Support Inquiry Learning Research Articles

Analysing students' concept mapping style and its association with task performance in computer‐based inquiry learning

AbstractBackgroundIn scientific inquiry learning, students often have difficulties conducting hypothetical reasoning with multiple intertwined variables. Concept maps have a potential to facilitate complex thinking and reasoning. However, there is little investigation into the content of student‐constructed concept maps and its association with inquiry task performance.ObjectivesThis study explored students' concept mapping style and its association with task performance in computer‐based inquiry learning.MethodsAn exploratory study was conducted with 80 Grade 11 students, who collaboratively constructed concept maps in a free style to support inquiry learning with a virtual ecosystem. Student‐constructed concept maps was analysed by firstly identifying different types of propositions formed in the maps and then determining the style of each concept map based on the dominant type of propositions in the map. Finally, the association between the concept map style and inquiry task performance was explored.Results and ConclusionsTwo major concept map styles were identified: (1) knowledge‐oriented concept maps (KCMs) mainly representing problem‐related subject knowledge as a set of concepts and their relationships, and (2) problem‐oriented concept maps (PCMs) mainly representing problem situation as a sequence of changes and their causal relationships. Compared with those constructing KCMs, the students constructing PCMs formed higher‐quality propositions in their maps and performed better in hypothesising, reasoning, and drawing conclusions in the inquiry task.ImplicationsBesides KCMs, students in inquiry learning can be encouraged to construct PCMs to foster effective thinking and reasoning; that is, constructing a concept map to represent the problem situation as a sequence of changes and the causal relationships between the changes.

Community Citizen Science Inquiry: The Case of nQuire

Community citizen science inquiry is a combination of two ideas: first, citizen science inquiry (mass participation citizen science and learning to be a scientist through scientific inquiry, (Herodotou et al, 2017), and a concern to involve participation by the members of a community for community purposes. We describe the work we have done on this topic developing from our initial experiments in supporting inquiry learning with school children using technology and describing how this work has developed through conducting a number of studies involving students in a university technical college, and distance education students, then widened into investigation of the ideas with members of the public conducting citizen inquiries. These experiences have been supported by the development of the web platform nQuire (http://www.nquire.org.uk) which is now the basis of our work. 
 Our approach to citizen inquiry is driven by a concern for the nature of the participation from which members of the public can benefit and goes beyond involving people solely as volunteer data collectors. We report here on our experiences of the different types of inquiries or missions which have run on the platform since 2018, and the views of some participants on their involvement. We also discuss the issues in developing our vision of community citizen science inquiry and a potential centre for democratising research.

Supporting Inquiry Learning: an Intellectual Mirror that Describes what It “Sees”

Muchimportant research on the learning of mathematics with technology-supported inquiry has been devoted to learning with multiple-linked representations (MLR) as a mode of feedback. Like a mirror, MLR feedback helps students see their actions in one representation “reflected” in another. Yet, research has followed learning episodes where MLR feedback did not lead to concept formation and the achievement of curricular goals. This article reports on the potential of what might be thought of as a mirror that speaks. In response to example-eliciting tasks, students use interactive diagrams to create examples to which mathematical descriptions are automatically associated. Such descriptions may be thought of as another kind of linked mathematical representation system. Transitions feature in two ways in our analysis of students’ use of this representation. At the level of student activity, we examine when students move between attending to textual descriptions and to the graphs that they describe. We are also interested in how attention to these descriptions and co-ordination with their own use of these words can support students in making a transition in their thinking from considering distance as only total distance traveled, to a co-ordinated view of distance including both total distance traveled and distance from a starting point. This article focuses on two example-eliciting motion tasks and two sets of descriptive words. We found that these sets of words helped students, while and after they were working with the diagram, to distinguish between total distance traveled and position with respect to a starting point.

Physical Sciences Teachers’ Enactment of Simulations in 5E Inquiry-Based Science Teaching

The aim of this study was to investigate the pedagogical actions of Physical Sciences teachers when enacting simulations in 5E inquiry-based science teaching for current electricity. Three grade 10 teachers from three high schools who were teaching at schools where ICT resources are available participated in this study. Data was collected by means of lesson observations and interviews. The lesson observation and interview transcripts were coded to generate themes. The results of this study showed that the simulations enable teachers to afford learners with opportunities to engage in hands-on inquiry based on the 5E model. The hands-on activities that students engage in on the simulation help them to explain phenomena from evidence and also allow them to acquire autonomy from the teacher. When students are hands-on, they get the chance to test their hypothesis and also to develop their understanding of the phenomenon that is investigated. Through the use of the simulated activity, teachers were able to support leaners to reflect on activities to reconcile their new knowledge with previous ideas. While it is acknowledged that PhET simulated activity is not a substitute for hands-on practical work in a laboratory, the findings show it can be a powerful tool for supporting inquiry learning.

