Physics Colloquium, January 19, 2010
Learning and Scientific Reasoning Lei Bao

Department of Physics, OSU

How do you create an inquisitive mind? As far as science and science education are concerned, simply accumulating knowledge isn't good enough. Our research has suggested that the teaching and learning of "content knowledge" in physics at traditional education settings have little effect on developing students' ability for scientific reasoning. The findings are based on data collected from more than 3,000 incoming first-year university students of science and engineering in China and the United States. The results might be surprising: the Chinese students had a clear edge when it came to solving physics problems, but this advantage did not translate into a better scientific-reasoning ability — here they were at the same level as their US counterparts.

What can we learn then from this study? Its results suggest that knowing facts does not, in itself, lead to good reasoning skills. As both (and, one might argue, particularly the latter) are needed for success in research, it seems that aspects of science teaching do need to be reconsidered and carefully researched. Results of further studies on how scientific reasoning is naturally developed in the current education settings and how such development might be improved will be discussed.

Dr. Bao's Web Site

4:00 p.m., Physics Research Building (PRB), Room 1080

Reception at 3:45 p.m., Atrium, PRB