A Study on The Scientific Reasoning Ability of Students Enrolled in The Gifted Education Center

Minsu  Ha1,*   

1Kangwon National Univeristy

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the scientific reasoning abilities of students enrolled in a gifted education center. Students' scientific reasoning abilities were assessed using a translated version of the FORT (Formal Reasoning Test) developed by Kalinowski and Willoughby (2019), and data from two years of elementary and middle school students were analyzed. As a result of the study, there was a limit to analyzing 20 questions in a single dimension, but it was confirmed that the overall validity of the questions was good. The ability of elementary and middle school students to reason scientifically was found to be superior to that of college students in the United States. It was established that the ability to read and comprehend the question items had no significant effect, and some meta-thinking about confirming the correct answer occurred as well. Middle school students demonstrated a greater capacity for scientific reasoning than elementary school students, and the gap between elementary and middle school students was greater for female students.

Figures & Tables

Fig. 1. Scatterplot of the difficulty of eacy items in this study and previous study