Do Video Modeling and Metacognitive Prompts Improve Self-Regulated Scientific Inquiry?

AbstractGuided inquiry learning is an effective method for learning about scientific concepts. The present study investigated the effects of combining video modeling (VM) examples and metacognitive prompts on university students’ (N = 127) scientific reasoning and self-regulation during inquiry learning. We compared the effects of watching VM examples combined with prompts (VMP) to watching VM examples only, and to unguided inquiry (control) in a training and a transfer task. Dependent variables were scientific reasoning ability, hypothesis and argumentation quality, and scientific reasoning and self-regulation processes. Participants in the VMP and VM conditions had higher hypothesis and argumentation quality in the training task and higher hypothesis quality in the transfer task compared to the control group. There was no added benefit of the prompts. Screen captures and think aloud protocols during the two tasks served to obtain insights into students’ scientific reasoning and self-regulation processes. Epistemic network analysis (ENA) and process mining were used to model the co-occurrence and sequences of these processes. The ENA identified stronger co-occurrences between scientific reasoning and self-regulation processes in the two VM conditions compared to the control condition. Process mining revealed that in the VM conditions these processes occurred in unique sequences and that self-regulation processes had many self-loops. Our findings show that video modeling examples are a promising instructional method for supporting inquiry learning on both the process and the learning outcomes level.

Instructional improv to analyze inquiry-based science teaching: Zed\u2019s dead and the missing flower

In inquiry-based science lessons teachers face the challenge of adhering to curricular goals while simultaneously following students’ intuitive understandings. Improvisation (improv) provides a useful frame for understanding teaching in these inquiry-based contexts. This paper builds from prior work that uses improv as a metaphor for teaching to present a translated model for analysis of teaching in an inquiry-based, elementary school science lesson context. We call our model instructional improv, which shows how a teacher spontaneously synthesizes rules of improv with teaching practices to support student learning, engagement, and agency. We illustrate instructional improv through case study analysis of video recorded classroom interactions with one teacher and 26 first and second grade students learning about the complex system of honey bee pollination in a mixed reality environment. Our model includes the following defining features to describe how teaching happens in this context: the teacher 1) tells a story; 2) reframes mistakes as opportunities; 3) agrees; 4) yes ands; 5) makes statements (or asks questions that elicit statements); and 6) puts the needs of the classroom ensemble over individuals. Overall, we show how instructional improv helps explain how teachers can support science discourse and collective storytelling as a teacher (a) shifts power and agency to students; (b) balances learning and agency; and (c) makes purposeful instructional decisions. Findings have immediate implications for researchers analyzing interactions in inquiry-based learning environments and potential future implications for teachers to support inquiry learning.

Exploring assessment in STEM inquiry learning classrooms

ABSTRACT This article introduces this special issue by addressing the types of assessment practices that are possible within STEM inquiry classrooms, where the focus is on noticing, developing, and improving inquiry competencies. Three domains are explored: informal formative assessment occurring in classroom interactions; structured formative assessment when teachers or peers collect information at a planned time; ongoing evolution of teachers’ knowledge and practices. We analyse how classroom formative assessment practices develop alongside and support inquiry learning. We report on how STEM teachers might be supported in transforming their teaching practices and assessment methods in tandem. We focus on the role of classroom discussion to challenge students’ ideas and make explicit their reasoning. We highlight how interactions between teachers and students support students in being more active in the assessment process. Combining inquiry learning with adapted assessment practices requires teachers to make significant changes to their practices. They need to be aware of how students develop their learning. Such professional moves are complex because implementing formative and summative assessments in a complementary manner remains a challenge for teachers and researchers. We emphasise how the collaboration between researchers and teachers support teachers in making changes to their professional knowledge, beliefs, and classroom practices.

