Variable control and conceptual change: A large-scale quantitative study in elementary school

We examined the predictive value and interplay of elementary school students' understanding of the control-of-variables strategy, a domain-general experimentation skill, and their prior content knowledge for subsequent conceptual knowledge acquisition and conceptual change. Trained teachers provided N = 1809 first to sixth graders with 15 lessons of guided inquiry-based instruction on floating and sinking. We assessed understanding of the control-of-variables strategy before instruction, and conceptual content knowledge from before to after instruction. A mixture model analysis, specifically, a latent transition analysis, indicates that understanding of the control-of-variables strategy predicts content knowledge structure before instruction, and content knowledge development from before to after instruction. These findings corroborate lab-based research on the interplay of experimentation skills and content knowledge in inquiry settings and extend it to teacher-guided classroom instruction. We describe how learning pathways vary depending on students' understanding of the control-of-variables strategy and prior content knowledge, and discuss implications for learning and instruction.