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The Generality/Specificity of Expertise in Scientific Reasoning
Author(s) -
Schunn Christian D.,
Anderson John R.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1207/s15516709cog2303_3
Subject(s) - generality , cognitive science , scientific reasoning , computer science , psychology , mathematics education , psychotherapist
Previous research on scientific reasoning has shown that it involves a diverse set of skills. Yet, little is known about generality or domain specificity of those skills, an important issue in theories of expertise and in attempts to automate scientific reasoning skills. We present a study designed to test what kinds of skills psychologists actually use in designing and interpreting experiments and contrast expertise within a particular research area with general expertise at designing and interpreting experiments. The results suggest that psychologists use many domain‐general skills in their experimentation and that bright and motivated Carnegie Mellon undergraduates are missing many of these skills. We believe that these results have important implications for psychological and artificial intelligence models of expertise, as well as educational implications in the domain of science instruction.