A Research On The Development Of Scientific Hypothesis Ability Of The Secondary School Students

hypothesis is defined as a presumed explanation and illustration of some unknown natural phenomenon and its regularity after rational thinking based on the scientific principium and facts. It is widely accepted that hypothesis formation is a key process of science inquiry teaching and the students'hypothesis ability is the core factor for their inquiry ability. Thus this thesis aims at discovering the nature of secondary school students'scientific hypothesis ability development with a survey of the students of either gender in various grades so as to enrich the theory of developmental psychology and supply primary psychological rationale for science education.This study takes secondary school students'hypothesis ability as research object and applies literature review and exercise analysis as the major research methods. First, a questionnaire of middle-school students'hypothesis ability was designed, and then an analysis was done to probe into the criteria of how to evaluate the students'hypothesis quality and the students'hypothesis ability. With these an investigation was done to 250 students from grade 7-9 of junior middle-school and grade 1-2 of high school in Shaoyang County of Hunan Province. After data analysis, the following conclusions have been made:(1)The development trend of hypothesis number is undulate, which falls first and then rises and falls last with grade; in addition, there is no significant difference between different grades.(2)The development trend of the number of hypothesis reasons goes upwards first and then downwards with grade; besides, Grade seven and Grade eight have significant difference with Grade nine, Senior one and Senior two in this aspect respectively.(3)The number of hypothesis angles increases with grade. There are significant differences between Senior two and other four grades while no significant differences among these four.(4)The hypothesis quality improves with the grade. Grade seven and eight have significant differences with Senior one and two respectively, so does between Grade nine and Senior two.(5) Predictability of the hypothesis of secondary school students develops with the grade. And Grade seven and Grade eight have significant difference with Senior one and Senior two in the respectively, and no significant difference among others.(6)Supportability of hypothesis grows with the grade. To be exact, Grade seven has significant difference with Senior one and Senior two, and it is the same between Grade eight and Grade nine, Senior one and Senior two.(7)The development trend of originality undulates, rising first then falling and rising last, and no significant differences between grades.(8)There is significant difference between genders only in the hypothesis number of supportability at level A and C, and the male are superior to the female.(9)The interaction of gender and grade influences the hypothesis number of supportability at level C, but no influence in other respects.