The practice of using evidence in kindergarten: The role of purposeful observation

This is the pre-print peer-reviewed accepted version of the article: The Practice of Using Evidence in Kindergarten: The Role of Purposeful Observation Authored by Sabela F. Monteira and María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher’s web-site. Cite as: Monteira, S.F., & Jiménez-Aleixandre, M.P. (2016), The practice of using evidence in kindergarten: The role of purposeful observation. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53, 1232-1258. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21259 The Practice of Using Evidence in Kindergarten: The Role of Purposeful Observation Sabela F. Monteira and María Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain Abstract: This article examines kindergarten children’s (5–6 years old) engagement in scientific practices, with a focus on generating and using evidence to support claims, during a 5-month project about snails. The research questions are as follows: (1) what meanings do kindergarteners construct for what constitutes evidence? How are those meanings reflected in the development of data into evidence? (2) Which ways of gathering empirical evidence are jointly constructed by children and teacher during the project? (3) How do children use evidence to revise their understandings? The participants are one class of Early Childhood Education children (N ¼ 25) and their teacher. They were engaged in a project about snails, involving pursuing their own questions, carrying out experiments and purposeful observations, collecting data and drawing conclusions, under the guidance of the teacher. The results show that children developed meanings of a certain level of sophistication about evidence, that they distinguished between empirical evidence from planned experiments and from prolonged observation, which we call purposeful, and that they combined different types of evidence in the revision of their ideas about snails. We identified two levels in the development of data into evidence—closer to descriptive statements and evaluative judgments. We suggest that purposeful observation, which has a clear focus, is guided by the teacher and explicitly discussed, has affordances in early childhood science. For instance, 30 out of 57 evidence statements relate to purposeful observation. Promoting purposeful observation as a source of evidence at this age may allow studying processes both for children (biology processes) and for researchers (learning processes). The results would support Metz’s (2011) contention about the relevance of instructional opportunities over developmental constraints. Keywords: purposeful observation; kindergarten science; use of evidence; scientific practices Resume: Examínase a participación do alumnado de educación infantil (5–6 anos) nas prácticas científicas, en concreto en xerar e usar probas para sustentar conclusións, durante un proxecto de cinco meses sobre caracois. As preguntas de investigación son: (1) Que significados constrúen os nenos e nenas para o que constitúen probas? Como se reflicten estes significados no desenvolvemento de datos en probas? (2) Que formas de obter probas empíricas son construídas conxuntamente por nenos e mestra durante o proxecto? E (3) Como usan os nenos e nenas as probas para revisar o seu coñecemento? Os participantes son unha clase de terceiro curso de Educación Infantil (N= 25) e a súa mestra. Levaron a cabo un proxecto sobre caracois, procurando respostas ás súas propias preguntas, realizando experimentos e observacións cun propósito, recollendo datos e extraendo conclusións, guiados pola mestra. Os resultados mostran que desenvolveron significados de certa sofisticación sobre as probas, distinguindo entre probas procedentes de experimentos planificados e da observación prolongada, que denominamos cun propósito; e que combinaron diferentes tipos de probas na revisión das súas ideas sobre os caracois. Identificamos dous niveis na transformación de datos en probas, enunciados cercanos a descricións e xuízos avaliativos. Suxerimos que a observación cun propósito, caracterizada por ter un obxectivo definido, estar guiada pola mestra e ser discutida explicitamente, ten potencial no ensino das ciencias en educación infantil e primaria. Por exemplo, 30 dos 57 enunciados sobre probas relaciónanse coa observación cun propósito. Promover a observación cun propósito como fonte de probas nestas idades pode permitir estudar procesos, tanto polos nenos (procesos biolóxicos) como polas investigadoras (procesos de aprendizaxe). Os resultados sutentan a perspectiva de Metz (2011), respecto da relevancia da instrución sobre limitacións debidas ao desenvolvemento. Scientific Practices in Early Childhood Interest in students’ engagement in epistemic practices has been growing in the last decade, which is reflected in research (e.g., Chinn, Buckland, & Samarapungavan, 2011), complementing studies about epistemic beliefs, or beliefs about science and scientific knowledge. We draw from Kelly’s (2008) definition of epistemic practices as “the specific ways members of a community propose, justify, evaluate, and legitimize knowledge claims within a disciplinary framework“ (Kelly, p. 99). In policy there has been a move toward situating scientific practices at the center of teaching and learning. This trend is consistent with a model that views science as consisting of a set of scientific practices (Osborne, 2014). As Chinn et al. (2011) point out, the rise of epistemological naturalism has produced a shift from examining whether we can have knowledge at all toward how individuals and communities generate knowledge. Our article examines young children’s generation of knowledge through engagement in scientific practices. The focus is on generating and using evidence, on the meanings constructed for what constitutes evidence, and on the role of evidence on the revision of children’s understandings. Most studies about epistemic practices focus on secondary or middle school (e.g., Pluta, Chinn, & Duncan, 2011). Although there is a small body of research about inquiry in early primary (e.g., Metz, 2008, 2011; Varelas & Pappas, 2013) and kindergarten (e.g., Mantzicopoulos, Samarapungavan, & Patrick, 2009; Siry & Max, 2013), the use of evidence by young children to test hypotheses or support claims is an understudied issue. What our study seeks to add to the literature is an examination of younger children’s engagement with the practice of using evidence, in particular, the meanings constructed for evidence, how is it gathered, and the role of evidence in revising knowledge. This would help to support their engagement with scientific practices at increasing levels of sophistication. The three interconnected research questions driving the article are as follows: (1) What meanings do kindergarteners construct for what constitutes evidence? How are those meanings reflected in the development of data