Abstract
We describe a methodology for identifying evidence for the use of three types of scientific reasoning. In two case studies of high school physics classes, we used this methodology to identify multiple instances of students using analogies, extreme cases, and Gedanken experiments. Previous case studies of expert scientists have indicated that these processes can be central during scientific model construction; here we code for their spontaneous use by students. We document evidence for numerous instances of these forms of reasoning in these classes. Most of these instances were associated with motion- and force-indicating depictive gestures, which we take as one kind of evidence for the use of animated mental imagery. Altogether, this methodology shows promise for use in highlighting the role of nonformal reasoning in student learning and for investigating the possible association of animated mental imagery with scientific reasoning processes.
Highlights
In this paper, we describe a method for studying student reasoning processes and mental imagery within the methodologically noisy environment of a classroom
If the activity or situation had not been used previously for this reasoning process, the episode was coded as having evidence for a studentgenerated reasoning process. ͑See the coding criteria above.͒ In Table I, we summarize the results of coding the Book on Analogy alone Extreme case alone Gedanken alone Analogy and Gedanken Extreme case and Gedanken Extreme case and Analogy and Gedanken Total episodes identified
The analysis reported was restricted to numbers of episodes of student reasoning rather than to numbers of individual processes within those episodes; it was restricted to spontaneous student generation of the processes; and to three processes from a longer list of nonformal reasoning processes
Summary
We describe a method for studying student reasoning processes and mental imagery within the methodologically noisy environment of a classroom. We attempt to identify evidence for students’ use of mental imagery in association with the processes. We will find that we can identify evidence for students’ spontaneous use of analogies, extreme cases, and Gedanken experiments even when these three processes are used in combination. We will be able to identify evidence that students can use mental imagery in connection with the processes, animated mental imagery. This set of tools allows us to make a number of “existence demonstrations” of imagery-based nonformal reasoning, which, taken together, suggest that the role of imagery in physics learning should be taken seriously as a topic for future research
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