Into the Black: Effect of an Explicated Black-Boxes Discourse on Mechanistic Reasoning in the Biology Classroom

unpacking entities and activities. However, all mechanistic explanations contain explanatory gaps, known as ‘explanatory black boxes,’ which link cause and effect without detailing the underlying mechanisms. This study addresses explanatory black boxes as inevitable and productive units in mechanistic explanations, exploring their role in promoting students’ mechanistic reasoning.
The research described in this dissertation comprises three interconnected studies, all set in the context of a course designed for this study to teach the mechanisms of cancer onset to 10th-grade biology students. The first study examines teachers’ perceptions of black-boxing and unpacking complex mechanisms, revealing that while mechanistic explanations are cognitively demanding, explicating black boxes is perceived as a strategy to guide students toward deeper understanding. The second study examines the effect of highlighting the existence of black boxes in mechanistic information in the classroom to advance students’ reasoning and understanding of complex mechanisms. The study reveals students’ transitioning from basic cause-effect reasoning to more sophisticated thinking, demonstrating the chaining of the chaining of several mechanistic interactions. The third study tasks students with identifying when to black box mechanisms and when to unpack black boxes, promoting discussions on epistemic criteria such as clarity and complexity. Across these studies, black-box pedagogy emerged as a promising tool for fostering inquiry and critical thinking by helping students navigate the complexities of biological mechanisms. This approach has potential applications beyond biology, offering a pathway for enhancing science education by explicitly addressing gaps in understanding.