Tooltip Categories: Site glossary

The first of four levels in Deanna Kuhn's model of the development of epistemological understanding

"In the realist stage the child simply accepts that assertions made by others report the world as it is" (Taber, 2020)

societal issues which call-upon upon scientific expertise, but cannot be decided purely as  scientific question

"…increasingly school science encompasses socio-scientific issues (Zeidler, 2014), where science interacts with the wider society. There are many important matters of public policy, of global, international, or just local concern, where scientific knowledge is needed to inform decision-making, but where, of itself, science is insufficient to reach a judgement." (Taber, 2020)

operations or thinking is a term used to describe a posited stage of cognitive development beyond Piaget's final stage of formal operations

"…Arlin (1975) explored the idea that whilst formal operations provided the ability to engage in successful problem-solving, further development was needed to be an effective problem-finder – development that might be considered a fifth stage. This skill is clearly important in scientific work: a key feature of research is in identifying, and conceptualising, potentially productive questions." (Taber, 2020)

"It was also asked whether acquisition of formal operations was sufficient to treat knowledge as non-absolute, or to cope with contradictions (Kramer, 1983). This is especially relevant to school science in contexts where it is considered important that students not only learn some science, but also learn about the nature of science (Taber, 2017). …A modern understanding of science suggests that a naive positivism is misguided, and that all scientific findings should be seen as potentially provisional and open to reconsideration in the light of either new evidence or a new perspective to reconceptualise evidence. That is, scientific knowledge is not absolute, and is theoretical (and so reliant on some commitments that have to be assumed a priori and cannot be demonstrated) …scientific results are seldom unequivocal, as they are subject to both limitations of measurement and observation, and sometimes human error, and, moreover, nature is often more subtle and complex than the models being used to conceptualise and design studies. Scientists often have to deal with contradiction, and fuzzy data, and be able to make judgements about the extent to which robust conclusions can reasonably be drawn in the face of imperfect…data sets." (Taber, 2020)

"…in the Twenty First Century, the school curriculum in many countries has been reformed to ask students to appreciate a more nuanced understanding of scientific enquiry that forms provisional knowledge from messy data-sets, and to engage in debate over socio-scientific issues drawing upon diverse value-based standpoints: that is, activities requiring what has been characterised 'post-formal' thinking. (Taber, 2020)"

(or ethical development) is sometimes considered separately from cognitive development

"Considerations of moral development are less about evaluation of the specific moral decisions a person makes (i.e., whether one might agree with a person's decisions, or consider they have behaved in a good way), but more about the sophistication of the thinking, and the coherence of the value system that underpins this." (Taber, 2020)

The fourth of the four main levels of development in Piaget's very influential stage theory of cognitive development

"In Piaget's model, the fourth stage was called formal operations. This implied that a person was capable of highly abstract thinking and able to undertake mental operations on internal mental representations. This was very relevant to learning science as many science topics taught in school involve theoretical abstractions that students are expected to engage with, and indeed apply, in the absence of the natural phenomena from which those ideas were initially abstracted." (Taber, 2020)

a type of developmental theory that recognises somewhat discrete stages in development such that children can be assigned to different stages

"Jean Piaget…posited a complex stage theory [of cognitive development] that had four main stages characterised by increasingly sophisticated levels of thinking" (Taber, 2020)

experiments where the researcher is looking to demonstrate rather than test their hypothesis, and so are set up to favour 'positive' findings.

Read about 'Rhetorical research'

Read about 'Rhetorical experiments'

a technique to assign units of analysis (e.g., learners) to different conditions randomly – that is without any systematic basis

"Research reports from small-scale studies…rarely inform readers how the randomisation was achieved, and it has been reported that authors sometimes seem unable to provide such information when asked (by journal editors, for example). It has therefore been recommended that the technique for making a random selection should be briefly reported in methodology sections of reports along with other details of techniques used in the study" (Taber, 2019, pp.73-74)

Read more about randomisation

Unit of analysis is a term used in experimental research, and refers to how the data will be conceptualised and grouped during analysis. For example, if research investigates school learning, will the unit of analysis be the lesson, or the learner, or the teacher, or the curriculum subject? This will depend upon the research question being investigated, and should be established at the outset of the research  before data collection commences.

Read about units of analysis

a term use in experimental studies

When undertaking experimental studies to compare the effects of different pedagogy, curriculum or learning resources it is useful to know that the learners in the different conditions are starting from an 'equivalent' level of knowledge and understanding (or skill or attitude). In published papers, a lack of statistically significant differences in pre-testing is often considered sufficient, but this is a weak measure of equivalence.

"Although statistical tests can offer some guidance on what counts as equivalent, they need to be interpreted differently than when looking for a statistically significance difference in the outcomes of the experiment…. An initial difference which is substantial, but statistically non-significant, may be sufficient to explain out- come differences that do reach statistical significance… If statistical tests are applied to the starting conditions using the usual p < 0.05 criterion then they will only flag up differences between the two groups which are very unlikely to be due to chance. However, what should be looked for is evidence of close similarity, rather than the absence of evidence of improbable differences….Two classes with differences between them that are at a level quite unlikely to occur by chance are certainly not equivalent (at least in the sense that the word is generally employed)." (Taber, 2019, pp.86-87)

A kind of quasi-experiment where the investigators do not assign participants to the different conditions.

"A natural experiment takes advantage of differences in conditions that already occur, rather than being based on experimental manipulation… This may be especially useful where researchers are interested in the possible detrimental effect of some condition, and it would be unethical to create that condition and assign participants to it to test the effect (consider, for example, a study to find out if victims of bullying make less progress in their science classes – such a study would look to – sensitively – enrol existing students identified as victims rather than experimentally create new victims). Sometimes 'natural experiments' are possible due to some particular set of circumstances that happen to provide the type of comparison researchers are interested in studying." (Taber, 2019, p.85)

Read about 'Natural experiments'

An experimental study, using a control group. The term is commonly used in medicine and social sciences (e.g., education).

"A random control trial (RCT) is an experiment where the units of analysis are randomly assigned to different conditions, and statistical methods are used to determine whether any overall difference in the measured outcomes in those conditions is (probably) due to the intervention. Statistics can only indicate how likely a measured result would occur by chance (as randomisation of units of analysis to different treatments can only make uneven group composition unlikely, not impossible)…A RCT is referred to as a 'true experiment' because there is randomisation of the 'units of analysis' (people, classes, schools, etc.) to conditions." (Taber, 2019, 73)

Read about randomisation