into evidence? (2) Which ways of gathering empirical evidence are jointly constructed by children and teacher during the project? (3) How do children use evidence to revise their understandings? In this article, we use the term Early Childhood Education (ECE) to refer to the three first years of school, from 3 to 6 years of age, in Spain and most European countries. The Spanish educational system provides opportunities for exploring young children’s learning, because (i) ECE is part of state schooling from three years of age (teachers fought the “pre-school” denomination, arguing that it is part of school); (ii) children stay with the same teacher during the 3 years of ECE. Rationale: Children's Engagement in Practices and the Use of Evidence In this section, we first of all review work about children’s engagement in science in early primary and ECE; secondly, we discuss the relationships between observation and evidence construction; and thirdly, we address the use of evidence in early ages. Promoting Young Children’s Engagement in Science In the literature, there is an on-going debate about young children’s reasoning skills and their abilities to coordinate claims with evidence. Two decades ago Kathleen Metz (1995) raised criticisms against assumptions of developmental constraints that would limit young children’s engagement in inquiry and scientific practices. A debate ensued in the Review of Educational Research between Deanna Kuhn (1997), who suggested that research in developmental psychology should be viewed more as guideposts than as constraints, and Metz (1997) who attributed reported children’s failures in scientific reasoning to weak knowledge rather than to developmental deficiencies. At the heart of the controversy is the issue of whether young children are able to engage in epistemic reasoning or not. Metz (2008) has been carrying out a research program exploring to what extent primary grade children’s reasoning capacities are sensitive to instructional opportunities. Metz’s (2011) conclusion is that some cognitive developmental approaches underestimate children’s capabilities because they ignore the impact of instruction. Other authors reached similar conclusions: Sandoval, Sodian, Koerber, and Wong’s (2014) review of cognitive development research showed that young children possess capabilities that can be productively built upon by science instruction. Work in the program Integrated Science Literacy Enactments (ISLE) (Varelas & Pappas, 2013) provided evidence that primary pupils are able to engage in explanatory reasoning. Data from the Program for International Students’ Assessment (PISA) show the critical role of ECE in the school performance of 15-year-old students (OECD, 2012). The few studies about pre-primary also point to the need for a change of focus from deficits to preschoolers’ competence (Gelman & Brenneman, 2012). Early science interests and potential gender differences in them are considered a relevant dimension: Leibham, Alexander, and Johnson’s (2013) longitudinal study showed that science interests between the ages of 4 and 6 were related to higher science selfconcepts and achievement by age 8 for girls (not for boys). They found no evidence of gender differences in science achievement at age 8. Other work suggests that when kindergartners participate in reform-oriented curriculum, such as the Scientific Literacy Project (SLP), there are no motivation or achievement differences between genders (Patrick, Mantzicopoulos, & Samarapungavan, 2009). A science curriculum including investigations mediated by kindergarteners’ interests (Siry & Max, 2013), supported children in developing and refining explanations. These results point to the relevance of providing rich environments and starting from children’s interests. The Relevance of Observation in Gathering Data and Constructing Evidence The relevance of observation for young learners has been generally acknowledged. In the NRC (2012) framework the progression of practices across grades stresses observations related to direct experience in grades K-2. Gelman and Brenneman (2012) highlight the central role of observation in constructing science knowledge. Their Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS) program focuses on five key practices, paying attention to observation skills. The program introduces children to systematic observation, to noticing something instead of merely seeing it, so they “come to think differently about an item that they are observing instead of just glancing at” (Gelman & Brenneman, 2012, p. 162). Observation is not identified as one of the scientific practices in the NRC (2012) framework, but it is part of some of them, in particular of planning and carrying out investigations, (PCOI) (Duschl & Bybee, 2014). We are focusing on the role of observation not just as a part of PCOI, but on its own, as a process providing opportunities for collecting and analyzing data, in other words, for constructing empirical evidence. In their work with primary children, Varelas and Pappas (2013) acknowledge that data can be gathered and interpreted either in the context of experiments or observation. In both cases, the students themselves generate first-hand data rather than second-hand data generated by others. Comparisons of the use of firstand second-hand data showed that middle school students voiced a higher sense of ownership with regard to first-hand data (Delen & Krajcik, in press; Hug & McNeill, 2008). In Delen and Krajcik’s study, students created stronger explanations when analyzing their first-hand data. However, Hug and McNeill found benefits and limitations in both types of data. In order to be productive for constructing empirical evidence, observation needs to meet criteria as systematic (Gelman & Brenneman, 2012), active, and having a purpose. Alexander (2008) considers purpose as a relevant feature of dialogic teaching seeking to promote certain types of talk and discourse. Prolonged observation has affordances that short-term observation is lacking; for instance, it provides opportunities to explore processes, and it may be used and revised in order to refine ideas. We call purposeful observation one that is prolonged, systematic, with a clear focus, discussed and used to test claims, and compare initial ideas with later ones. The notion of purposeful observation is drawn from medical training (Morris, 2007), where it is described as considering (1) what the learner is asked to observe; (2) what prior knowledge the observation activity assumes; and (3) what the intended learning outcomes (i.e., the purpose) of the observation activity are. It is a notion connected to observation as research instrument (Merriam, 2009), which serves a research purpose, is deliberately planned and systematically recorded. We suggest that this idea can be extended to children’s observation of beings or phenomena. Scientific Practices and Use of Evidence in Kindergarten: Goals and