Enhancing Thermodynamics Understanding: Promoting Revision of Science Explanations Through Peer Critique

Revising explanations allows learners to develop a coherent understanding of scientific phenomena by integrating different ideas, a key learning outcome according to the Knowledge Integration (KI) Framework. We explored the design of critique activities and analyzed how peer critique helps 1305 middle school students to revise science explanations. Students wrote a science explanation about thermodynamics in an online learning environment, critiqued the explanation of a fictitious peer and then, revised their own explanation. For the critique activity, they were randomly assigned to three conditions that differed in the characteristics of the fictitious peer’s explanation. Specifically, students either critiqued a peer’s explanation that describes intuitive ideas (intuitive), combines intuitive and scientifically normative ideas (partial), or connects several scientifically normative ideas (linked). We found that critique was valuable in each condition as students showed more integrated understanding in their revised responses to the explanation question compared to their initial response. Students in the linked condition received the highest KI scores. Students who started with a higher KI score had an advantage over those with a lower KI score in all conditions. This difference was strongest in the intuitive condition, indicating that the intuitive condition was the least beneficial for students with lower prior knowledge. Qualitative analysis of the types of revisions students made revealed that, in all conditions, students often adopted ideas from the answer they critiqued. When they adopted the intuitive idea, they were less likely to improve their explanation than when they adopted the link. These results illustrate the importance of critique for promoting integrated understanding. They reveal the need for more frequent and more powerful instruction to build skepticism when confronted with potentially unreliable information, e.g. by comparing two explanations with contrasting ideas.