Learning “to do” and learning “about” inquiry at the same time: different outcomes in valuing the importance of various intellectual tasks in planning, enacting, and evaluating an inquiry curriculum

Abstract

Participants included 112 Year 1 and 54 Year 4 undergraduate preservice teachers, 21 continuing education students, and 18 honors psychology students. The programs provided different exposure to inquiry. Groups were compared on the importance attributed to specific building blocks (strategic demands) of inquiry instruction and learning, and prescriptions to enact inquiry curriculum. In MANOVA and discriminant analyses, Year 4 elementary preservice teachers and continuing education students accorded higher importance to a greater number of inquiry demands, and better understood how to implement an inquiry curriculum, than Year 1 student teachers. Honors psychology students, having done an inquiry project, resembled Year 4 preservice and continuing education teachers who also learned about inquiry, on the importance accorded to inquiry strategic demands. Teachers and student teachers identified a greater number of important elements of planning, enacting, and evaluating inquiry curriculum. Therefore, in preparation for teaching, both doing and learning about inquiry are important.