The central goal of this research study was to characterise the different types of reasoning manifested by high school chemistry students when building initial written explanations of a natural phenomenon. In particular, our study participants were asked to explain why a mixture of water and alcohol works as an antifreeze. Data collected in the form of written explanations were analysed using a mechanistic reasoning framework based on the characterisation of system components (e.g., entities, properties, activities, organisation) and paying attention to the causal models invoked by the participants in their explanations. Our analysis revealed that students at the same educational level construct a wide range of explanations for the same phenomenon that are indicative of different reasoning modes going from descriptive to relational to simple causal to emerging mechanistic. Although the explanations generated by students in our sample were not very sophisticated in terms of the causal models on which they relied, some participants were capable of generating mechanistic explanations using particulate models of matter. The framework for analysis introduced in this contribution can be of use to teachers and researchers in the characterisation of student reasoning.

中文翻译：

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使用机械框架在书面解释中表征化学学生的推理

这项研究的主要目标是，在对自然现象进行初步书面解释时，表征高中化学学生表现出的不同类型的推理。特别是，我们的研究参与者被要求解释为什么水和酒精的混合物起到防冻剂的作用。基于系统组件的特征，使用机械推理框架对以书面说明形式收集的数据进行了分析（例如，实体，属性，活动，组织），并注意参与者在其解释中引用的因果模型。我们的分析表明，处于同一教育水平的学生针对同一现象构建了广泛的解释，这些解释表明从描述性到关系性，从简单因果性到新兴机制的不同推理模式。尽管就样本所依赖的因果模型而言，学生在我们样本中产生的解释不是很复杂，但一些参与者还是能够使用物质的颗粒模型来产生机械的解释。在此贡献中引入的分析框架可用于教师和研究人员表征学生推理的过程。