Inquiry-based Science Curriculum Research Articles

Depicting science teachers’ concerns regarding the Tanzanian inquiry-based science curriculum

ABSTRACT Secondary school teachers in Tanzania have been attempting to implement the inquiry-based science curriculum since 2005. This study is descriptive and was designed within the realms of a Type IV case-study design (Yin, R. K. 2014. Case study research: Design and methods 5th ed. SAGE) to investigate their concerns in dealing with this curriculum. It employed the Concern-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) as its lens and collected data using the Stage of Concern (SoC) questionnaire. In addition, the study used background information of the participants themselves and their context collected using one-on-one interviews to enrich the interpretation of revealed concerns. The findings revealed variations in the nature and intensities of concerns amongst science teachers in the case-study schools. These variations were partly due to the differences in contextual and background characteristics of staff of the three case-study schools. The implications of these findings for both policy and practice are discussed.

Teachers’ Beliefs: Positive or Negative Indicators of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching?

Inquiry-based science teaching is an innovative pedagogy that is more effective than traditional instruction in promoting scientific literacy. However, teachers must develop strong favourable beliefs about inquiry teaching before they can successfully employ it to improve students’ learning outcomes. Despite its importance few studies have been done to examine teachers’ beliefs about inquiry teaching in places, like Africa, where there are serious inquiry curricula implementation challenges. This study investigated whether teachers’ beliefs are positive or negative indicators of inquiry-based science teaching. Convergent parallel mixed methods was used for the study. Purposive and stratified random sampling were used to select 308 and subsample of 18 integrated science teachers from public and private junior high schools (JHSs) from urban and rural areas. Administration of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used for the quantitative and qualitative data collection. The questionnaire has content and construct validities and is reliable. The interview schedule is credible and dependable. One finding suggests that most teachers in the research setting hold weak beliefs about inquiry teaching but strong beliefs about traditional instruction, that are negative indicators of inquiry-based science teaching. Other findings indicate that there are significant school type and academic qualification differences in teachers’ beliefs about inquiry-based science teaching. One implication of the findings is that currently most teachers in the study context do not hold strong positive beliefs necessary for the implementation of inquiry-based science curricula. It is recommended that regular inquiry-based in-service trainings be designed to improve teachers’ beliefs. It is also recommended that inquiry-based in-service trainings should be designed based on teachers’ school type and academic qualifications.

PD with Distance-Based Instructional Coaching to Improve Elementary Teacher’ Self-Efficacy in Teaching Science

ABSTRACT Elementary students’ interest in science and careers in STEM are typically associated with their curiosity along with engagement in science activities and whether they find these activities to be fun, exciting, and enjoyable. Thus, early exposure of elementary students to STEM lessons must be engaging and enjoyable, which in turn increases the students’ awareness and interests in these fields. Elementary school teachers are typically a major influence on their students’ attitudes toward STEM. However, many elementary teachers have negative or unfavorable attitudes toward STEM areas. Consequently, many elementary students receive science instruction only a few days a week or only during some weeks of the year. This study aimed to enhance elementary teachers’ interest, knowledge, and self-efficacy in teaching science that, in turn, will effectively build their students’ interest in STEM areas. To accomplish this goal, we developed a PD program that consists of practice-based interventions with inquiry-based science curricula and instructional models. Then, we examined the effects of the interventions within the PD program, a practice-based summer workshop, and distance-based instructional coaching. We also investigated the effects of the instructional coaching delivered by two different types of coaches, peer elementary teacher vs. high-school science teacher, on the elementary teachers’ inquiry-based instructional practices.

Developing Citizen-Scientists: Effects of an Inquiry-Based Science Curriculum on STEM and Civic Engagement

AbstractIn this article, we present the results of a cluster-randomized trial of an inquiry-based science curriculum conducted in grades 6–8 with 551 students in 13 schools. The intervention integr...

