In How We Think (1910), the philosopher John Dewey described “five logically distinct steps” of a complete act of thought: “(i) a felt difficulty; (ii) its location and definition; (iii) suggestion of possible solution; (iv) development by reasoning of the bearings of the suggestion; (v) further observation and experiment leading to its acceptance or rejection.”
Educators read the steps as “the five linear steps to doing science.” One science educator recalled that teachers referred to “the scientific method” “like it was a titled thing.” The National Research Council later called the idea of “a single scientific method of observation, hypothesis, deduction, and conclusion” “fundamentally wrong.”