Model-based’ thinking in Science Teaching

Abstract

In this paper I go through a variety of analyses that have been performed on the different ‘modes’ of scientific thinking; I do this from the perspective of didactics of science (i.e., science education as an academic discipline). I mainly revise the use of what has been called ‘logical rationality’ and ‘narrative rationality’ in science education in the different educational levels, from Kindergarten to University, under the hypothesis that these two modes of thinking can be recognised in the diversity of scientific texts that are used when teaching science. I relate the first mode of thinking to the ‘syntactic’ structure of the scientific disciplines, validated within the famous ‘context of justification’, and the second mode to the historical development of the disciplines, which occurs in the ‘context of discovery’. I recognise, in science classes and textbooks, a third, ‘hybrid’ mode of thinking, which can prove fruitful under the light of the current imperatives of science education for all. I propose that this new mode is based on the use of abductive reasoning, which ‘generates’ hypotheses and strongly employs theoretical models. Focussing on the ways in which models and evidence are used, I analogue scientific thinking to detective thinking; in both, evidence plays a central role when projecting the model to the problem to be solved.