The developmental relation of evidence-based argumentation and scientific experimentation skills in early childhood:...

Previous studies indicate that young children can challenge others' ideas by providing reasons and using evidence to support their claims. These early evidence-based argumentation skills have been proposed as precursors of later scientific reasoning, as they reflect children's ability to use disconfirming evidence to refute claims-an ability that is foundational to scientific reasoning. Using three-wave longitudinal data from 203 children (90 girls, 113 boys) assessed at ages 4, 5.5, and 7.5 years, the present study examined whether early evidence-based argumentation skills predict children's later scientific experimentation skills. Results showed that evidence-based argumentation at age 5.5 significantly predicted experimentation ability at age 7.5, as well as growth in experimentation skills from 5.5 to 7.5 years, even after controlling for domain-general abilities, executive function, science knowledge, and theory of mind. Moreover, the selection of disconfirming evidence at age 4 -predicted the construction of contrastive tests at age 5.5. Together, these findings point to a developmental link between preschoolers' ability to refute false causal claims using evidence and their later capacity to engage in scientific reasoning, supporting conceptual continuity from preschool to early elementary school in children's understanding of the relationship between hypotheses and evidence.