Scientific reasoning abilities of non-science majors in physics-based courses

摘要

We have found that non-STEM majors taking either a conceptual physics orastronomy course at two regional comprehensive institutions score significantlylower pre-instruction on the Lawson's Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning(LCTSR) in comparison to national average STEM majors. The majority of non-STEMstudents can be classified as either concrete operational or transitionalreasoners in Piaget's theory of cognitive development, whereas in the STEMpopulation formal operational reasoners are far more prevalent. In particular,non-STEM students demonstrate significant difficulty with proportional andhypothetico-deductive reasoning. Pre-scores on the LCTSR are correlated withnormalized learning gains on various concept inventories. The correlation isstrongest for content that can be categorized as mostly theoretical, meaning alack of directly observable exemplars, and weakest for content categorized asmostly descriptive, where directly observable exemplars are abundant. Althoughthe implementation of research-verified, interactive engagement pedagogy canlead to gains in content knowledge, significant gains in theoretical content(such as force and energy) are more difficult with non-STEM students. We alsoobserve no significant gains on the LCTSR without explicit instruction inscientific reasoning patterns. These results further demonstrate thatdifferences in student populations are important when comparing normalizedgains on concept inventories, and the achievement of significant gains inscientific reasoning requires a re-evaluation of the traditional approach tophysics for non-STEM students.