Published Paper Details:

Abstract: The instructional designs in schools are focused on supporting content knowledge but may not be sufficient to promote scientific reasoning ability among students, which is an important factor in improving student performance in science learning. The present study intended to identify the Scientific Reasoning Ability of Secondary School Students. In the present study, the descriptive survey method was used for the collection of data. The size of the sample was 100 students of 9th class from district Shimla of Himachal Pradesh, who were selected through Random Sampling Technique. To analyse the data, the Statistical techniques used in this study were Mean, Standard Deviation and 't'-test. The result of the study showed that among the five dimensions of scientific reasoning ability (i.e., Inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, analogical reasoning, eclectic reasoning and classification as a reasoning), secondary school students have higher mean scores in Inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning and analogical reasoning, while low mean score were shown in eclectic reasoning and classification as a reasoning. Further, it was revealed that the boys and girls differ significantly in analogical and eclectic reasoning dimensions. Mean scores of boys were higher than girls in inductive and analogical reasoning dimension while, means scores of girls were higher than boys in deductive, eclectic and classification as a reasoning dimension of scientific reasoning ability. These findings point to the necessity of placing more focus on identifying scientific reasoning ability patterns among students so that scientific training as well as informal learning opportunities could be designed to improve scientific reasoning ability among students.