Challenges Recent understandings of science view it as a set of scientific practices (Osborne, 2014). Osborne argues that science education needs to include explaining why we know what we know, for doing so will contribute to a commitment to evidence as the epistemic basis of beliefs. Policy reforms in the United States are aligned with this approach, adopting a focus on scientific practices alongside crosscutting concepts and core ideas as exemplified by the New Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (Achieve, 2013; NRC, 2012). The examination of the use of evidence is framed in this notion of scientific practices, as a part of practice 7 Engaging in argument from evidence. The focus is on children’s construction of the meanings for evidence and on the practice of its use. Evidence evaluation is a central component in argumentation (Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2008) and in the construction of explanations (McNeill & Krajcik, 2008). Most of the work about the use of evidence in primary and secondary classrooms is framed in the construction of explanations. Duschl’s (2008) Evidence-Explanation (E-E) continuum involves three critical transformations or students’ judgments: (1) selecting or generating data to become evidence; (2) using evidence to ascertain patterns of evidence and models; and (3) employing the models and patterns to propose explanations. As Duschl points out, each of these transitions involves making epistemic judgments about “what counts” as data, evidence or explanations. In her study with fifth grade, McNeill (2011) investigated changes in pupils’ ideas about explanation, argument and evidence. Gotwals, Songer, and Bullard (2012) and Gotwals and Songer (2013) discussed a progression for evidencebased explanations from fourth to sixth grade, focusing on the following: (1) articulation of claims; (2) use of appropriate and sufficient evidence to support these claims; and (3) use of reasoning that draws on scientific principles to link the evidence to the claim. We acknowledge building explanations as a goal of using evidence; however, our work with kindergarteners focuses on the first stages: articulating claims, selecting or generating data to become evidence, identifying patterns, and using evidence to support claims. We have only located one paper about entry points in argumentation in kindergarten (Gotwals, Hokayem, & Wright, 2014) whose preliminary results showed that, given appropriate learning opportunities, children may engage in supporting their claims with evidence. About the terms related to evidence, like McNeill and Krajcik (2008), we consider a claim “a statement or conclusion that answers the original question” (p. 60). Kuhn and Pearsall (2000) consider that a statement is a theoretical claim if it is potentially falsifiable by evidence. For McNeill (2011), evidence is data that is used to answer a question, solve a problem, or make a decision, but many authors restrict its meaning to data meeting certain conditions. An influential characterization of evidence is scientific data that is both appropriate and sufficient (McNeill & Krajcik, 2008), used for instance by Gotwals and Songer (2013). An illuminating discussion about in which cases data would become evidence is Aikenhead’s (2005), who emphasizes the judgment of the data’s significance as evidence. In the context of kindergarten, we are focusing first on this “what counts” as evidence dimension, in other words, data are considered evidence if their discursive role in children’s talk is to evaluate a claim; and second, on the appropriateness of data to support the claim. Research reports difficulties experienced by middle and high school students in coordinating evidence with claims. For instance, often students did not support claims with evidence (Jiménez-Aleixandre, Bugallo, & Duschl, 2000), used inappropriate criteria in evaluating the significance of pieces of evidence (Hogan & Maglienti, 2001), or struggled with explaining how a given piece of evidence supported a claim (Sandoval & Millwood, 2005). Reasoning was identified as the most difficult aspect for sixth graders (Gotwals & Songer, 2013). Reasoning is also challenging for upper elementary students as well as understanding what counts as evidence. For example, McNeill (2011) found that the majority of fifth graders did not explicitly talk about data in their discussion of evidence, talking about it rather as supporting an answer to a question. In Songer and Gotwals’ (2012) study, the most difficult aspect for fourth graders was generating evidence, in particular, providing two pieces of valid evidence that matched their claims, and for fifth graders it was generating reasoning. The question is what our goal should be in early childhood. It should be noted that our focus is on the enactment of scientific and epistemic practices, or children’s practical epistemologies (Metz, 2011; Wickman, 2004). In other words, the focus is on functional understanding of the nature of science rather than on declarative understandings (Allchin, 2011). Previous studies (Lehrer & Schauble, 2012; Mantzicopoulos et al., 2009; Metz, 2011) support children’s potential for engaging in epistemic reasoning. Similarly to Gotwals et al. (2014), we favor a focus on what students bring with them, rather than on identifying their difficulties with argument components. What we seek to add to this literature is to document how children use evidence to support claims at different epistemic levels, from closer to data to evaluative judgments, and how they use evidence to evaluate and revise knowledge. Research Methodology, Context, and Participants Research Design Framed in qualitative methods, this article reports a case study, appropriate in cases when little is known about one issue (Yin, 2003). Its approach is interpretive, seeking to understand the participants’ meanings in context (Merriam, 2009). A range of data were collected through immersion of the first author in the classroom, taking field notes, videotaping nine sessions, collecting children’s productions as drawings or classroom displays (see Table 1 below). For the purposes of this article, the six video recordings related to the snails project were selected, corresponding to numbers 1–6 in Table 1. Participants The participants are 25 children (16 girls/9 boys) in one class of the third year of Early Childhood Education (ECE3), from 5 to 6 years of age (mean age at the beginning of the snails project 5 years, 6 months, 23 days; standard deviation 3 m 1 d), in an urban state school, and their teacher. They have been with her since ECE1. In the class, there is only one child of immigrant origin, from North Africa, although she speaks fluent Spanish. The children’s names are pseudonyms; the teacher is identified with her real name, Dolores V´azquez, because we author papers together. It must be noted that Galicia is a bilingual community where both Spanish and Galician (belonging