The Development of Inductive Reasoning: Cross-sectional Assessments in an Educational Context

Abstract

This paper links two research paradigms, one that studies attributes and mechanisms of inductive reasoning and one that tries to make school learning more meaningful and knowledge better understood and more easily applied, by examining how inductive reasoning develops during a significant age range of schooling and how it relates to certain other cognitive functions. Six tests of inductive reasoning (number analogies, verbal analogies, number series, verbal series, coding, exclusion) were devised and administered to 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th grade students ( N 2000). Data were also collected on students’ school achievement, and a test of applied science knowledge was administered to the two oldest samples. The comparison of age groups indicated that the fastest development of inductive reasoning took place between the 5th and 9th grades; a major development was detected before the 5th grade, and only modest changes were found after the 9th grade. Regression analysis models indicated that inductive reasoning accounted for around twice as large a proportion of the results of the test that measured the applied science knowledge in everyday situations as did school knowledge (represented by school grades).