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Constructing Scientific Explanations: a System of Analysis for Students’ Explanations

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Abstract

This article describes a system of analysis aimed at characterizing students’ scientific explanations. Science education literature and reform documents have been highlighting the importance of scientific explanations for students’ conceptual understanding and for their understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge. Nevertheless, and despite general agreement regarding the potential of having students construct their own explanations, a consensual notion of scientific explanation has still not been reached. As a result, within science education literature, there are several frameworks defining scientific explanations, with different foci as well as different notions of what accounts as a good explanation. Considering this, and based on a more ample project, we developed a system of analysis to characterize students’ explanations. It was conceptualized and developed based on theories and models of scientific explanations, science education literature, and from examples of students’ explanations collected by an open-ended questionnaire. With this paper, it is our goal to present the system of analysis, illustrating it with specific examples of students’ collected explanations. In addition, we expect to point out its adequacy and utility for analyzing and characterizing students’ scientific explanations as well as for tracing their progression.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/119701/2016). The authors are grateful to the teachers and students who participated in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Educação, Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade, 1949-013, Lisbon, Portugal

    Vanessa de Andrade, Sofia Freire & Mónica Baptista

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  1. Vanessa de Andrade
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  2. Sofia Freire
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  3. Mónica Baptista
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Correspondence to Vanessa de Andrade.

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de Andrade, V., Freire, S. & Baptista, M. Constructing Scientific Explanations: a System of Analysis for Students’ Explanations. Res Sci Educ 49, 787–807 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-017-9648-9

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