A 4-Space Model of Scientific Discovery
Christian Dieter Schunn, David Klahr · 1995
An extension of Klahr and Dunbar's (1988) Dual space model of scientific discovery is presented. We propose that, in addition to search in an experiment space and a hypothesis space, scientific discovery involves search in two additional spaces: the space of data representations and the space of experimental paradigms. That is, discoveries often involve developing new terms and adding new features to descriptions of the data, and the also often involve developing new kinds of experimental procedures. The 4-space model was motivated by the analysis of human performance in a discovery microworld. A brief description of the data is presented. In addition to the general 4-space framework, a description of the component processes involved in each of the four search spaces is also presented. Overview One fruitful characterization of scientific discovery is to view it in terms of search in two problem spaces: a space of hypotheses and a space of experiments (Klahr & Dunbar, 1988; Simon & Lea, 1974). This characterization can be used to classify discovery models into three groups. First, there are those that address the processes of hypothesis generation and evaluation (e.g., the BACON models