Developing prospective science teachers’ multivariable thinking capabilities

Contemporary research on scientific thinking has overlooked the need to develop multivariable thinking among adults and the importance of doing so. This study examines whether problem-based inquiry activities with graded feedback, in conjunction with scaffolding, help prospective elementary science teachers in developing multivariable thinking. Activities involving multivariable causal models along with metacognitive scaffolding were introduced to half (n=21) of a general science class of first-year undergraduates in a teacher-education program. The other half of the class served as a control group. On a pretest assessing control-of-variables and multivariable causal reasoning skills, both groups performed equally poorly. Employing the same teacher and teaching style in both groups, the impact of the intervention in one group was assessed. Results showed significant development of multivariable thinking on the part of the experimental group.