JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 47, NO. 1, PP. 91–119 (2010) Bridging Scientific Reasoning and Conceptual Change Through Adaptive Web-Based Learning Hsiao-Ching She, Ya-Wen Liao Institute of Education, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 Ta-Hsueh Rd., Hsin-Chu City, Taiwan, ROC Received 8 September 2006; Accepted 30 March 2009 Abstract: This study reports an adaptive digital learning project, Scientific Concept Construction and Reconstruction (SCCR), and examines its effects on 108 8th grade students’ scientific reasoning and conceptual change through mixed methods. A one-group pre-, post-, and retention quasi-experimental design was used in the study. All students received tests for Atomic Achievement, Scientific Reasoning, and Atomic Dependent Reasoning before, 1 week after, and 8 weeks after learning. A total of 18 students, six from each class, were each interviewed for 1 hour before, immediately after, and 2 months after learning. A flow map was used to provide a sequential representation of the flow of students’ scientific narrative elicited from the interviews, and to further analyze the level of scientific reasoning and conceptual change. Results show students’ concepts of atoms, scientific reasoning, and conceptual change made progress, which is consistent with the interviewing results regarding the level of scientific reasoning and quantity of conceptual change. This study demonstrated that students’ conceptual change and scientific reasoning could be improved through the SCCR learning project. Moreover, regression results indicated students’ scientific reasoning contributed more to their conceptual change than to the concepts students held immediately after learning. It implies that scientific reasoning was pivotal for conceptual change and prompted students to make associations among new mental sets and existing hierarchical structure-based memory. ß 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 91–119, 2010 Keywords: chemistry; conceptual change; technology education; middle school science Many studies have suggested that a relationship exists between students’ alternative conceptions and reasoning ability (Lawson & Thompson, 1988; Lawson & Worsnop, 1992; Oliva, 2003). These studies found that students with better scientific reasoning skills had fewer alternative conceptions and could more easily change their alternative conceptions. Some other studies have proposed that students’ understanding of scientific conceptions either hindered or mediated their ability to reason (Duncan & Reiser, 2007; Keselmanm, Kaufman, Kramer, & Patel, 2007). Oliva (2003) further reported that students with higher levels of formal reasoning tend to change their alternative conceptions more easily. These studies highlight an apparent relationship between conceptual change and scientific reasoning, but the type of relationship between conceptual change and scientific reasoning still remains uncertain. Thus, an empirical study to explore the relationship between conceptual change and scientific reasoning is needed. The author has developed a conceptual change model, the Dual Situated Learning Model, and has evidenced effective conceptual change in middle school students for the topics of air pressure and buoyancy, thermal expansion, heat transfer, dissolution and diffusion, as well as meiosis and mitosis (She, 2002, 2003, 2004a,b; Tang, She, & Lee, 2005). We believe that there is a great potential to enhance students’ conceptual change as well as scientific reasoning ability by uniting scientific reasoning with the Dual Situated Learning Model. Park and Han (2002) suggested that deductive reasoning is a potential factor in helping students to recognize cognitive conflict and to resolve it. Their ideas support our idea that enabling students to recognize Correspondence to: H.-C. She; E-mail: hcshe@mail.nctu.edu.tw DOI 10.1002/tea.20309 Published online 5 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). ß 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.