The educational intervention cornmenced 'With instruction designed to develop
an understanding of the nature of science and the structure of controlled
experiments. The purpose of this was to build up students' sche~ kn0.w~edge
regarding experimentation and to provide a context for the speCific trammg In
those reasoning patterns used in scientific investigations. The training sessions
employed near-transfer tasks, that is, tasks requiring the same reasoning
patte~ but in a different context from those included in the pre and posttest.