Abstract:

According to European Schoolnet [1], competences on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are the key to the basic literacy of a knowledge society and essential to prepare citizens aware of the challenges that this society should face. Consequently, the concepts and practices related to STEM subjects should be taught in an interdisciplinary way. Pedagogy and psychology analyses advocate teaching research skills to Elementary School children to build a bridge between education and scientific and technological research.

This approach, to extract information from experiments, is well expressed in ref. [2]: “…The experimental method in science is based on the control of variables strategy (CVS), which defines a procedure for designing interpretable experiments: The researcher must manipulate variables of interest while holding constant all other variables. CVS also entails a method of deriving logical inferences from a valid experiment by comparing results for conditions that differ on only one variable. In short, CVS is a core skill in scientific reasoning. … In fact, research on learning of CVS has been a focal point for a recent debate concerning the relative efficacy of explicit instruction compared with discovery based experimentation.”

Surprisingly, the development of this teaching innovation has skipped the methodology of the design of experiments (DOE). As just one example, ref. [3] contains 160 citations and none refer to DOE. However, any text on DOE, for instance [4], shows that varying a single variable while keeping the others fixed to analyse its effect on the response under study is an inadequate strategy that is never optimal and that, in general, leads to erroneous results. It is also true that no effort has been made from the field of DOE to incorporate this knowledge into educational innovation.

While putting students, from an early age, in contact with a scientific approach to research is indeed an effective innovation at the core of STEM training, a wrongly approach, such as CVS, is counterproductive. Therefore, it would be useful to open a channel of scientific communication between pedagogues and researchers developing or using DOE to avoid the blurring of an educational initiative of great value in STEM.

Acknowledgements:
To Spanish MINECO (AEI) and JCyL (CTQ2017-88894-R, BU012P17), and European FEDER for the financial aid.

References:
[1] European Schoolnet (EUN) is a network of 31 Ministries of Education from across the European member states, leading educational innovation in STEM. http://www.eun.org/home.
[2] R.F. Lorch Jr., E.P. Lorch, W.J. Calderhead, E.E. Dunlap, E.C. Hodell, B.D. Freer, “Learning the Control of Variables Strategy in Higher and Lower Achieving Classrooms: Contributions of Explicit Instruction and Experimentation” J. of Educational Psychology, vol.102, 90–101, 2010.
[3] C. Zimmerman, "The development of scientific thinking skills in elementary and middle school" Developmental Review, vol. 27, 172–223, 2007.
[4] A.A. Box Cos, J.S. Hunter, W.G. Hunter, Statistics for Experimenters. Design, Innovation and Discovery. Hoboken, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, 2005.

Keywords:

STEM, Links between Education and Research.