Preliminary findings regarding students’ predictions in novel situations: the role of self-generated analogies in non-scientific reasoning

This small scale pilot study was the first stage of a larger cross age study designed to investigate students’ predictions in novel situations and the role that self-generated analogies play in non-scientific reasoning. The study used a mixed method approach composed of a combination of interviews and questionnaires. Thirteen, sixteen and twelve students were recruited from Year 4, Year 9 and Year 11 (aged 9-10, 15-16 and 16-17 years) respectively from three different schools in Greece. Nine student focus group interviews were conducted in combination with the administration of a six pictorial item questionnaire. All interviews were audio-tape recorded and additional data were also collected through the use of written responses to the questionnaire. Students’ responses were analysed to ascertain whether their predictions drew on the use of analogies and, if so, the nature of the analogy that was used. It emerged that there were many similarities among students’ predictions as well as the analogies they used to explain the latter. Also, preliminary findings suggest that in many cases when students demonstrated non-scientific reasoning they drew on analogies which made them make a prediction which is not compatible with the scientific view. It also emerged that the analogies used by students in Years 4 and 9, when presented with the same novel situations in which they were required to make a prediction, were, in many cases, similar irrespective of their year group. Whilst students in Year 11 did make use of those similar analogies the frequency with which they drew on analogies, to make predictions, appeared much less that for the two younger student groups. This study found that students regularly make use of analogies, rather than scientific thinking, and that teachers need to be more aware of the nature of the analogies used and how, and why, these analogies can, in many cases, lead students to make scientifically incorrect predictions