Abstract

DI MAURO, María Florencia; FURMAN, Melina  and  BRAVO, Bettina. Scientific skills in primary school: a study of the level of performance in children of 4th grade. Rev. electrón. investig. educ. cienc. [online]. 2015, vol.10, n.2, pp.1-10. ISSN 1850-6666.

The development of scientific skills is an essential goal of the science curriculum in many countries. However, although the primary school years have been recognized as a foundation for the development of these skills, in many countries, including the Latin American region, research and assessments show that achieving this goal is still an elusive objective  Nevertheless, little is known about the processes involved in children´s learning of these skills. This paper seeks to deepen our understanding on the development of scientific skills in 4th grade children, within the context of a public school in Argentina. It focuses on assessing children´s performance in two basic scientific skills: experimental design and data analysis. Our study reveals that the ability to design valid experiments is virtually absent in the group of children tested, while there is greater variability in children´s data analysis performance. We also noted that students use personal theories when supporting their conclusions from data and planning experiments. These results are important to inform the development of teaching strategies and curriculum materials that foster students´ development of more advanced levels of scientific thinking.

Keywords : Scientific skills; Data analysis; Experimental design; Elementary school.