Are the data sufficient for evaluating a claim? Students' reasoning about data

Abstract

The study aimed to understand how students evaluate sufficiency of data for evaluating a science claim. The paper reports students’ responses to this evaluation and whether their domain-specific concepts relate to their responses. Participants in Grades 6-8 evaluated whether data presented were sufficient for evaluating a claim on Newton’s First Law. The claim varied in consistency with participants’ concepts about the topic. The data presented were of low quality, which included big experimental errors and were obtained from a study without replication. We found that participants roughly considered the data were insufficient for claim evaluation, justified by 5 meaningful categories of reasons. The effect of domain-specific concepts on this evaluation was absent. Implications for instruction and research are discussed.