Student’s social interaction in inquiry-based science education: how experiences of flow can increase motivation and achievement

This research investigated how student social interactions within two approaches to an inquiry-based science curriculum could be related to student motivation and achievement outcomes. This qualitative case study consisted of two cases, Off-Campus and On-Campus, and used ethnographic techniques of participant observation. Research participants included eight eighth grade girls, aged 13–14 years old. Data sources included formal and informal participant interviews, participant journal reflections, curriculum artifacts including quizzes, worksheets, and student-generated research posters, digital video and audio recordings, photographs, and researcher field notes. Data were transcribed verbatim and coded, then collapsed into emergent themes using NVIVO 9. The results of this research illustrate how setting conditions that promote focused concentration and communicative interactions can be positively related to student motivation and achievement outcomes in inquiry-based science. Participants in the Off-Campus case experienced more frequent states of focused concentration and out performed their peers in the On-Campus case on 46 % of classroom assignments. Off-Campus participants also designed and implemented a more cognitively complex research project, provided more in-depth analyses of their research results, and expanded their perceptions of what it means to act like a scientist to a greater extent than participants in the On-Campus case. These results can be understood in relation to Flow Theory. Student interactions that promoted the criteria necessary for initiating flow, which included having clearly defined goals, receiving immediate feedback, and maintaining a balance between challenges and skills, fostered enhanced student motivation and achievement outcomes. Implications for science teaching and future research include shifting the current focus in inquiry-based science from a continuum that progresses from teacher-directed to open inquiry experiences to a continuum that also deliberately includes and promotes the necessary criteria for establishing flow. Attending to Flow Theory and incorporating student experiences with flow into inquiry-based science lessons will enhance student motivation and achievement outcomes in science and bolster the success of inquiry-based science.

What is a scientific experiment?: The impact of a professional development course on teachers’ ability to design an inquiry-based science curriculum

Designing inquiry-based science lessons can be a challenge for secondary school teachers. In this study we evaluated the development of in-service teachers’ lesson plans as they took part in a 10-month professional development course in Peru which engaged teachers in the design of inquiry-based lessons. At the beginning, most teachers designed either confirmatory or structured inquiry activities. As the course progressed, however, they started designing guided and open inquiry lesson plans. We found four factors that accounted for this change: re-evaluating the need for lab materials, revising their views on the nature of science, engaging in guided and open inquiry activities themselves, and trying out inquiry-based lessons with their own students. Our results point to the importance of engaging teachers in prolonged and varied opportunities for inquiry as part of teacher education programs in order to achieve the challenge of changing teachers’ views and practices in science education.

Revisiting the Authoritative–Dialogic Tension in Inquiry-Based Elementary Science Teacher Questioning

Building on the ‘questioning-based discourse analytical’ framework developed by Singapore-based science educator and discourse analyst, Christine Chin, this study investigated the extent to which fifth-grade science teachers' use of questions with either an authoritative or dialogic orientation differentially restricted or expanded the quality and complexity of student responses in the USA. The author analyzed approximately 10 hours of classroom discourse from elementary science classrooms organized around inquiry-based science curricula and texts. Teacher questions and feedback were classified according to their dialogic orientation and contextually inferred structural purpose, while student understanding was operationalized as a dynamic interaction between cognitive process, syntacto-semantic complexity, and science knowledge type. The results of this study closely mirror Chin's and other scholars' findings that the fixed nature of authoritatively oriented questioning can dramatically limit students' opportunities to demonstrate higher order scientific understanding, while dialogically oriented questions, by contrast, often grant students the discursive space to demonstrate a greater breadth and depth of both canonical and self-generated knowledge. However, certain teacher questioning sequences occupying the ‘middle ground’ between maximal authoritativeness and dialogicity revealed patterns of meaningful, if isolated, instances of higher order thinking. Implications for classroom practice are discussed along with recommendations for future research.

Inquiry-Based Science: Turning Teachable Moments into Learnable Moments

This study examines how an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning creates teachable moments that can foster conceptual understanding in students, and how teachers capitalize upon these moments. Six elementary school teachers were videotaped as they implemented an integrated inquiry-based science and literacy curriculum in their classrooms. In this curriculum, science inquiry implies that students search for evidence in order to make and revise explanations based on the evidence found and through critical and logical thinking. Furthermore, the curriculum material is designed to address science key concepts multiple times through multiple modalities (do it, say it, read it, write it). Two types of teachable moments were identified: planned and spontaneous. Results suggest that the consolidation phases of inquiry, when students reinforce new knowledge and connect their empirical findings to theory, can be considered as planned teachable moments. These are phases of inquiry during which the teacher should expect, and be prepared for, student utterances that create opportunities to further student learning. Spontaneous teachable moments are instances when the teacher must choose to either follow the pace of the curriculum or adapt to the students’ need. One implication of the study is that more teacher support is required in terms of how to plan for and effectively utilize the consolidation phases of inquiry.

