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28 - Children’s Scientific Reasoning Skills in Light of General Cognitive Development

from Part III - Education and School-Learning Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2022

By
Peter A. Edelsbrunner ,
Ralph Schumacher  and
Elsbeth Stern
Edited by
Olivier Houdé  and
Grégoire Borst
Olivier Houdé
Affiliation:
Université de Paris V
Grégoire Borst
Affiliation:
Université de Paris V
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Summary

The desire to understand and explain patterns and regularities in terms of causal laws is part of human nature. This search for knowledge contributes to making the world predictable as well as controllable, and it enables the invention and production of technologies that help to improve quality-of-life. Although debates about criteria for good causal explanations and conclusive evidence are still a controversial topic of epistemology and theory of science, some widely accepted standards for scientific reasoning have emerged. The distinction between explanation and observation, and the control of variables strategy (CVS) for designing and evaluating experiments are two widely accepted concepts. Mastering the CVS means to vary only the levels of the focal variable in experimental designs while keeping all other potentially confounding variables constant across conditions.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Development , pp. 585 - 605
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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