The role of effective learning environments in preschool children’s understanding of the scientific inquiry cycle

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Scientific literacy comprises two central knowledge components: First, a conceptual component that encompasses knowledge of concepts and theories and secondly, a procedural component that describes knowledge about the acquisition of scientific knowledge. The latter includes an understanding of the scientific inquiry cycle (SIC) which describes the steps from asking questions and hypothesis generation to data interpretation and emphasizes the cumulative and cyclic character of scientific inquiry. A first understanding of the SIC is an important goal in early science education. There is evidence that only applying the individual steps of the SIC does not necessarily promote understanding of the inquiry process on its own, which requires explicit instruction itself. Currently there is no good understanding of what actually characterizes effective learning environments that support a first understanding of the SIC for young children. Based on the existing findings in the literature, effective learning environments require high-quality instructional support, in which challenging interactions and in particular features such as the induction of comparison processes occur as critical components. In particular, the formation of analogies and comparisons of examples are crucial to the acquisition of generalized knowledge, because they enable transfer across contexts. So far, however, it is unknown whether the degree of similarity between examples facilitates or hinders recognizing the correspondences and relations. Main question of the current project is under what conditions children at the age of 5 to 6 years would be able to recognize and compare steps of the SIC across examples and contexts and develop a first understanding of the SIC (not only of the isolated steps). The current project seeks to provide causal evidence for the role of instructional support in understanding the SIC and additionally to identify circumstances under which such learning occurs most effectively. To achieve this objective, we employ a quasi-experimental intervention study with pre- and post-intervention assessments. In a first step we compare learning environments with high instructional support with a control group which participates in a learning environment with the same science activities but without instructional support and with a baseline group without intervention. In a second step we compare both intervention groups with instructional support which differ in regards to exploring conceptually similar scientific phenomena and exploring conceptually dissimilar phenomena. The main dependent variable/target outcome is a first understanding of the SIC. The results of the proposed project will fundamentally inform our understanding of creating effective learning environments in the context of procedural knowledge in early science education.