An investigation on the scientific thinking ability of fourth year university students

This paper reports on a study which examined the ability of a sample of fourth year university students to think scientifically when presented with a range of chemical phenomena. The main data collection instrument was the clinical interview. Each subject was interviewed in-depth for about one hour on a one-to-one basis. Each interview was taped, transcribed verbatim and then analysed. Five familiar chemical reactions were used as foci for discussion in the interviews. For each reaction, each interviewee was asked, among other things, to make predictions about the overall energy change involved, and to make explanations as to why the change took place, i.e., the driving force for the change. The results show that the majority of the interviewees were using perceptually dominated thinking rather than conceptually dominated thinking; at the same time, they were unable to use science concepts consistently across the five reactions. It can thus be inferred that they were unable to think scientifically. Reasons for the lack of scientific thinking ability are explored and suggestions on alleviation of the problem are offered.