Characterizing Shifts in Students' Reasoning About Probabilistic Causality: A Microgenetic Study

• In Event: Examining the Possibilities and Limitations of Science Teaching and Learning in Early Childhood and Elementary Contexts

Abstract

The Next Generation Science Standards require middle school students to understand that “some cause and effect relationships in systems can only be described using probability.” Evidence suggests that learners hold a preference for deterministic causation (i.e., causes reliably lead to effects). However, in certain circumstances, students demonstrate the ability and tendency for probabilistic reasoning (i.e., cause and effect relationship is unreliable). In the present microgenetic study, 16 kindergarten through sixth grade students participated in tasks that varied in their stochasticity over several sessions. Adapting Siegler’s (1995) microgenetic taxonomy, we analyzed the path, breadth, sources, and variability of change in students’ probabilistic reasoning over time. Implications for curricular interventions to support students in learning about stochastic phenomena in science are discussed.

Authors

• S. Lynneth Solis, Harvard University

• Tina A. Grotzer, Harvard University

• Megan M. Powell, Harvard University

• Michael Shane Tutwiler, Harvard University