Show text (PDF) - bei DuEPublico - an der Universität Duisburg-Essen

2. Theoretical Framework 27
underlying principles. Scientific reasoning is a feature of a good explanation within
the context of inquiry learning.
reference
Existing
knowledge
(from earlier
experiments
or lessons)
include
Justifications
Experiment
before after
Hypothesis
Explanations
Result
Figure 4. Justifications and Inferences
include
Inferences
are included in are included in reference
New
knowledge
(from data
collected
experiment
Types of Explanations in Inquiry
)
In inquiry learning, learners are expected to develop scientific explanations. When
students develop explanations during inquiry learning, they often engage in every-
day reasoning processes instead of scientific reasoning processes. Indeed, scientific
explanations are similar to everyday explanations on many accounts. Both share that
explanations provide a larger framework that goes beyond the original phenomenon
and they provide a feeling of understanding (Brewer et al., 1998). Moreover,
explanations can be causal-mechanical or functional-intentional. Causal-mechanical
explanations describe a mechanism. They can provide an answer to a question that
starts with “how”:e.g., “How is sugar being created during the photosynthetic
process?”). Causal-mechanical explanations are provided to describe “how”
something happens. In contrast, functional-intentional explanations describe not
(only) a process but also presume some kind of purpose. Those explanations are
provided to answer questions starting with “why”:e.g., “Why do plants turn towards
the light?”). Hence, they have a teleological character, because they are based on the
in