Abstract
Stemming from the realization of the importance of the role of explanation in the science classroom, the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States 2013) call for appropriately supporting students to learn science, argue from evidence, and provide explanations. Despite the ongoing emphasis on explanations in the science classroom, there seems to be no well-articulated framework that supports students in constructing adequate scientific explanations, or that helps teachers assess student explanations. Our motivation for this article is twofold: First, we think that the ways in which researchers in science education have studied scientific explanation are, at best, leaves much to be desired and, at worst, simply incomplete. Second, we believe that research about the teaching and learning of explanation in science classrooms must be guided by explicit models or frameworks that specify elements involved in constructing explanations particularly applicable to science. More importantly, we think that the development of such models or guidelines should be based on theoretical and philosophical foundations. In order to develop these frameworks or guidelines, we first outline and clarify models of scientific explanation developed by philosophers of science over the last few decades. In the second section of this article, we present a more recent philosophical work on scientific explanation, the pragmatic approach to studying scientific explanations. This approach suggests a toolbox for analyzing scientists’ scientific explanations, which provides a useful instrument to science education. In Section 3, we discuss the ways by which the previous two sections are useful in developing a K-12 scientific explanation schema. Implications for future research on students’ explanations are discussed.
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Notes
Weber et al.’s (2013) pragmatic approach to explanations should not be confused with the pragmatic account of explanations (e.g., Van Fraassen 1980). One of the most important criterion of the approach is the use of the philosophical accounts as tools to examine explanations, while the pragmatic models of explanation focuses on the contextual aspects with which scientific explanations are constructed.
Weber et al.’s (2013) toolbox includes another answer format for contrastive questions—an alternative to reality format—that is concerned with the reasons behind someone choosing a scientifically incorrect answer to a problem. While important, this format is not relevant to formulating a scientific explanation. It tackles issues such as circumstances that lead to a wrong answer, inadequate skills, etc.
The reader can refer to Weber and Van Bouwel (2009) in which the authors argue that it is nearly impossible to find an acceptable non-causal explanation—hence adding the condition of causality to almost all explanation formats.
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Alameh, S., Abd-El-Khalick, F. Towards a Philosophically Guided Schema for Studying Scientific Explanation in Science Education. Sci & Educ 27, 831–861 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-018-0021-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-018-0021-9