Disagreements exist among textbook authors, curriculum developers, and even among science and mathematics educators/researchers regarding the meanings and roles of several key nature-of-science (NOS) and nature-of-mathematics (NOM) terms such as proof, disproof, hypotheses, predictions, theories, laws, conjectures, axioms, theorems, and…

Confusion persists concerning the roles played by scientific hypotheses and predictions in doing science. This confusion extends to the nature of scientific and statistical hypothesis testing. The present paper utilizes the "If/and/then/Therefore" pattern of hypothetico-deductive (HD) reasoning to explicate the nature of both scientific and…

This paper explicates a pattern of scientific argumentation in which scientists respond to causal questions with the generation and test of alternative hypotheses through cycles of hypothetico-predictive argumentation. Hypothetico-predictive arguments are employed to test causal claims that exist on at least two levels (designated stage 4 in which…

Tests the hypothesis that, because it uses tri-dimensional sensory pathways which show a higher rate of neural activity than uni- or bi-dimensionals, lab-activity-based instruction is a more effective teaching strategy for learning science than verbal-based instruction. Applies manipulative teaching strategies that use visual, somatosensory, and…

Investigates Korean and U.S. college students' scientific reasoning skills involving hypothesis-testing skills and tests the hypothesis that hypothesis-testing skills are more advanced than other scientific reasoning skills. The study involves (n=774) Korean and (n=568) U.S. students and uses the Test of Scientific Reasoning (TSR). (Contains 24…