to the Portuguese stem; as seen in our abstract) are co-official languages and consequently taught in school and used as vehicular languages for instruction. Due to their interlinguistic similarity, all speakers understand both, and children use one or the other in their talk, which here has been translated to English. The teacher belongs to Torque, a team of six kindergarten women teachers, a professional learning community meeting twice a month, and she is one of the two more experienced members, having taught for more than 2 decades. The less experienced teachers are enculturated in the profession through their participation in the group. Every year a science project is carried out in the six classes, in collaboration with the researchers, who attend the meetings and provide input, for instance about the science content. However, this is not an intervention study, as the teachers are responsible for the design of the project. Context: the Snails Project The teachers design a science project every year. Like the previous ones, the snails project implemented during the 2013–2014 school year has a flexible design, modified depending on children’s questions and interests. It is framed in design principles parallel to Metz’s (2011) principles for science in early primary, reworded to fit the context of the study. (1) Engagement in practices triggered by curiosity and question-based: curiosity as the motor that interests children in science. Children’s Table 3 Evidence coding scheme Code Description Children Examples Level 1 Descriptive evidence statements closer to data Level 2 Evidence statements involving evaluative judgments, meeting one of these criteria: “(snails have) heart, brain” (claim: It is almost like us) – (a) identifying patterns in data “Poo of the color of what they eat” – (b) connecting data and claim through justification; – (c) establishing comparison with other data; – (d) explicitly evaluating one or several alternative claims “If it is not rough, it doesn’t scrape” “It [the snail] does not eat bit after bit, it makes little holes” “No, they are snails [not excrements], they have little horns” For question 2, on ways of gathering evidence, the analysis draws on the literature about firstand second-hand data (e.g., Hug & McNeill, 2008), and about the relevance of observation, discussed in the rationale. We propose calling purposeful observation one that is prolonged, systematic and with a clear focus. The coding scheme distinguishes three types of questions addressed in this classroom: (1) empirical first-hand data gathered through purposeful observation; (2) empirical first-hand data gathered through experiments; and (3) second-hand data found on the Internet, books, or from families. First, the 20 questions produced by children, prompted by the teacher’s question “What do we want to know about snails?” and collected in a classroom display were independently analyzed by both authors according to the type of evidence required to answer them, and the agreement was 100% (see Table 5 in the findings about question 1). Second, in order to answer questions 2 and 3, we conducted a thematic analysis (discussed in another paper) drawing from multiple data sources, classroom transcripts, children’s drawings, and classroom displays. Twenty-one conceptual topics were identified, which were subsequently grouped into 13 conceptual issues distributed in four broad themes, respectively: a snail’s body; a snail’s biology; the classification of snails; and its skills and behavior. In addition, talk about knowledge, hypotheses, or prediction was coded separately. For question 2, the 21 topics were examined in terms of the evidence used to address them: purposeful observation, experiments, or second-hand data (or combinations of these). An independent review by both authors yielded a 96.8% agreement. From the 10 topics addressed through purposeful observation, three related to processes were selected to illustrate the findings. For question 3, the use of evidence to evaluate and revise knowledge, we reviewed eight of the 21 conceptual topics identified in the thematic analysis that were recurring through two, three, or five sessions. From these eight, the question of mouthparts, discussed in five out of the six sessions, was selected to illustrate the process. Figure 1. Meanings for evidence and uses of evidence in the classroom. Findings: Evidence in a Kindergarten Classroom The three research questions (RQ) are interconnected, as summarized in Figure 1: RQ1 examines the meanings for evidence in this classroom, represented in the upper part of the figure (on the one hand, evidence is generated in order to answers questions, in other words, in the context of seeking how to find out about questions posed by children, and on the other, it is used to test hypotheses and support claims), where generation of evidence and its use are interconnected; RQ2 examines ways of gathering empirical, first-hand evidence, which in this classroom are either through purposeful observation or through investigation; and RQ3 examines how children use evidence to evaluate and revise ideas and models. Evidence is shared through multiple modes of communication, drawings, talk, and gestures. The Meaning of Evidence in Kindergarten Question 1 examines the meanings for what constitutes evidence constructed by children, and how are they reflected in the development of data into evidence. In order to frame the findings, we first present the overall quantitative results of the analysis of classroom talk. From the 937 turns of speech in the six sessions, 276 were identified as argumentative talk. Their distribution in argumentative components is summarized in Table 4. The purpose is not a quantitative analysis, but rather to give a sense of how often they occurred. What becomes apparent first of all is that there are more claims than evidence; so, similarly to previous studies (e.g., Jiménez-Aleixandre et al., 2000), many claims are not supported by evidence. Secondly, not all data are developed into evidence, as shown by 30.8% of the statements we coded under raw data. Evidence is Generated in Order to Answer Questions. This meaning for evidence is supported by the following: (1) children’s initial questions and those addressed during the project and (2) the context for the 57 statements coded as evidence; as well as by explicit talk about evidence, claims, and testing, for evidence and testing are linked to particular questions. First, the project was organized around driving questions suggested by children. Formulating empirically answerable questions about phenomena is a basic scientific practice (NRC, 2012). In the NGSS (Achieve, 2013), the goals for K-2 include (1) asking questions based on observations to find more information about the natural world; and (2) asking or identifying questions that can be answered by an investigation. The teachers from Torque begin all science projects eliciting children’s