Scientific Reasoning of Students With Mild Mental Retardation: Investigating Preconceptions and Conceptual Change

Abstract

Scientific reasoning of elementary age students with mild mental retardation was investigated using structured interviews during tasks involving properties of air and electricity. Discourse analysis was employed to describe preconceptions students with mild mental retardation reported about the natural world and how those preconceptions might be influenced by empirical evidence. Students in this investi- gation expressed prior understandings of air and electricity, but these understand- ings were incomplete and often at variance with generally accepted scientific fact. When faced with empirical evidence, students provided some responses that appeared to be more accommodating of this evidence. Characteristics such as outerdirectedness may have interacted with student responding. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.