Explanatory Heterogeneity in Scientific Inquiry

About This Grant

Scientific explanations are central to scientific understanding. Their generation and evaluation play correspondingly central roles in scientific practice and education. The motivating idea behind the proposed research is that there is value to having more than one explanation. Explanations for the same phenomenon that take different forms or come from different domains. Having multiple explanations can promote deeper understanding and can in turn promote better learning. For example, suppose a child first learns an algebraic proof for the Pythagorean theorem. They might nonetheless come to understand it better when they learn a second, geometric proof. Or suppose you want to understand why humans use certain mental shortcuts in reasoning. One explanation might offer the cognitive mechanism or process that implements the mental shortcut; another explanation might specify its cognitive function or purpose. Having both explanations supports deeper understanding. These ideas are intuitive, but they lead to some important and unexplored questions. For example, do two explanations support deeper understanding when they are more similar to each other, or more different from each other (or something in between)? Does having access to multiple explanations sometimes support illusions of understanding? And how does the similarity or difference between explanations shape the process of inquiry – such as the questions someone asks and what they ultimately learn? This research will address these questions through behavioral experiments with adults exploring how the heterogeneity of explanations of STEM topics affects understanding, question-asking, and learning. Answering these questions has potential implications for science learning – whether it occurs in the context of formal science education in a classroom, informal science learning in a museum, or public communication of science. In the first set of experiments, researchers will investigate how possessing more heterogenous explanations influences the generation of new questions. The key prediction is that greater explanatory heterogeneity (within or across individuals) will foster a greater number of questions and more heterogeneity in questions, with implications for learning. The second set of experiments will investigate how having access to more diverse explanations influences perceptions of self and collective understanding, and how these perceptions in turn shape question asking and learning. The key prediction is that explanatory heterogeneity can inflate illusions of understanding, and that high illusory understanding can suppress the number and diversity of questions asked, impairing learning. Together, the proposed work will raise and begin to answer new questions about the role of explanatory heterogeneity in scientific inquiry. It will draw upon and inform three literatures that have been largely independent: research on explanatory coexistence, on the division of cognitive labor, and on cognitive diversity in problem solving. Integrating these three literatures with prior work in science education will result in a new understanding of explanatory heterogeneity within and across human minds, including its implications for inquiry and learning. This project is supported by the EDU Core Research (ECR) program. ECR supports fundamental research that generates foundational knowledge to advance the research literatures in STEM learning and learning environments. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.