questions, by asking “What do we want to know about ... (snails) ?” (see Table S1). This happened in the last week of January when the snails were brought to the class. Children’s questions collected in the classroom display are translated in Table 5, distributed in three types according to how can they be answered—an issue discussed with research question 2—by empirical first-hand data gathered either through purposeful observation or through experiments, or by seeking second-hand information. The questions range from features of a snail’s body to a snail’s biology or well-being. Some questions seem grounded on previous knowledge, for instance the need for calcium. Table 4 Argument components Components Claim Raw Data Evidence Justification N =276 125 (45.3%) 85 (30.8%) 57 (20.6%) 9 (3.3%) Table 5 Types of initial questions: In italics, questions addressed in the project Type: Can Be Answered by Children’s Initial Questions N = 20 1. Empirical first-hand data gathered through purposeful observation: N= 8 2. Empirical first-hand data gathered through an investigation or experiment: N= 4 3. Second-hand data, found on the Internet, in books or from family: N= 8 – Do they have mouth? – Do they have teeth? – The little things under their head: are they legs? – What are the tentacles for? – Are snails born with shell? – What do they need the shell for? – Where does snail slime come from? – Why are eggshells put there [in the box]? – Can they hear? [later expanded to: Can they smell? Can they taste? Do they have a sense of touch?] – What is the shell made of? – Can they live if their shell is broken?* – Is it slime what sticks the shell to the body? [later modified as: What are the functions of slime?] – How do we take care of them? – Where do they live? – How many types of snails are there? – Whether or not there are underground snails – Where is the penis? – Do they need calcium? – What do sea snails eat? – Why do they need water and sunlight? *it could be answered by an experiment, but involving harm to snails. In Table 5, the questions subsequently examined during the project are italicized. All eight questions that can be answered by purposeful observation were addressed, although in many cases they were modified. From the four questions that can be answered by an investigation, there is one (“Can they live if the shell is broken?”) that was not the object of an experiment, for breaking a shell on purpose was out of the question. Its examination through prolonged observation was made possible by an accident. “Can they hear?” was expanded into three more questions about the senses, explored through experiments 1 (smell), 2 (taste), 3 (hearing), and 4 (walking over different surfaces). Two more questions emerged about snails’ capacities: their strength (experiment 5) and their ability to balance on narrow objects (experiment 6). For each question in this category, children were asked to suggest experiments that were planned with strong input from the teacher. Then they were asked to generate hypotheses contextualized in the experiment (but before carrying them out). Each question was dealt with in one or several days, sometimes over different months, as seen in the timeline in Table 1. From the eight questions that required information from secondary sources, only four were addressed in the project. This emphasis on certain types of questions shows the teacher’s focus on first-hand data and direct evidence. Table 6 Frequency of use of the connector because in the drawings: experiments 1–5 Experiment 1. Smell N= 22 2. Taste N= 23 3. Hearing N=23 4. Surfaces N= 23 5. Strength N=19 Use of because # Because / # drawings: 16/22 10/23 22/23 1/23 16/19 65/110 Secondly, for the 57 statements coded as evidence, in terms of the distinction reported by McNeill (2011), we examined the context of the argumentative episodes when these evidence statements were produced: (1) In 11 cases, the meaning was having evidence to find out something, such as “I played the tambourine and they didn’t hide” (finding out if snails can hear); (2) in 24 cases, the meaning was using evidence to support a claim, such as “they have little horns [tentacles]” (backing up the claim that tiny things in the box were baby snails not excrements); (3) in 22 cases, both meanings overlapped, as in “[snails have] a heart, a brain” (finding out which internal organs snails possess, and also supporting the claim that they are “almost like us”). Explicit talk about evidence, claims, and testing also supports this meaning, as testing and hypotheses are connected to questions. As a summary, it may be said that a dimension of the meaning of evidence in this classroom is being generated in order to answer questions (see Figure 1). Evidence is Used to Test Hypotheses and Support Claims. This meaning for evidence is supported by the following: (1) children’s interpretation of the results of experiments; (2) how evidence is connected to conclusions through justifications, and (3) the occurrence of explicit talk about evidence, claims and testing. First, on how children interpret the results of experiments: after a classroom discussion, they were asked to produce individual drawings for each experiment and to write the conclusion in their own words in a template with “conclusion” printed at the bottom. The examination of drawings focuses on experiments 1– 5, sharing common features, namely that they convey narrative meanings. In their discussion of visual designs as semiotic resources, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) distinguish two types of representational meanings: narrative and conceptual. Narrative representations are characterized by designing actions, and by the presence of a vector. For instance, in Alberto’s drawing, reproduced in Figure S3, a story unfolds horizontally, and all participants are represented as doing something, children are shouting or playing the tambourine, snails are out of their shells. A detailed analysis of children’s drawings through this social semiotic lens exceeds the purposes of this article and is carried out elsewhere. Children’s writing skills were uneven, and the teacher’s help was needed to interpret the texts. We examine the use of the lexical connector because (Ducrot, 1983) to connect evidence and conclusions. Some drawings were missing from the portfolios, either because children missed the session or because they were not returned when they took the portfolios home to share them. Table 6 shows the frequencies of use in each experiment. From the 16 children who handed in the five drawings, five used because in four cases, seven in three, two in two and two in one drawing. A similar trend appears in the cases of children handing in fewer drawings (see Table S2). Two examples of conclusions with a connector (children’s spelling mirrored in translation): Carmen: “snails can smell because we put binegar [sic] and water ant they went to water” (experiment 1). Alberto: “s[n]ails