20 Why does Thinking Science work?

On what grounds do we believe that it might be possible to raise the levels of thinking available to ordinary pupils in ordinary schools? Before attempting to answer that, it is necessary to say something about transfer. Suppose, after assiduous work by her teacher and by herself on the variables that affect the rate of swing on a pendulum, a pupil shows that she is now able to design experiments in which the variables of mass, amplitude and length are properly controlled. We would say that the pupil had learnt successfully about control of variables in one specific context – a straightforward learning experience. If, now, that pupil demonstrated an improved performance in designing a controlled experiment to investigate the effect of a fertiliser on plant growth, then we would say that some transfer had taken place. The control-ofvariables reasoning pattern has been developed beyond the confines of a particular context. This is near-transfer, or specific transfer.

Far-transfer, or general transfer, would be what happened if the same pupil, following her learning about controlling pendulum variables, also demonstrated an improved ability at proportionality problems. This is a completely different type of reasoning and, if such far-transfer were to happen, it would strongly suggest that the pupil’s ability to think had been generally improved by the pendulum learning experience. In a sense, general transfer is an objective (usually implicit) of all science curricula, indeed of all schooling. We do hope and believe that children’s general thinking ability does improve as a result of their going to school. And yet a review of studies of cognitive acceleration shows that specific learning is common, that near-transfer can be achieved by carefully designed programmes, but that far-transfer is a very elusive bird indeed. Link this now to what we know about the development of formal operational thinking in the school population of England and Wales: currently about 24% of 14 year olds demonstrate some ability to think formally and about 50% are at the concrete generalisation level (the ‘jumping off’ point for the development of formal operational thinking). These percentages correspond to those pupils who presently get B grade or above, and C grade or above in science at GCSE in England (i.e. at 16 years of age). So about half the population of sixteen year olds are effectively barred from learning science to a level recognised by the examination systems in England (research in other countries also indicates a similar disturbing picture). That is why, in the CASE project, we were concerned to investigate the possibility of promoting higher levels of thinking among pupils immediately prior to the start of undertaking the science course leading to national examinations, i.e. between the ages of 11 and 14 years. Thinking Science is the set of lessons developed with that intention. Those that have succeeded in raising pupils’ levels of thinking across a range of reasoning patterns have done so not by trying to ‘teach’ the reasoning patterns directly, but by putting their pupils in a position where they must construct the reasoning patterns for themselves, to solve new problems. Learning from the experiences of others, the CASE project developed, tried and tested a technique of teaching science which could promote general thinking. The Thinking Science activities crystallise, insofar as a written guide can, examples of that teaching technique.

Each Thinking Science lesson concentrates on one of the reasoning patterns of formal operations, but none of them attempts directly to teach strategies for solving problems using that type of reasoning in an algorithmic (recipe) way. We believe that such a direct approach could lead, at best, to no more than specific transfer of the application of a reasoning pattern mastered in one context to another context. Most Thinking Science lessons start with some practical experience requiring only concrete operations, to enable pupils to become familiar with the terminology and context of the problem within the comfort of well exercised thinking levels. The requirement for high level thinking which follows is difficult enough anyway, without being further fogged by the need to accrue meaning to a set of new words at the same time. Typically, the concrete introduction is then followed by a further practical exercise, but one which cannot be solved using concrete operations. The pupil knows what the apparatus is about, knows what the words mean, but needs to accommodate his or her thinking to a higher level in order to cope with the new problem. We say more, at a practical level, about this sort of ‘cognitive conflict’ in the next section.