The Role of Causal Inferences in Everyday Reasoning: Study on Oncology Patients

Abstract

Science education increasingly aims to prepare all learners for civic participation in a quantified digital‐ and science-infused world. To inform how educational experiences and curricula should be designed, the current study explored cancer patients as a locus for scientific practices. The patients were asked to reason about medical information related to the chemotherapy treatment they received and to fill out self-reports on their self-efficacy and engagement in decisions related to their own disease and its treatment. Our findings revealed that the most common scientific practice involved was causal inferences, which in turn had a significant impact on patients' self-efficacy and engagement in their own disease management. These findings suggest that direct evaluation of medical information using causal reasoning is important for everyday science literacy. Importantly, causal reasoning is associated with everyday functioning and behavior, which underlines the importance of further research on causal reasoning structures.