donthear b[e]c[au]se we s[ho]uted andthey didnot [h]ide we play[ed]thetamb[our]ine and they didnot hi[d]e)” (experiment 3, see drawing in Figure S3). One example without a connector: Anton, “sna[ils] don[’t] he[ar] s[ho]uted and din[’t] hi[de] (experiment 3). Although over half of the drawings (59%) show the use of because to link claim and evidence, its use is uneven across experiments. The weakest results are found in experiment 4 on the question, “Are snails able to walk over all surfaces?” We interpret this as a consequence of the different nature of data in the experiments. In this case, most children provided a general claim “Snails are able to walk over all surfaces.” Only one of them worded it in connection with data: “beqa[u]se they w[e]alk overrr all of them, eve[n] over the pins.” The use of because to connect data and claims is also found in the transcriptions, as seen in the excerpts about “poo” and experiment 3 reproduced below. This presence alone does not mean that children fully understand the role of evidence in supporting or falsifying claims; we consider it an indicator connected to others. Secondly, connection between evidence and conclusions through explicit justifications occurred in nine cases (see Table 4). Eight out of the 25 children offered them. It is a low number of cases, but it should be noted that this is one of the most difficult aspects of the use of evidence for older students (e.g., Gotwals & Songer, 2013). This is illustrated by two examples, one from experiment 3 and one from observation: Marta: They don’t hear, because we shouted, and we banged sticks, but they didn’t hide [in the shells]. And if they don’t hide it is because they don’t hear. Lua: I played the tambourine and they didn’t hide Several children: They are deaf! Marta uses evidence from the experiment to support her claim (snails do not hear), and she makes her argument stronger by appealing to a justification that connects evidence and claim (“if they don’t hide it is because they don’t hear“). This justification is implicitly grounded in previous knowledge: firstly, that “snails are timid and withdraw into the shell,” a statement from the “What do we know?” display; secondly, that danger or threats cause snails to retreat into their shells. This second piece of knowledge is related to an accident discussed in the next section. In other instances, justifications draw from theory, as in the case of shell regeneration. Marta’s argument is represented in Toulmin’s format in Figure 2. Figure 2. Marta’s argument about hearing. Implicit knowledge between brackets. Another example, after directly observing a radula (snails’ mouth part) in session 6, and combining this observation with previous data, is related to the question about how the radula works on food, discussed in detail in the section on RQ3: Danilo: I think that [it does] like this [he mimics with his hands a back and forth movement] Ester: [They] scrape food Alberto: It [the radula] has to be rough in order to scrape. Because if it is not rough it doesn’t, it doesn’t scrape The children cooperate in the argument, they have been discussing other data, such as the little spikes over the radula surface, or the marks observed on food. Danilo mimics a movement they saw in a video, a non-verbal form of communication used in three sessions, and Ester offers a claim about how the radula works. Alberto connects this claim to previous evidence through a justification based on knowledge about materials or tools that scrape, such as sandpaper. Thirdly, explicit talk about evidence, claims, and testing occurred in all the sessions. It must be noted that the terms used in Spanish (S) and Galician (G) for evidence pose challenges for translation: in both languages evidencia means something that does not need to be tested or proved; the terms used in this classroom and in argumentation literature, to refer to it are prueba (S) and proba (G), and for testing, the terms are probar or comprobar in both languages. Furthermore, in both languages, there is only one word, investigar, for research and investigate. There were 15 episodes of such explicit talk across the six sessions, 11 initiated by the teacher, for example, prompting them Teacher: We need to study what their teeth are like. Because they are not like ours: Are they? Elena: Oh my, if they have them, we don’t know that yet. Teacher: True, we don’t know that yet. Alberto: They are smaller. Teacher: That is what Alberto imagines. We will need to test it. Marta: I think they do have teeth, because otherwise they could not make these tunnels. Several scientific practices are enacted in combination. Children interpret data, holes in food and glimpses of mouthparts, to construct their explanations, communicated through class talk: snails have teeth, but they are not like ours, they are smaller because they make little holes. Data are based on observation, in particular, indirect data, through the tooth marks, used as evidence of the existence of teeth, in a way similar to their use by biologists to identify animals. In the second week of March, the teacher asks them to collect information about snails’ mouths at home. On March 17, the children share this secondhand information from web searches, such as the term radula, its ribbon shape and the little spikes on it. Teacher: Let’s see, Luis. Luis: It is shaped like a ribbon. Teacher: It is shaped like a ribbon, and: What are the little spikes for? Luis: To scrap off food. Teacher: To scrap off food. Then: Does it have teeth? Luis: No, it has little spikes. Children revise their ideas, discarding anthropomorphic names: the chitinous spikes are no longer “teeth,” radula is the name of the “tongue” (although this term continues to be used), and snails do not chew, but rather scrape off food. Differentiation among similar structures is a step in the construction of science concepts. They use analogies, like ribbon, to share information. Firsthand data are combined with second-hand data, as on March 21st when they watch a YouTube video of a snail feeding, in which, due to magnifying and good lighting, the radula can be clearly observed. A critical revision of their previous models occurs on March 24th. The teacher asks each child to discuss her or his drawing, and to explain why they had drawn it like that. Fourteen out of 20 justify their initial drawings saying that they thought it was “like ours.