What View of Science Discovery Best Fits the Science Learning Game?

Richard S. Prawat () and Theodore R. Prawat ()
Additional contact information
Richard S. Prawat: Michigan State University
Theodore R. Prawat: Thomas College

No 4907111, Proceedings of Teaching and Education Conferences from International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences

Abstract: This paper presents a view of science discovery that has the potential to change the way we construct learning games in science. This view is based on the work of a nineteenth century philosopher and scientist whose work, supported by a new generation of historians of science, counters the traditional view of scientific discovery as induction--the notion that new ideas are built from the bottom up so to speak, from particular experience to general concept. The alternative to this view is one that insists that scientific discovery is an ?ideas first? leap of creative understanding termed ?abduction.? It proceeds as follows: (1) A surprising fact, C, presents itself to an individual; (2) a big idea (H) is then suggested that, if true, would render C a matter of course; (3) this then leads the individual to conclude that there is reason to believe that H is true. This view of knowledge, we will argue, complements efforts to bolster the educative aspect of a game in a way that contributes to, rather than detracts from, the all important immersive aspect of that same game.

Keywords: games; science; technology; curriculum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I29 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 8 pages
Date: 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 4th Teaching & Education Conference, Venice, May 2017, pages 104-111

Downloads: (external link)
https://iises.net/proceedings/4th-teaching-educati ... =49&iid=008&rid=7111 First version, 2017

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sek:itepro:4907111

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Proceedings of Teaching and Education Conferences from International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klara Cermakova ().