Comment on Zacharia et al., A review of data about effectiveness of guidance in computer supported, inquiry based learning laboratories and simulations

This review is in response to “Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: a literature review,” by Zacharia et al. (Educ Technol Res Dev 63:257–302, 2015). This review is focused on the perspective of a high school teacher or college professor attempting to provide a computer supported inquiry learning (CoSIL) environment for use online or in a classroom. The impact of Zacharia et al. is strong, as it is an excellent summary of (1) the optimal phases of inquiry based learning (IBL) experience and (2) the categories of guidance that that are effective at fostering student progress through IBL experiences. Application of this paper is as a Rosetta Stone to allow teachers, game designers and education researchers to communicate and build in the same space to create a blended experience. The limitation of this paper is that there are not yet very many studies of guidance and its effect on computer assisted IBL. Future suggestions are for teachers to use computer based simulations, add discussion and simple, real life activities to provide optimal IBL experience. Teachers can add their own guidance to support computer based simulations thus providing an enhanced experience for shifting to digital.

Advancing automatic guidance in virtual science inquiry: from ease of use to personalization.

This article is in response to the review entitled “Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: a literature review” (Zacharia et al. in Educ Technol Res Dev 63(2): 257–302). As COVID-19 alerts us to shift science education to digital when in-person schooling is not viable, one approach to facilitate this shift, as reviewed by Zacharia et al. (2015), is to involve students in computer supported inquiry learning (CoSIL) with appropriate guidance. As CoSIL guidance is critical to student success in CoSIL, Zacharia et al. (2015) contribute to our knowledge by systematically reviewing the forms and the efficacy of such guidance tools that are associated with each phase of scientific inquiry. With such knowledge we may develop decent guidance so that students can experience scientific inquiry virtually as they used to do in-person. Zacharia et al. (2015) indicated that the various guidance tools had increased the ease of use of CoSIL but failed in personalizing CoSIL to individual students. I agree with Zacharia et al. that the personalization of CoSIL guidance is vital. Further, I argue that the emergent machine learning may significantly increase the personalization of CoSIL without burdening teachers. I conclude the essay with suggestions to further investigate the cognitive needs of students in CoSIL and integrate the content, CoSIL, and guidance tools, as a way to move forward the personalization of CoSIL.

Insights on identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science.

This paper is in response to the literature review entitled “Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: a literature review” [Zacharia et al., Educational Technology Research and Development, 63, 257–302 (2015). 10.1007/s11423-015-9370-0] and examines it from a value-add perspective. This literature review illuminates the benefits of leveraging the appropriate types of guidance during the relevant phases of inquiry, a much-needed type of guidance, as it aptly describes how and when to apply the types of guidance for optimal effect. In consideration of some of the weaknesses in the body of literature, as exposed via this literature review, revisiting automated guidance and leveraging any new technological affordances and awareness around adaptive feedback may provide additional insights into how more advanced technologies might contribute to enhanced guidance in computer supported inquiry learning environments.

A primer for transitioning to online science labs: “Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science”

This paper is in response to the manuscript entitled “Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: a literature review” (Zacharia et al., Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: A literature review. Educational Technology Research and Development, 63(2), 257–302, 2015) from a design perspective. The review article identified specific types of guidance to support all forms of inquiry in online labs within the computer supported inquiry learning (CoSIL) environments. During the sudden shift to digital educators and students faced challenges due to lack of preparation to cultivate skills for teaching and learning in the online format. Educators developing and delivering instructions require a range of tools to operationalize the inquiry process in online science labs. Application of the tools provided in this review will support educators venturing into designing online science labs for engaging learners in scientific inquiry. This review have immense impact on how instructors can provide guidance to support learners’ inquiry in online science labs. The limitations include further investigation and modification of several tools that the review provided for implementation in future. Further research is needed to design and facilitate model CoSIL environment for online science labs to support and sustain the process of inquiry learning. This review has significant implication in providing comprehensive information amidst traversing crisis in context to shifting to online labs for supporting inquiry phases as documented in the CoSIL research.

