Scientific Reasoning Research Institute - non-formal reasoning

stephens-2009uec

lstephens — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:14:26 +0000

Use of extreme cases by experts and students as a learning strategy

Stephens, A. Lynn
Clement, John J.

(2009)

Conference paper presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), San Diego, CA.

We present evidence from videotape transcripts for the productive use of extreme case reasoning by both scientifically trained experts and students. Extreme cases appear to be a powerful method for making inferences about physical systems but the origin of their power is difficult to explain. Spontaneous gestures and other imagery indicators provide evidence that they can involve the use of imagery in mental simulations as a possible source of power. The study identifies a reasoning process that can contribute to theory construction in scientists, and suggests that it may involve imagery and simulation in a central way. It attempts to describe an active nonformal reasoning process that students can do with some scaffolding, and outlines some of its strengths and limitations.

Attachment	Size
Complete conference paper (PDF)	1.24 MB

stephens-2009esr

lstephens — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:09:22 +0000

Expert scientific reasoning processes and imagery: Case studies of high school science classes

Stephens, A. Lynn
Clement, John J.

(2009)

Conference paper accompanying a poster presentation at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), San Diego, CA.

Evidence is discussed for the spontaneous use of three types of scientific reasoning by high school students in whole class discussions. In two case studies, we identify multiple instances of students generating analogies, extreme cases, and Gedanken experiments and document their predominant association with spontaneous depictive gestures. Most were associated with gestures that appeared to depict motion or force, which are interpreted here as indicators of the use of animated mental imagery. We believe these issues warrant further study because it is possible that these processes, along with depictive gestures, allow students to share visual or kinesthetic meanings situated in exemplars in a way that allows the discussion to make sense to a greater number of students.

Attachment	Size
Complete conference paper (PDF)	1.87 MB

stephens-2009ecr

lstephens — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:39:09 +0000

Extreme case reasoning and model based learning in experts and students

Stephens, A. Lynn
Clement, John, J.

(2009)

Proceedings of the 2009 Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST), Garden Grove, CA.

As part of a larger investigation into the kinds of reasoning processes experts and students use during model-based learning, this study investigates the use of one such process, extreme case reasoning. We asked whether evidence for the generation and use of extreme cases by experts and by students could be documented from case studies, and if so, whether this might be associated with the use of dynamic mental imagery. To do this we analyzed videotapes of (1) scientifically trained experts and (2) secondary physics classroom discussions. In the episodes presented, there is evidence that: experts can generate creative test cases for extreme case reasoning when engaged in mental modeling and can then use the process to reason about important steps in problem solving; students can generate creative test cases for extreme case reasoning when engaged in mental modeling, and can then used the process to reason about important conceptual issues. There is evidence that experts and students can make use of mental imagery when engaged in extreme case reasoning and that at least some of this imagery is dynamic in nature. We conclude that there is case study evidence that extreme case reasoning can contribute to theory construction in scientists and in students, and that this non-formal reasoning process may involve mental imagery and simulation in a central way.

Attachment	Size
Complete conference paper (PDF)	1.17 MB