Modeling as Scientific Reasoning—The Role of Abductive Reasoning for Modeling Competence

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Modelling as Scientific Reasoning – The Role of Abductive Reasoning for Modelling Competence

The aim of the present article is to extend the framework for modelling competence by including abductive reasoning, with impact on the whole modelling process; considering that abductive reasoning can be understood as knowledge expanding in the process of model construction. The basic premises that authors develop are that abductive reasoning describes the theory-based attempt of explaining a phenomenon by a cause and that the extended framework can be useful and used for teaching and learning to foster scientific reasoning competences within modelling processes because modelling as a prominent style of scientific reasoning, and as a skill, needs to be practiced by students.

The conceptual framework developed by the authors is well structured and clearly presented (theory of abductive reasoning, models and modelling concepts and process competence). Could be, in section State of research (p.7), more examples would be welcome. The empirical research about concept maps showing students models, although briefly presented, it is very enlightening. We agree that modelling competences are fundamental in the learning construction. New and alternative or complementary methodologies are fields that need to be deepened and extended. Then this research about the abductive turn may be very useful for teacher education.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your feedback. Concerning your suggestion to include more examples, please note that this paper is a theoretical one. Including more empirical evidence in the state of research, would contradict this focus. Our intention was to support our hypothesis by integrating results of existing studies and to give some illustrative examples underlying our theoretical argumentation by presenting descriptive data of our own research. As the second reviewer solely criticized a lack of methodological foundations in the empirical part, we decided not to extend the empirical part in our resubmission.

 

Thank you again and best wishes from the autorhors.

Reviewer 2 Report

Modelling as Scientific Reasoning – The Role of Abductive Reasoning  for Modelling Competence  

 

  The paper deals with abductive reasoning describing a theory-based attempt to explain a phenomenon by a cause.  The aim of the present article was to extend the framework for modelling competence by including abductive reasoning, with impact on the whole modelling process.   Thus, abductive reasoning is a part of modelling competence within scientific reasoning and such extended framework was used for teaching and learning to foster scientific reasoning competences.

 

  The paper presents an important issue in teaching sciences by including abductive reasoning, so it has a merit which however does not become obvious at once. Below are some comments and recommendations for improvement.

 

• The abstract has to be re-written and carefully include whatever was done in the empirical part. (The abstract in the present form says nothing about it).

 

• The strong part of the paper is that it presents a good theoretical review of the relative literature, however the weak part of the paper is that the empirical research is kind of poor in terms of statistical analysis. It presents merely some descriptive

 

• The part of an examining concept maps is underdeveloped.

 

• There is lack of a methodology part that describes exactly what was performed and what hypotheses were posited.

 

• And what are the conclusions regarding these hypotheses.

 

• The paper has to present the empirical research in a formal way so it helps the reader to understand better. Give emphasis on the empirical part, which is under developed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

 

Thank you very much for your feedback. Obviously, it did not become clear that we wrote a theoretical paper. For the empirical part, our intention was to support our theoretical argumentation with results of existing studies and further, to give some illustrative examples underlying our theoretical argumentation by presenting descriptive data of our own research. We addressed this issue by being more precise and explicit about the theoretical nature of our paper. Please see below, how we addressed your comments particularly:

• The abstract has to be re-written and carefully include whatever was done in the empirical part. (The abstract in the present form says nothing about it).

--> Due to our article is a theoretical one, it does not have a method section. Thus, there is no focus on empirical work in the abstract. As you noticed, we refer to data to descriptively illustrate our theoretical ideas. Beforehand we integrate our theoretical approach into research from other authors in the field of mathematic and geo-science education.

Nevertheless, we decided including one conclusive statement about empirical findings in the abstract.

• The strong part of the paper is that it presents a good theoretical review of the relative literature, however the weak part of the paper is that the empirical research is kind of poor in terms of statistical analysis. It presents merely some descriptive

--> As you recognized in the chapter ‘empirical insight’ few descriptive results are reported as illustrative examples concerning the competence descriptions of the FMC and not in terms of an empirical investigation.

• The part of an examining concept maps is underdeveloped.

--> You would be right in case this was conducted as an empirical paper. As mentioned the concept map is presented as an illustrating example without any claim of an empirical investigation.

• There is lack of a methodology part that describes exactly what was performed and what hypotheses were posited.

--> As our focus was on abduction as a theoretical construct, we only included few illustrating examples from our research. As the second reviewer stated that the empirical insight about concept maps showing students models, although briefly presented, it is very enlightening, we decided neither to extend this part nor to delete it.

• And what are the conclusions regarding these hypotheses.

-->  We presented exemplary results to support the theoretical approach. This was done in the sense of validation and not in terms of drawing conclusion form data.

As described in the outlook extensive research will be conducted in order to empirically investigate the extended FMC.

• The paper has to present the empirical research in a formal way so it helps the reader to understand better. Give emphasis on the empirical part, which is under developed.

--> We would like to stick to the theoretical focus of our submission. Hence, we followed your suggestions by being more explicit about the theoretical nature of our paper.

 

Thank you again and best wishes from the authors.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Τhank you for your clarifications.

I propose to be accepted in present form.