Epistemic Beliefs, Online Search Strategies, and Behavioral Patterns While Exploring Socioscientific Issues

Online information searching tasks are usually implemented in a technology-enhanced science curriculum or merged in an inquiry-based science curriculum. The purpose of this study was to examine the role students’ different levels of scientific epistemic beliefs (SEBs) play in their online information searching strategies and behaviors. Based on the measurement of an SEB survey, 42 undergraduate and graduate students in Taiwan were recruited from a pool of 240 students and were divided into sophisticated and naive SEB groups. The students’ self-perceived online searching strategies were evaluated by the Online Information Searching Strategies Inventory, and their search behaviors were recorded by screen-capture videos. A sequential analysis was further used to analyze the students’ searching behavioral patterns. The results showed that those students with more sophisticated SEBs tended to employ more advanced online searching strategies and to demonstrate a more metacognitive searching pattern.

The effects of integrated information literacy in science curriculum on first-grade students’ memory and comprehension using the super3 model

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of integrated information literacy in first-grade science curriculum on students’ science learning. In this quasi-experimental study, two first-grade classrooms from a public elementary school were randomly assigned into the experimental group and control group. The former accepted an inquiry-based science curriculum infused information literacy using the Super3 model, while the latter accepted the traditional lecture-oriented instruction. The instructional unit in both experimental and control groups was taught by the same science teacher and lasted around three weeks, seven periods of time per week. Two tests were designed to test student’s memory of factual information and comprehension of scientific concepts. Results from the analyses of covariance showed that the experimental group significantly outperformed their counterparts on two measures of science learning. It is suggested that integrated information literacy instruction could have a positive impact on first-graders’ subject content learning and lay a foundation for young children to be lifelong learners.

NSF Program Benefits Schools in Need

We are among the many scientists “shocked and upset” by the recent decision by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to terminate the successful GK-12 (Graduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Fellows in K–12 Education) program (“Outrage greets NSF decision to end STEM Fellows program,” J. Mervis, News & Analysis, 4 March, p. [1127][1]). Our use of these funds provides one example of the program's value. Our program deploys graduate student Fellows to rural Oregon elementary schools, where they live as scientists-in-residence with hosts for 2 weeks per academic quarter, during which they co-teach children alongside teachers, implementing professionally developed inquiry-based science curriculum kits (lesson plans, materials, and equipment). Because these schools are far from universities and other centers of science or technology, the GK-12 Fellows are in many cases the only scientists the students have ever met. The teachers also have poor connections to experts and have little prior training in teaching hands-on, inquiry-based science; working with Fellows is crucial for adopting tools that will be effective after the Fellows' departure. The program benefits the Fellows by providing valuable training in communication and organization. Ours is just one of many GK-12 programs nationwide that share the goal of improving science education. We find it remarkable that the entirety of GK-12 will be terminated, with focus redirected to “NSF programs that… partner academic scientists with local school districts.” The local environs of universities are arguably the places least in need of additional outreach efforts. The publicly funded U.S. research infrastructure has been extremely successful in advancing scientific knowledge, but largely unsuccessful in developing a public understanding of science. The nation needs more, not fewer, programs like GK-12. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6021/1127.full

Improving Middle School Students’ Science Literacy Through Reading Infusion

ABSTRACT Despite recent calls for border crossing between reading and science, few studies have examined the impact of reading infusion in the science curriculum on students’ science literacy. In this quasi-experimental study, the authors investigated the effects of an inquiry-based science curriculum that integrated explicit reading strategy instruction and quality science trade books on the development of science literacy among middle school students. Students in 10 sixth-grade science classes from 1 public middle school in the United States were randomly assigned to 2 conditions: inquiry-based science only (IS) and inquiry-based science plus reading (ISR). Results from the analyses of covariance showed that the ISR students significantly outperformed their IS peers on all measures of science literacy. It was suggested that even a modest amount of reading infusion could have a positive impact on middle school students’ science literacy. The limitations and implications of the study were also discussed.

