How do students conceive the processes of evaluating and testing the quality of theories and explanations? Which functions do they attribute to experiments in this context? This study approaches these questions based on data obtained from semi-structured interviews with grade 7 students. Analysis of this data enabled us to evaluate how students conceive experimental tests in order to validate or reject explanations and tentative theories from their emerging understandings of this important role of experimentation. We situate the present work and the wider research project we were conducting in the context of devising alternative ways for framing and designing experimental activities leading to a better and more productive understanding of the function of science in the school laboratory.
Science education; Experiments; Theory and evidence; Nature of science
