileged precision over demonstration of higher-order reasoning and application-oriented thinking.

Authors

• Christopher D. Van Booven, New York University

• Lorena Llosa, New York University

• Okhee Lee, New York University