An Web Quest-Based Context-Aware u-Learning System to Improve Students' Problem Solving and Communication Abilities in Astronomy Inquiry Activities

Abstract

Scientific inquiry competence has been recognized as being an essential ability in outdoor scientific education. Earlier studies concerning ubiquitous learning in Astronomy courses have shown that students will enhance their understanding of science theories or notations if they operate relevant devices and investigate the knowledge about Astronomy in the field. Moreover, it is important to cultivate students' communication and problem solving abilities while they observe and investigate novel facts in Astronomy in-field learning activity. Therefore, it becomes an important issue to develop an integrated curriculum combining collaborative inquiry-based leaning tasks and u-learning activity in Astronomy courses. Web Quest instructional strategy has shown the potential for enhancing students' inquiry competence in web-based learning environment. Teachers encourage students to participate in the process of searching for knowledge, evaluating the information they have found and achieving their learning performance on different topics in a Web Quest learning activity. Therefore, in this study, a Web Quest-based context-aware u-learning system is proposed for conducting the collaborative inquiry-based learning activities in Astronomy courses. Two Astronomy learning tasks will be conducted in the Astronomy museum in an elementary school. The students in the experimental group will be asked to find knowledge about Astronomy and use the information to solve problems collaboratively in the Web Quest learning tasks, while the students in the control group will learn collaboratively through general Astronomy context-aware u-learning system. After the learning activities, the students' learning performance, communication and problem solving abilities will be evaluated.