Scientific Reasoning

Scientific thinking has typically been conceptualized in two ways: as a body of scientific content knowledge and as a set of scientific reasoning skills. Scientific content knowledge refers to the [Page 1900]body of knowledge that describes the natural world. Content knowledge has been typically framed within specific domains, such as factual knowledge in biology, chemistry, and physics. Scientific reasoning, in comparison, has been typically framed as a general set of skills that cross multiple scientific domains. Scientific reasoning skills include problem-solving skills used in generating hypotheses, conducting experiments, and evaluating evidence that function to support the empirical understanding of the natural world. As such, scientific reasoning is not just one skill, but rather several skills that work in collaboration to build and revise our understanding ...