Curriculum design for inquiry: Preservice elementary teachers' mobilization and adaptation of science curriculum materials

Curriculum materials are crucial tools with which teachers engage students in science as inquiry. In order to use curriculum materials effectively, however, teachers must develop a robust capacity for pedagogical design, or the ability to mobilize a variety of personal and curricular resources to promote student learning. The purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding of the ways in which preservice elementary teachers mobilize and adapt existing science curriculum materials to plan inquiry-oriented science lessons. Using quantitative methods, we investigated preservice teachers' curriculum design decision-making and how their decisions influenced the inquiry orientations of their planned science lessons. Findings indicate that preservice elementary teachers were able to accurately assess how inquiry-based existing curriculum materials are and to adapt them to make them more inquiry-based. However, the inquiry orientations of their planned lessons were in large part determined by how inquiry-oriented curriculum materials they used to plan their lessons were to begin with. These findings have important implications for the design of teacher education experiences that foster preservice elementary teachers' pedagogical design capacities for inquiry, as well as the development of inquiry-based science curriculum materials that support preservice and beginning elementary teachers to engage in effective science teaching practice. 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 820-839, 2010

SRA Winner-Mediation of Behavioral Outcomes in a Middle School Obesity Risk-Reduction Nutrition Curriculum Intervention: Choice, Control, & Change (C3)

To examine the mediation effects of psychosocial variables on energy balance related behaviors (EBRBs) that were the targeted outcomes for an inquiry-based science curriculum intervention called Choice, Control, and Change (C3).

Effects of 3D virtual reality of plate tectonics on fifth grade students' achievement and attitude toward science

This study examines the effects of a teaching method using 3D virtual reality simulations on achievement and attitude toward science. An experiment was conducted with fifth-grade students (N = 41) to examine the effects of 3D simulations, designed to support inquiry-based science curriculum. An ANOVA analysis revealed that the 3D group scored significantly higher on the achievement test (F = 7.03, p < .05) than the control group using traditional 2D visuals. A positive change of attitude toward science was identified in both 3D and 2D groups, but it was not statistically significant. A robust regression analysis revealed that neither gender nor ethnicity had any significant effect on achievement tests or attitude. However, prior attitude had a significant determining effect for later attitude in both groups.

Linking Urban Latino Families to School Using the Web

What happens when a community that has previously had very little or no exposure to the Internet receives Internet access at home? This paper describes a project that provided television set-top Internet access devices to Latino families as part of a project to link the school and home in an inquiry-based science curriculum. The early phases of adoption of the Internet and “NetTV” devices by families are described, with special attention paid to different ways families appropriate and make educational use of the Internet.

Science education partnership between the University of Colorado and a Denver High School.

The authors describe a partnership, begun in 1997, between Manual High School, a school in which about 85% of the students are African, American or Hispanic, and the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. There are three partnership goals: help teachers transform a lecture-based curriculum into an inquiry-based curriculum, help students build their science knowledge, and give students opportunities to learn--and become excited--about careers in medicine. The current emphasis of the partnership is at the ninth-grade level. The first unique aspect of the partnership is the Medical Explorers program. One portion of the program begins when a hypothetical teenage car-crash victim arrives at the emergency room; over the next six weeks, practicing health care professionals dramatize their medical responsibilities to this patient and discuss the academic training necessary to fulfill those responsibilities. In addition, the Medical Explorers students travel to the Health Sciences Center, where they tour laboratories and clinics, help conduct experiments, and explore computer-based surgical simulations. The second unique program is a service learning project in which ninth-grade students assist with an activity that gives elementary school students a chance to participate in the process of scientific inquiry and to discover the wonder of real hearts and lungs; the ninth-graders assist with logistics (e.g., they distribute newspapers), and, more important, interact with the younger students by asking thoughtful questions of them. The partnership plans to incorporate the elementary and middle schools that graduate their students to Manual High School in order to encourage the implementation of inquiry-based science curricula and to provide sustained support to teachers throughout the entire K-12 educational pathway. If medical colleges can help teachers provide a consistent classroom draw for student fascination in science and medicine, then the colleges are more likely to help create a rich diversity of students who pursue careers in medicine.