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 the topic floating and sinking. We assessed students’ understanding of variable control before instruction, and their conceptual content knowledge before and after the instruction. Mixture model analyses indicate that the understanding of variable control predicts students’ content knowledge structure before instruction, and their content knowledge development from before to after instruction. Thus, reinstating prior lab-based findings, the understanding of a basic experimentation skill matters in teacher-guided inquiry, in interaction with prior content knowledge. We describe how students’ learning pathways vary depending on their understanding of variable control and prior content knowledge, and discuss implications for learning and instruction.