Using a three‐dimensional thinking graph to support inquiry learning

AbstractThe use of external representations has a potential to facilitate inquiry learning, especially in hypothesis generation and scientific reasoning, which are typical difficulties encountered by students. This study proposes and investigates the effects of a three‐dimensional thinking graph (3DTG) that allows learners to combine in a single image, problem information, subject knowledge (key concepts and their relationships), and the hypothesizing and reasoning process involved in exploring a problem, to support inquiry learning. Two classes of eleventh grade students (97 in total) were randomly assigned to use either the 3DTG (i.e., experimental condition) or concept map (i.e., control condition) to complete a group‐based inquiry task in an online environment. Data were collected from multiple data sources, including measures of group inquiry task performance, postknowledge scores, postquestionnaires of student perceptions of consensus building, and open‐ended survey. The analysis of group task performance revealed that participants in the experimental condition performed better in the inquiry task than their counterparts specifically in generating hypotheses and reasoning with data, but not in drawing conclusions. The findings show the 3DTG's benefits in facilitating exploring and justifying hypotheses, and also suggest that the 3DTG can share equal value with concept mapping in terms of drawing conclusions and consensus building. In addition, students using the 3DTG achieved higher scores in the postknowledge test, although no difference was found in their perceptions of consensus building. These findings were validated by students' responses to the survey. Implications of this study and future work are also discussed.

Developing Save Your Food Kit (Sayofu Kit) to Support Inquiry, Improve Student Learning Outcomes at SMP Plus Hidayatul Mubtadiin and Public Awareness on Food Additives

Food additives are materials that can not be separated from the lives of students and the community. Based on the preliminary questionnaire, it indicates the lack of kit supporting material additives in some schools and communities. The research objectives of this development are (1) to develop Kit experiment (SAYOFU KIT) and supplementary books to improve student learning outcomes in the classroom and public awareness on food additives (2) to describe the feasibility and potential effectiveness of SAYOFU KIT developed (3) to analyze the practice of SAYOFU KIT and benefits for students and the community. This development study uses 4-D models Thiagarajan, et al (1974). Through some stages, they are: defining, designing, developing and disseminating which involes the students and community. The developed SAYOFU KIT includes additives sample kit, borax test kit, curcumin test kit, formaldehyde test kit, modification heater to the identification of dyes and dye test paper. The study is conducted at SMP Plus Hidayatul Mubtadiin, and TKIT Al Uswah. The products are validated by experts and education practitioners. Qualitative data processing uses descriptive method, whereas quantitative data by using the N-gain. The average yield of expert validation of SAYOFU KIT with supplementary books 76.50% teacher’s book and 76.30% student’s book are eligible. The average yield of 96.81% validation of educational practitioners criteria, piloting a small group of 83.15%, and 82.89% field trials are very decent. The average yield on the student questionnaire responses SAYOFU kit and supplementary book is 87.6% with the criteria very well worth it. N-Gain 0:56 cognitive achievement with the criteria enough. The results of the public poll showed 95% feel the benefits SAYOFU kits for testing food. Based from description indicates that SAYOFU Kit developed feasible, practical, useful to support inquiry learning and improve student learning outcomes as well as public awareness of food additives.

Identifying potential types of guidance for supporting student inquiry when using virtual and remote labs in science: a literature review

The aim of this review is to identify specific types of guidance for supporting student use of online labs, that is, virtual and remote labs, in an inquiry context. To do so, we reviewed the literature on providing guidance within computer supported inquiry learning (CoSIL) environments in science education and classified all identified guidance according to a recent taxonomy of types of guidance. In addition, we classified the types of guidance in phases of inquiry. Moreover, we examined whether the types of guidance identified for each inquiry phase were found to be effective in promoting student learning, as documented in the CoSIL research. This review identifies what types of effective guidance currently exist and can be applied in developing future CoSIL environments, especially CoSIL environments with online labs. It also highlights the needs/shortcomings of these available types of guidance. Such information is crucial for the design and development of future CoSIL environments with online labs.

English Research Based on Big Data and Data Mining

The arrival in big data ages makes English the research take place an all new change, English research is no longer single traditional unified mode, research target, research object, research resources, research contents, research form, research the method, research evaluation present a diversified complicated characteristics. the writher of the thesis studied a lot about Education Theory, Updated Curriculum Theory, Language Teaching Theory and some other relevant theories. With the aid of philology analysis method and the empirical studies, the writer combined the inquiry learning fashion with English teaching practice and pointed out creatively that Internet function can be fully used to support inquiry learning in English subject.Keywords: Big Data; Data Mining; English Research; Learning

A Scaffolding Framework to Support Learning of Emergent Phenomena Using Multi-Agent-Based Simulation Environments

