How To Teach Students the 7 Steps of the Scientific Method

Students are naturally curious about the world. But how can we harness that curiosity to help them ask targeted scientific questions and conduct experiments on topics they need to learn? Introducing them to the scientific method can help keep their learning on track while fostering and supporting their curiosity.

Today, we’ll examine what the scientific method is, its core steps, and how teaching students the scientific method fosters an inquiry mindset.

• What is the scientific method?
• Why should students learn the scientific method?
• The 7 steps of the scientific method
• Scientific method FAQs

[What is the scientific method?](id-what)

The scientific method is a systematic process that scientists use to investigate questions, test ideas, and develop knowledge about the world. It’s based on observation, experimentation, and analysis. The goal of the scientific method is to build a reliable and accurate understanding of how things work through fair, unbiased, and repeatable observations.

[Why should students learn the scientific method?](id-why)

The scientific method is a great tool for advancing human knowledge and understanding. For students, it can help them think critically about the world around them and engage in inquiry that feeds their natural curiosity. Some benefits of teaching students the scientific method include:

• Objectivity: When students learn to rely on evidence and logical reasoning through the scientific method, it can help minimize biases, opinions, and assumptions. This method can challenge ideas through research and ensure conclusions are based on facts.
• Adaptability: Science’s flexible nature allows students to explore a wide range of questions and problems. It prompts innovation and progress, which can lead them to pursue careers that may help them make new discoveries or create inventions.
• Reliability: The systematic approach of the scientific method emphasizes reproducible results, showing students how science is fluid, ongoing, and continually evolving.
• Real-world relevance: The scientific method is applicable to real-world problems and current events that students may encounter in their communities or on the news. It’s also used in everyday life to complete tasks like troubleshooting your home internet problems or figuring out why your garden isn’t growing.

[The 7 steps of the scientific method](id-steps)

The traditional scientific method includes seven steps that help us work through the observation, experimentation, and analysis phases. Let’s look at each of the steps and what skills they help students build:

Step 1: Ask a question

The scientific method starts with observations and questions. Typically, when we notice something in the world that sparks curiosity, we want to learn more. We use our five senses to encounter new sights, sounds, or information and question them.

These observations often lead to specific, relevant, and testable questions about why certain things happen. For example, if a student listens to music on the way to school in the morning and then keeps thinking of a specific song all day, they may ask, “Why do songs get stuck in my head?”

Step 2: Research

After a scientist has a question in their mind, the next step is to conduct research to determine what information already exists about the topic. This helps them understand what other people have already discovered about their questions, whether similar experiments have been conducted before, and what past mistakes other scientists have made when conducting them.

This information can help inform experimentation and data analysis. While it’s essential to conduct extensive topic research, the most reliable sources for scientific research include peer-reviewed studies and journal articles, nonfiction science books such as textbooks, and web content from trusted sources, like Newsela!

Step 3: Form a hypothesis

A hypothesis is an educated guess or proposed explanation for an observed phenomenon or a question that you can test. It serves as the starting point for further investigation. Hypotheses are typically formulated as if-then statements to help predict what will happen if a specific action is taken. 

A good hypothesis is specific, clear, and testable. There must also be a way to prove the hypothesis wrong through experimentation, a concept known as falsifiability. For example, if we were working with the Everyday Mysteries collection from step one,  the statement “This song is fun” is not a good hypothesis. While the statement is clear, it’s not specific, and you can’t test it or prove its falsifiability because it’s an opinion.

A better hypothesis might be, “Pop songs make people happier than other genres of music.” This statement is clear in its objective and specific to a certain genre of music, it’s testable, and there's a possible way to prove the hypothesis wrong under specific conditions.

Step 4: Design and conduct an experiment

Experiments are carefully controlled tests that help scientists collect data to evaluate a hypothesis. This data is empirical, meaning it’s verifiable by observations and/or experiences. Experiments that use the scientific method include independent, dependent, and controlled variables. To create a fair test, scientists use each variable type in the following ways:

• Independent variable: The single factor that scientists intentionally change or manipulate to observe its effect on the dependent variable.
• Dependent variable: The factor that’s measured or observed and is expected to react to the changes made by the independent variable.
• Controlled variables: The conditions of the experiment that stay the same, no matter how the independent variable changes or the dependent variable reacts.

For example, in our music hypothesis, these variables may look like:

• Independent variable: The genre of music played for participants, such as pop, country, rock, R&B, or techno.
• Dependent variable: The test subject’s reported mood before, during, and after listening to different songs.
• Controlled variables: The equipment used to play and listen to the music, the environment in which you administer the test, or the demographics of the people who participate in the experiment.

