Developing an Analytical Framework to Characterize Student Reasoning about Complex Processes

Area of Science:

• Interdisciplinary science education
• Science communication
• Undergraduate pedagogy

Background:

• Real-world phenomena require interdisciplinary understanding.
• Science courses often lack opportunities for students to synthesize scientific ideas.
• Developing coherent causal explanations is a key scientific practice.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate how undergraduate science majors construct causal explanations of complex phenomena.
• Understand student approaches to synthesizing scientific ideas for explanation.
• Characterize reasoning patterns in scientific explanation construction.

Main Methods:

• Conducted interviews with 12 undergraduate science majors.
• Asked participants to explain complex real-world phenomena.
• Developed a framework to characterize student explanatory reasoning patterns.

Main Results:

• Identified three explanatory frames: colloquial, emerging mechanistic, and causal mechanistic.
• Students frequently used the colloquial and emerging mechanistic frames.
• Struggled to cohesively apply scientific concepts in the causal mechanistic frame.
• The causal mechanistic frame was the least prevalent.

Conclusions:

• Undergraduate science students often struggle to construct cohesive mechanistic explanations for real-world phenomena.
• Curricula should integrate more opportunities for students to practice synthesizing scientific concepts.
• Enhanced pedagogical approaches are needed to support the development of causal mechanistic reasoning.