“ These models are then compared with new data from observation and the video. Marta: They [the spikes] had hooks [shape] Roberto: We were impressed [by the video]! Teacher: How did it work? [Children mimic radula’s movements sticking their tongues in and out] Teacher: Were any of us right when we imagined what the radula was like? Children: Nooo! Teacher: And now: How would you draw it? Children (several): Shaped like a ribbon. Teacher: Does it have anything around it? Children: No. The teacher prompts an explicit comparison of observations with their previous ideas, both in general terms, and in specific issues, such as where the spikes are placed. Children communicate new knowledge through multimodal discourse, for instance mimicking the movement of a radula with their tongues several times during this session. On May 12th, the researcher brings in the radula of a limpet, and they have the opportunity of directly observing it with the digital stereomicroscope. A new revision of their ideas takes place, focusing on the new notions and their connection with evidence: Teacher: What did snails do to food? Children (several): Little holes Teacher: Little holes. So we said that the “tongue” would need to have. Children (several): Spikes. Teacher: And: What would they do in order to make holes? Ester: They would stretch it, pick up food, and withdraw it into the mouth. Marta: True, like butterflies. [...] Alberto: Certainly while the radula is spinning it is digging because it makes deep holes. The revision of ideas in this session includes the shape of the radula and spikes, revised with data from direct observation that are compared to secondhand data, and its movements, evidenced by the deep holes they have been observing throughout the project. The teacher prompts them to propose explanations about how this mouthpart with its tiny spikes would be able to make holes. Several children make proposals or analogies, like Marta who compares Ester’s explanation to butterflies, or a zip fastener. It is noteworthy that Alberto proposes a mechanism that accounts for the deep holes or “tunnels” observed in food. Explanations that include mechanisms are more challenging for students to construct. This lesson was one of the only times during the snails project in which pupils produced mechanistic explanations. Figure 3 summarizes the revision of their models about mouthparts. This supports the role of purposeful observation in the evaluation of their ideas (see Figure 1). Figure 3. Evolution of children’s ideas about mouthparts across the project. Observation (O), Second-hand evidence (S). Discussion: Purposeful Prolonged Observation and Its Role in Kindergarten This classroom study seeks to shed light on the meanings kindergarten children construct about evidence and about how they use it in the context of a project about snails spanning 5 months. The meanings are more explicit, while the uses are examined through the enactment of practices. Since this is a case study, there are limitations: for example, we are unable to generalize our findings; however, a number of important issues do emerge from this work. First of all, among the meanings of evidence in this classroom, we think importance should be placed on the difference established in teacher and children’s discourse between evidence gathered through “investigating” (evidence from planned experiments) and through “discovering” (evidence from prolonged observation). We call the second process purposeful observation, drawing from Alexander’s (2008) notion of purpose in dialogic teaching, and from Morris (2007) and Merriam (2009), and define it as prolonged systematic observation that has a clear focus, is guided by the teacher, recorded, explicitly discussed, and used to test claims and revise initial models. It must be noted that the evidence collected in both cases is empirical first-hand data, which according to previous studies (Delen & Krajcik, in press; Hug & McNeill, 2008) evokes in pupils a higher sense of ownership. In the project, this first-hand evidence, from experiments or observation, is combined with second-hand evidence from web searches or family knowledge. An indication of the significance of purposeful observation in this kindergarten classroom is that over half of the evidence statements, 30 out of 57, correspond to the context of purposeful observation. Because this is the first study focusing on it, it is difficult to ascertain whether this frequency is related to students’ age and developmental reasons or to the particular context of this project and the teacher’s approach. We suggest that these findings point to the interest of paying attention to promoting systematic, prolonged observation as a context for constructing empirical evidence in early ages. Secondly, with regard to how these young children use evidence, one relevant finding is the role of evidence from purposeful observation in the evaluation and revision of their ideas about snails. An instance of how initial models are contrasted with evidence is the evolution of children’s ideas about snails’ mouths. As Gelman and Brenneman (2012) point out, through systematic observation children come to think differently about what they are observing. Thus, kindergarteners were able not only to revise their ideas about the form and other external features of the radula, but also to propose a mechanism, an explanation to account for the tooth marks observed in food. We believe that the notion of purposeful observation and its role in the revision of ideas, are new and they are an original contribution of our study. It is known that long-term projects provide opportunities to build understandings (Gelman & Brenneman, 2012), and that epistemic and social elements are most effectively incorporated as part of extended sequences of instruction (Duschl, 2008). What our study adds is a characterization of the features of observation brought by this extended time. Purposeful observation over an extended period enabled the study of processes: first, it enabled the children’s exploration of biological processes, such as the development of newborn snails, healing from contact with salt or the regeneration of a broken shell. Second, it enabled the researchers’ examination of learning processes, such as the evolution of ideas across several months, rather than only the difference between initial and final ideas (products). Our interest lies not only in what children can learn, but also how we can characterize learning environments and strategies that support learning. Third, in reference to the development of data into evidence, our findings point to the distinction between two levels or stages in the transformation of raw data into evidence (Aikenhead, 2005; Duschl, 2008). First, we suggest that studies about early childhood and primary schooling should identify descriptive statements or raw data, alongside argumentative components, such as evidence, in order to better document how the transition from data to evidence occurs. Second, the identification of these two levels may have potential interest for argumentation progressions, and in particular for entry points in kindergarten. In their work about practice progressions for evidence-based explanations beginning in fourth grade, Gotwals et al. (2012) place in level 1 “student makes a claim,” with two sub-levels, with and without scaffolding; and in level 2 “student makes a claim and backs it up with appropriate but insufficient (partial) evidence,” also with two sub-levels. Gotwals