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Development of Scientific Reasoning in College Biology: Do Two Levels of General Hypothesis‐Testing Skills Exist?
Author(s) -
Lawson Anton E.,
Clark Brian,
CramerMeldrum Erin,
Falconer Kathleen A.,
Sequist Jeffrey M.,
Kwon YongJu
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-2736(200001)37:1<81::aid-tea6>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - unobservable , test (biology) , psychology , statistical hypothesis testing , alternative hypothesis , mathematics education , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , null hypothesis , biology , mathematics , statistics , econometrics , paleontology
The primary purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that two general developmentally based levels of hypothesis‐testing skills exist. The first hypothesized level presumably involves skills associated with testing hypotheses about observable causal agents; the second presumably involves skills associated with testing hypotheses involving unobservable entities. To test this hypothesis, a hypothesis‐testing skills test was developed and administered to a large sample of college students both at the start and at the end of a biology course in which several hypotheses at each level were generated and tested. The predicted positive relationship between level of hypothesis‐testing skill and performance on a transfer problem involving the test of a hypothesis involving unobservable entities was found. The predicted positive relationship between level of hypothesis‐testing skill and course performance was also found. Both theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 81–101, 2000