Students from middle school to college have difficulties in interpreting and understanding complex systems such as ecological phenomena. Researchers have suggested that students experience difficulties in reconciling the relationships between individuals, populations, and species, as well as the interactions between organisms and their environment in the ecosystem. Multi-agent-based computational models (MABMs) can explicitly capture agents and their interactions by representing individual actors as computational objects with assigned rules. As a result, the collective aggregate-level behavior of the population dynamically emerges from simulations that generate the aggregation of these interactions. Past studies have used a variety of scaffolds to help students learn ecological phenomena. Yet, there is no theoretical framework that supports the systematic design of scaffolds to aid students’ learning in MABMs. Our paper addresses this issue by proposing a comprehensive framework for the design, analysis, and evaluation of scaffolding to support students’ learning of ecology in a MABM. We present a study in which middle school students used a MABM to investigate and learn about a desert ecosystem. We identify the different types of scaffolds needed to support inquiry learning activities in this simulation environment and use our theoretical framework to demonstrate the effectiveness of our scaffolds in helping students develop a deep understanding of the complex ecological behaviors represented in the simulation..

Implementing curriculum integration: Three easy lessons from past practice

This article presents three 'lessons' from the legacy of past examples of curriculum integration (CI) in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) to assist teachers who wish to utilise CI as a curriculum design for supporting inquiry learning pedagogies. These lessons reflect an innovative vitality that has long been characteristic of NZ teachers and, given that the extant literature of CI is often silent on practical matters contained within these lessons, this legacy from our past is likely to be valuable to teachers anywhere who have the desire to implement CI.

Using machine-learning and visualisation to facilitate learner interpretation of source material

This paper describes an approach for supporting inquiry learning from source materials, realised and tested through a tool-kit. The approach is optimised for tasks that require a student to make interpretations across sets of resources, where opinions and justifications may be hard to articulate. We adopt a dialogue-based approach to learning whereby the student creates an external representation to reflect their current understanding of the task. This in turn prompts immediate feedback, designed to help the learner to see patterns or irregularities in their current perspective. Through the on-going feedback, the student is encouraged to make incremental changes to achieve a coherent outcome. In this approach, learners are encouraged to generate meaningful responses for themselves, rather than relying on feedback which explicitly provides an answer. This is aimed at prompting deeper processing and understanding of source materials in the context of the given learning goal.

Mobile learning: Two case studies of supporting inquiry learning in informal and semiformal settings

Mobile technologies can support learning across different contexts as their portability enables them to be used by the learner in whichever context she or he is in. They can be particularly beneficial in informal and semiformal contexts where learners have more control over their learning goals and where motivation is often high. Inquiries in informal contexts are likely to be personally relevant in terms of topics of interest and capitalise on learners' location as learners decide what, where, when and whether to learn. There is considerable interest in how such benefits can be harnessed for more formal learning and one challenge is how to make inquiries personally relevant in such contexts. However, there is little literature that considers the structure needed to support informal and semiformal inquiry learning. This paper contributes to that literature by examining dimensions for researchers and designers to consider investigating or developing support for inquiries in informal or semiformal settings. The paper examines two case studies of inquiry learning in contrasting settings in order to understand more about learner control and how technology can support learners' inquiries. Case study one considers the use of web based software to support science inquiry learning by 14–15 year olds in a semiformal context, whilst the second case study reports on informal adult learners using their own mobile technologies to learn about landscape. These case studies are compared and contrasted in terms of the dimensions of learner control, location of learning, and the different support mechanisms for inquiry learning and a framework is proposed for considering these dimensions.

How technology resources can be used to represent personal inquiry and support students' understanding of it across contexts

The Personal Inquiry project is an investigation into the role that technologies can play in enabling effective inquiry. Whilst it is generally agreed that inquiry based learning has potential for student learning, especially in science, three main challenges remain. The first is to provide effective support for inquiry learning, for both students and teachers; the second is to be able to support inquiry learning across a range of contexts including formal settings such as classrooms and informal settings such as the home and the final challenge is to support inquiries that engage the students.This paper addresses how inquiry based activities for students and the teacher orchestration of such activities across time and contexts can be supported by technology, using scripting. Personalisation of the inquiries in terms of relevance and providing students with choice about the inquiries they carry out is an important part of the project’s objective to engage students. A framework for the inquiry learning process is presented and how this framework has influenced the design of the software nQuire is illustrated. Examples are drawn from trials with the software in several different settings with children working on science and geography investigations.