and Songer (2013) identify levels 1–3 with scaffolded practices, beginning with a question provided to students. We suggest that, in kindergarten and early primary, two levels that would be previous to those from Gotwals and colleagues, or overlapping with them, could be the following: (1) selecting data appropriate for being transformed into evidence related to a claim; and (2) identifying potential (appropriate) evidence that could confirm or disconfirm a claim. Both processes would be scaffolded, as is the case in our study. As noted above, 30 out of 57 evidence statements identified in the study are related to purposeful observation. However, only seven of them correspond to the higher evaluative level, L2. On the other hand, six out of nine statements related to experiments correspond to L1. More studies are needed in order to ascertain if this is a pattern, or if the level depends on other features of the setting. We suggest that experiments provide a frame where the relations between claim and evidence are more explicit and clear-cut from the beginning. In the case of purposeful observation, the claim may be derived from evidence, emerge later in the process, and the relations may be more diffuse. If this is so, the implication is a need for framing purposeful observation in the process of constructing evidence-based explanations more explicitly. It should be noted that our suggestion is to combine experiments and purposeful observation, not to focus only on the second. Teachers’ scaffolding is essential in supporting children’s engagement in scientific practices, and in particular, in the processes from evidence to explanation. Although the focus of this article is not on the teacher’s support, discussed in another paper, three interconnected teaching strategies identified as relevant for supporting engagement in scientific practices and in using evidence are as follows: (1) Reflection: one feature of the teacher’s approach is to provide children with many opportunities to think back about their observations and experiences, to talk about them and to reformulate their meaning. Engaging students in discussions about their observations is a feature highlighted by Zangori, Forbes, and Biggers (2013). In our study, the time devoted to these discussions and reflections was substantially longer than the actual time devoted to carrying out the experiment or the observation; (2) Recurrence: connected to reflection is the recurrence, over all the sessions, of a few questions and topics that are addressed again, in the light of new evidence either from experiments, second-hand sources or, in particular, from purposeful observation. This recurrence, illustrated in the findings with the revision of children’s ideas and drawings of mouthparts, provides continuity through the project and may have an influence similar to the effect of science journals reported by Gelman and Brenneman (2012), “(to) solidify their understandings because they provide a chance for learners to think again about a science experience” (ibid, p. 166). Mere observation does not lead to change, unless there is reflection about data, theoretical claims and their connections. As Lehrer and Schauble (2012) point out, the notion of practice implies engagement with the epistemic culture of modeling (and, we will add, of argumentation); (3) Explicit talk about evidence, hypotheses, claims, and testing: the teacher initiated 11 out of the 15 episodes of such explicit talk across the six sessions, for instance with an emphasis on the need for evidence in order to make a claim. This emphasis contributed to a commitment to evidence as the epistemic basis of beliefs (Osborne, 2014). Another dimension of the meaning of evidence is being generated in order to answer the children’s own questions, and it is in line with their interests, which is an important trait for developing explanations in kindergarten (Siry & Max, 2013). Other features of the teacher’s approach, such as prompting students to identify evidence, or providing hints about evidence and claims, are similar to the ones discussed by Gotwals et al. (2012). This classroom environment is aligned with characteristics of dialogic teaching identified by Alexander (2008), for example, it is supportive of children’s discourse; they may articulate their ideas freely without worrying about “wrong” answers; it is reciprocal, teacher and children listen to each other, share ideas and consider alternative viewpoints; it is purposeful, teachers steer classroom talk with specific goals in view. Educational Implications We suggest the importance of promoting purposeful observation as a source of evidence in kindergarten and in the first years of elementary education, in particular, in life sciences because it supports students in collecting and interpreting data, in the transformation of data into evidence, and in using evidence in order to revise their understandings. Purposeful observation is complementary to investigations and experiments; it poses, perhaps, fewer difficulties for young children. As research shows, even adolescents have problems when planning investigations (Jim´enezAleixandre & Crujeiras, 2014). What we are proposing is to use them in combination, not to focus only on purposeful observation; however, we suggest that in early ages purposeful observation should be given more emphasis. We think that our results support Metz (2011) and Gotwals et al. (2014) regarding the relevance of instructional opportunities over developmental constraints. We suggest these findings have implications for the potential influence of the NGSS (Achieve, 2013), not just in the United States, but internationally. The practices enacted by these children are aligned with NGSS recommendations; however, the teacher and her professional learning community are not familiar with the standards. This would indicate that the NGSS recommendations for practices might be extended to other countries and contexts. More research is needed in order to understand how to support young children’s engagement with the use of evidence. From the indicators of cognitive control over coordination of claims with evidence proposed by Kuhn and Pearsall (2000), children in this study showed awareness of their ideas and of the fact that they underwent revision. However, other reasoning practices required for this coordination (Sandoval et al., 2014) were not identified. Our next goal is to examine which of these practices can be performed in kindergarten, and which specific scaffolds are appropriate to promote them, and we are currently involved in a 3-year longitudinal study on this issue. Acknowledgments: This study was supported by Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO) (EDU2012-38022-C02-01). To the teacher Dolores Vázquez and her students. Sabela F. Monteira’s work is supported by a BES2013-062873 scholarship from the Spanish MINECO. 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