This article presents a simple, cognitive theory of science and learning. The first section of the paper develops the theory's two main propositions: (i) A wide range of scientific activities rely heavily on one type of reasoning, hypothetical thinking, and (ii) This type of reasoning is also useful to students for learning science content. The second section of the paper presents a taxonomy of multiple-choice questions that use hypothetical thinking and the third section of the paper tests the theory using data from a college biology course. As expected by the theory, student responses to 24 scientific reasoning questions were consistent with a one-dimensional psychometric construct. Student responses to the scientific reasoning questions explained 36% of the variance in exam grades. Several directions for additional research are identified, including studying the psychometric structure of scientific thinking in more detail, performing randomized, controlled experiments to demonstrate a causal relationship between scientific thinking and learning, and identifying the relative contribution of other factors to success in college.

中文翻译：

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科学与学习的假设演绎理论

本文提出了一种简单的科学和学习认知理论。本文的第一部分阐述了该理论的两个主要命题：（i）广泛的科学活动严重依赖一种推理类型，即假设思维，以及（ii）这种类型的推理对于学生学习科学内容也很有用。本文的第二部分介绍了使用假设思维的多项选择题的分类，论文的第三部分使用大学生物学课程的数据测试了该理论。正如理论所预期的那样，学生对 24 个科学推理问题的回答与一维心理测量结构一致。学生对科学推理问题的回答解释了 36% 的考试成绩差异。确定了额外研究的几个方向，