CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 100Science Education and PedagogyChild and Animal Learning DevelopmentPhilosophy and History of Science

Children's judgments in theory choice tasks: Scientific rationality in childhood

Samarapungavan, Ala·1992·Cognition
DOI 10.1016/0010-0277(92)90021-9
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

The current research examined whether children could use certain metaconceptual criteria such as the range of explanation, non-ad hocness of explanation, empirical consistency, and logical consistency to choose between competing accounts of physical phenomena. The tasks were constructed so that the conceptual content of the explanations to be evaluated was either consistent, inconsistent, or neutral with regard to children's prior knowledge. It was found that even 7-year-olds could use metaconceptual criteria such as the range, empirical consistency, and logical consistency of theories when the theories did not violate their beliefs. However only older children (11-year-olds) showed a systematic preference for non-ad hoc theories over ad hoc ones. The findings are consistent with recent work in the philosophy of science showing that, in evaluating theoretical alternatives, scientists are influenced by their prior beliefs about the domain being considered. This research demonstrates that even young children share some of the cognitive underpinnings of scientific rationality that scientists do.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/0010-0277(92)90021-9

Cites

22 of 22 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Samarapungavan (1992) found that first graders prefer theories that are internally consistent, consistent with empirical evidence, and cover a broad range of evidence, and that a substantial majority of fifth graders additionally preferred non-ad hoc explanations.

    “Samarapungavan (1992) found that first graders prefer theories that are internally consistent, that are consistent with empirical evidence, and that cover a broad range of evidence instead of a narrow range.She also found that a substantial majority of fifth graders additionally preferred explanations that are not ad hoc to those that are ad hoc.”

    From The role of anomalous data in knowledge acquisition: A theoretical framework and implications for science instruction. (1993) · cites this paper as Samarapungavan (1992)

  • Samarapungavan (1992) found that even first graders strongly preferred logically consistent theories to theories containing logical inconsistencies.

    “Using a task in which children were asked to choose between two different theories that explained a body of data, Samarapungavan (1992) found that even first graders strongly preferred theories that were logically consistent to theories that contained logical inconsistencies.”

    From The role of anomalous data in knowledge acquisition: A theoretical framework and implications for science instruction. (1993) · cites this paper as Samarapungavan (1992)

  • Reflective theory change is more likely if students' epistemology includes an appreciation of the weakness of ad hoc changes to theories.

    “c.An appreciation of the weakness of ad hoc changes to theories (Samarapungavan, 1992).”

    From The role of anomalous data in knowledge acquisition: A theoretical framework and implications for science instruction. (1993) · cites this paper as Samarapungavan, 1992

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Samarapungavan, A.
Affiliations
University of Amsterdam (NL)
Corresponding author
Samarapungavan, Ala
ORCID
Samarapungavan, Ala
Venue
Cognition
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
1992-10
Volume
45
Issue
1
Pages
1-32
ISSN
0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/0010-0277(92)90021-9
OpenAlex
W2003402500
Cited by
100
References
22
Citations by year
2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
FWCI
12.94
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Cognition (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Science Education and Pedagogy
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy and History of Science
Keywords
scientific rationality, logical consistency, prior beliefs, theory evaluation, children's prior knowledge
MeSH terms
Astronomy, Chemistry, Child, Child Development, Choice Behavior, Concept Formation, Female, Humans, Judgment, Logic, Male, Problem Solving, Science, Astronomical Phenomena, Chemical Phenomena

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review