Growth patterns in students' ability to supply scientific explanations: findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study in Israel

Abstract

Explanation plays a central role in scientists' quest to know and understand the world and in students' quest to learn and understand scientific phenomena. Explanations are demonstrations of understanding and provide a window to a person's thinking. Data obtained from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) permitted us to look into explanations of scientific phenomena given by fourth and eighth grade students. The TIMSS experience provided us with examples of explanation in three content areas: earth sciences, life sciences and physical science. The overall impression of students' attainment in this performance category is that their explanations tended to be simple. Many of the explanations given by both age groups were incomplete, the use off scientific terms was rare, and often descriptions and teleological explanations, rather than causal explanations, were provided. Analysis highlighted the role of prior knowledge and that of the existing repertoire of explanation patterns. Without these, students tend to use intuitive patterns of explanation, usually of a generic type, which is fruitful in some cases. In counter-intuitive subject areas, such as physics, these intuitive rules are found to be inadequate. It also appeared that explanations are affected by the type of questions that elicit them.