Scientific thinking in elementary school

Children’s social cognition and their epistemological understanding promote experimentation skills

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9789232
AutoresChristopher Osterhaus (0000-0002-1262-2427, University of Education Freiburg, autor de correspondencia), Susanne Koerber (0000-0002-2285-1848, University of Education Freiburg), Beate Sodian (0000-0003-1844-5908, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Año2017
Volumen53
Número3
Páginas450-462
Fecha de publicación2017-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaDevelopmental Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0012-1649 • E-ISSN: 1939-0599
EditorialAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/dev0000260
PMID27977224
OpenAlexW2563543809
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas14
Referencias citadas12

Do social cognition and epistemological understanding promote elementary school children's experimentation skills? To investigate this question, 402 children (ages 8, 9, and 10) in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades were assessed for their experimentation skills, social cognition (advanced theory of mind [AToM]), epistemological understanding (understanding the nature of science), and general information-processing skills (inhibition, intelligence, and language abilities) in a whole-class testing procedure. A multiple indicators multiple causes model revealed a significant influence of social cognition (AToM) on epistemological understanding, and a McNemar test suggested that children's development of AToM is an important precursor for the emergence of an advanced, mature epistemological understanding. Children's epistemological understanding, in turn, predicted their experimentation skills. Importantly, this relation was independent of the common influences of general information processing. Significant relations between experimentation skills and inhibition, and between epistemological understanding, intelligence, and language abilities emerged, suggesting that general information processing contributes to the conceptual development that is involved in scientific thinking. The model of scientific thinking that was tested in this study (social cognition and epistemological understanding promote experimentation skills) fitted the data significantly better than 2 alternative models, which assumed nonspecific, equally strong relations between all constructs under investigation. Our results support the conclusion that social cognition plays a foundational role in the emergence of children's epistemological understanding, which in turn is closely related to the development of experimentation skills. Our findings have significant implications for the teaching of scientific thinking in elementary school and they stress the importance of children's epistemological understanding in scientific-thinking processes. (PsycINFO Database Record

Cognition · Cognitive development · Cognitive science · Comprehension · Conceptual change · Epistemology · Mathematics education · Social cognition · Child and Animal Learning Development · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies · Psychology