A topic in teaching science
Explanation
It has been said that explanations are answers to 'why' questions.
"The main rationale for the invention and test of hypotheses, laws, and theories, is the solution to why-problems, i.e. the explanation of facts and their patterns. We do not rest content with finding facts, but wish to know why they should occur rather than not; and we do not even rest content with establishing explanatory constant conjunctions of facts, but attempt to discover the mechanism explaining such correlations."
Mario Bunge
Explanation in science
Explanation is at the heart of science. Constructing, critiquing and testing scientific explanations are core scientific practices.
Yet there is often very little explicit focus on teaching about explanations in school science. It is an aspect of the nature of science which it seems assumed will be learned implicitly by a form of osmosis. (And, no doubt, many successful students do acquire a good working understanding of what counts as a good scientific explanation without explicit instruction – but I imagine they are the exceptions.
When students are asked to explain natural phenomena in interviews they often present scientific invalid explanations (perhaps not understanding the relevant science). But they also often offer statements that are superficially of the form of explanations but which are not admissible as scientific explanations. We might call these pseudo-explanations.
Read about the different types of pseudo-explanations learners suggest
A small-scale study on teaching explanations
As part of the APECS and ASCEND projects (Taber, 2007a), I trialled some materials to help secondary age learn about explanation in science. This was reported in a book chapter (Taber, 2007b), which can be downloaded.
Work cited:
- Bunge, M. (1998). Philosophy of Science. Volume 2: From explanation to justification (Revised ed.). Routledge.
- Taber, K. S. (2007a) Enriching School Science for the Gifted Learner, London: Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme.
- Taber, K. S. (2007b) Choice for the gifted: lessons from teaching about scientific explanations, in K. S. Taber (Editor), Science Education for Gifted Learners, London: Routledge pp.158-171. [Download this chapter ]
