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Science education researchers agree about the importance of evidence in science practices such as argumentation. Yet, disagreements and ambiguities about what counts as "evidence" in science classrooms pervade the literature. We argue that these ambiguities and disagreements can be viewed as falling along three fault lines: (i) the source of evidence, specifically, whether it must be first-hand; (ii) whether "evidence" must always be empirical; and (iii) the extent to which evidence is inferred, and what degree of inference transforms "evidence" into something else. In this paper, after showing how these three fault lines manifest in the literature, we argue that these three dimensions of disagreements and ambiguities are not confined to research and research-based curricula; they are also salient in teachers' classroom practice, as illustrated by a dramatic, multiday debate between a mentor teacher and her teacher intern. After establishing the salience of the three fault lines in both research and practice, we explore whether Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) can provide a resolution to the teachers' debate and to the disagreements/ambiguities in the literature. Our analysis reveals that NGSS reproduces rather than resolves those three fault lines--but in doing so, it invites a resolution of a different type. Instead of providing a single, precise, context-independent definition of "evidence," NGSS implicitly reflects a defensible view that what counts as "evidence" depends on the epistemic aims of the practices in which the students are engaged. This implied context-dependency of what counts as good evidence use, we argue, could be made explicit in an addendum document clarifying aspects of NGSS. Doing so would provide valuable guidance to teachers, teacher educators, and researchers.

Through analysis of a classroom lesson led by a decorated teacher, we illustrate how instructional practices favor students seeking empirical patterns at the expense of using mechanistic reasoning. In the lesson, when students spontaneously come up with hypothetical mechanisms to explain why a light bulb in an electric circuit does or does not light, the teacher, following the guidance of standardized curricula, redirects them toward pattern-seeking. We argue that this bias toward pattern-seeking in Chinese national standards and curricula, along with ambiguity in those documents on what an "explanation" is, sits in tension with students' productive abilities and propensities for engaging in mechanistic explanation. In discussion, we extend the argument to show a less severe but similar bias toward pattern-seeking in the United States' Next Generation Science Standards.

Problem solving in groups can be rich with tension for students. This tension may arise from conflicting approaches (conceptual and/or epistemological) and/or from conflict emerging in the social relations among group members. Drawing on video records of undergraduate students working collaboratively, we use three cases to illustrate the multifaceted ways in which conflict arises--combining conceptual, epistemological, and socioemotional dynamics--and a specific way of managing the tension that can emerge from the multifaceted conflict, "taking an escape hatch." An escape hatch is a set of discourse moves through which participants close the conversational topic, thereby relieving tension, but before a conceptual resolution is achieved. We describe how epistemological twists and turns can be recruited as a means of managing the strong emotions experienced by the students, showing the coupling of emotion and epistemology in students' conceptual sense making during group work. We help to provide the groundwork necessary for instructors to notice, understand, and respond to one way in which conceptual--epistemological--social--emotional aspects of interaction are coupled in the emergence of tension, rather than narrowly targeting instructional moves based on only conceptual or epistemological considerations. Instead, instructors should often respond to--and help students become aware of--the emotional component of peer interactions and its entanglement with the "cold cognitive" conceptual and epistemological components.

Questions the scientific community's consensus on the epistemological sophistication concerning scientific knowledge. Argues for a distinction between correctness and productivity of an epistemological stance and against certain blanket generalizations about the nature of knowledge and learning that do not attend to context. (Author/MM)

The way that science students perceive issues relating to uncertainties in science is examined in detail. It may be more useful for students to perceive some knowledge in terms of certainties.

ABSTRACT Current conceptions of quantitative problem-solving expertise in physics incorporate conceptual reasoning in two ways: for selecting relevant equations (before manipulating them) and for checking whether a given quantitative solution is reasonable (after manipulating the equations). We make the case that problem-solving expertise should include opportunistically blending of conceptual and formal mathematical reasoning even while manipulating equations. We present analysis of interviews with two students, Alex and Pat. Interviewed students were asked to explain a particular equation and solve a problem using that equation. Alex used and described the equation as a computational tool. By contrast, Pat found a shortcut to solve the problem. His shortcut blended mathematical operations with conceptual reasoning about physical processes, reflecting a view-expressed earlier in his explanation of the equation-that equations can express an overarching conceptual meaning. Using case studies of Alex and Pat, we argue that this opportunistic blending of conceptual and formal mathematical reasoning (i) is a part of problem-solving expertise, (ii) can be described in terms of cognitive elements called symbolic forms (Sherin, 2001), and (iii) is a feasible instructional target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]