Finally, scientific experiments should be replicable. Repeating an experiment multiple times helps ensure the results are accurate, consistent, and reliable. The ability to achieve similar results after repeat testing is called replication or reproducibility. 

Step 5: Analyze the data

Running experiments helps scientists collect data to support or reject their hypothesis. Once the experiment is complete, scientists must examine this data to draw conclusions. Organizing the data into tables, graphs, charts, or diagrams can help identify patterns and trends. It also makes it easier to explain your findings to others using visual aids.

Data analysis can also help determine whether the results are statistically significant, or how likely it is that an observed difference or relationship in your data is due to a real effect rather than random chance. 

Some of the math behind statistical significance may be too advanced for your students to understand, but you can incorporate probability concepts into your lessons to discuss the difference between your results being “likely” and being “sure.”

After analyzing the data, students can draw a conclusion about their hypothesis. A conclusion is typically a summary of the experiment's findings that determine whether the data support or reject the hypothesis. A good conclusion also includes proposed changes or adjustments that the scientist would make in a future state of the experiment to get more targeted results.

Step 6: Share the results

Scientific exploration isn’t about keeping your findings to yourself. Instead, scientists share what they’ve learned from their experiments with others. In the real world, this often involves writing journal articles or reports and having them peer-reviewed by other scientists. The goal is to provide information and data so others can replicate the experiment.

For students, sharing their experiment results may involve writing lab reports and submitting them, completing a science fair board and displaying it, or presenting their findings to teachers, classmates, and caregivers.

Step 7: Repeat

The scientific method is iterative. It never really ends. Conclusions from one experiment often lead to further observation, exploration, and experimentation. This continuous cycle of inquiry and refinement builds knowledge over time. 

Depending on the project's scope, your students may or may not have time to repeat their own experiment. For example, a small STEM experiment that only takes up one class period, such as an egg drop, may be easy enough to repeat multiple times during the school year.

For longer, more extensive inquiries, such as science fair projects, students may not have the time or resources to run the same experiment multiple times. When teaching about the scientific method, it’s less important that students actually repeat every experiment, but crucial that they understand why doing so is important for generating scientific data and making discoveries outside the classroom.

[Scientific method FAQs](id-faq)

Do your students still have questions about what the scientific method is and how to use it? We have answers!

Where did the scientific method come from?

The earliest evidence of the scientific method appeared in ancient civilizations when people began to explore the world around them and document their findings. Some sources cite Arab mathematician and scientist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) as the first person to outline steps for scientific testing and replication. Others credit Sir Francis Bacon for being the first to document it in 1620.

Other important figures who contributed to the scientific method as we know it today include ancient Greeks like Aristotle, Renaissance scientists Galileo Galilei and Sir Isaac Newton, and 19th- and 20th-century academics like John Stuart Mill, William Whewell, and Karl Popper.

What are some common misconceptions students may have when learning about the scientific method?

When learning and working through the scientific method, students may encounter challenges or misconceptions about the steps or the processes. Some of these may include:

• Rigidity: While science is meant to be fluid and guided by questions, the structured steps of the scientific method may feel rigid to students. Help them understand that by learning the process, they will be able to conduct less-structured investigations in the future.
• Gathering proof: Students may misunderstand that getting results from an experiment doesn’t mean the findings are 100% true and indisputable. Help students understand that scientific conclusions are always open to new evidence.
• Failed experiments: Students may think that if an experiment “fails” or rejects the hypothesis, it’s wrong. Failure is an essential part of science that leads to better questions, revised ideas, and new discoveries.
• Bias: The scientific method is designed to minimize personal bias. Teach students the importance of relying on data and facts when reviewing data, rather than preconceived ideas or opinions.
• Correlation vs. causation: Students may conflate correlation with causation when applying the scientific method. Teach them that just because two events happen together, that doesn’t mean one causes the other. Using controlled experiments and statistical analysis can help them better understand and identify cause-and-effect relationships.

Do students have to complete the steps of the scientific method in order?

Students need to understand the rules of the scientific method before they can break them. Full-time scientists may revisit, modify, or reorder steps in the scientific method as new information emerges, but that’s because they understand how the more rigid construction works.

For elementary and early middle school students, it may be easier to follow the steps in linear order to learn how the scientific method works. Upper middle school, high school, and higher education students may have enough knowledge and experience to create their own paths through the steps. 

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