Scaffolding Middle School Students' Coordination of Theory and Evidence

Evidence-based explanations are a core element of scientific reasoning. Nonetheless, the literature reports that students often fail to support their hypotheses with evidence, or give explanations that are not grounded in the data. This research examined the role of software scaffolding in supporting middle school students' coordination of theory and evidence. Students in 1 of the 2 classes in the study used an inquiry-support software tool to manage their investigation, whereas the students in the other class used science journals. We argue that the software-based scaffolding helped students coordinate theory with evidence while the science journal was not effective in helping students construct evidence-based explanations.