Understandings
National Science Education Standards And Inquiry
Despite two decades of increased focus on teaching science through inquiry, it is still the exception rather than the rule in American high school classrooms (Deters, 2005). In 1996 the National Science Education Standards (NSES) published by the National Research Council (NRC) stated:
"Schools that implement the Standards will have students learning science by actively engaging in inquiries that are interesting and important to them."
"Students could not achieve the Standards in most of today’s schools. Implementation of the Standards will require a sustained, long-term commitment to change." (p. 13)
However, in the interim sixteen years only modest progress has been made towards systematic change. In its most recent publication, A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas, the NRC defines scientific and engineering practices as: “asking questions and defining problems, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations and designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence, and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.” These practices reflect the process that scientists go through to create an understanding of scientific phenomena, and it is assumed that following these practices provides a more authentic experience for students as researchers and active participants in constructing their own understandings of the world around them.
The challenge for educators such as myself, is to develop curriculum that is accessible for a wide range of abilities that still meets these criteria, and accomplishes the tasks of both creating an accurate understanding of scientific principles, as well as developing and refining inquiry skills used to practice science. There are a number of challenges to successful implementation of inquiry-based classrooms that will be discussed after a closer look at the history of inquiry as a pedagogical movement in education.
Origins of Inquiry
Inquiry has its roots in social development theory, constructivism, and open learning. Vygotsky’s theories on social development revolve around the role of social interaction in learning and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD); the zone in which optimal learning is achieved. ZPD is defined as the distance between a student’s ability to perform a task with guidance or peer collaboration, and the student’s ability to solve the problem independently. Once success is experienced the student is able to seek successive challenges (Vygotsky, 1978). Constructivism builds on this idea of layering knowledge to create meaning in a stepwise fashion. The approach emphasizes the need for students to experience the learning environment first hand, what is described as experiential learning. The student takes an active role in layering new mental constructs about the world around them through concrete interactions that provide a solid foundation of trustworthy knowledge. Inquiry learning also assumes that knowledge is built in this step-wise fashion.
Von Glaserfeld (1989), a prominent constructivist wrote:
"Students may not have the same particular goals that scientists try to attain. But unless we assume that they share, with the inventors and developers of the conceptual models we call science, the goal of constructing a relatively reliable and coherent model of their individual experiential worlds, we cannot lead them to expand their understanding. Memorizing facts and training in rote procedures cannot achieve this." (p. 133)
Open learning theorists propose learning without the constraints of a ‘right answer,’ or explicit objectives, and instead emphasize following a path of inquiry, where students manipulate information and actively seek to create meaning from a set of given materials or circumstances. Both John Dewey and Martin Wagenschein were strong proponents of open learning as a means to understanding over rote memorization of knowledge. In his 1916 Democracy and Education Dewey discusses how in a school environment learning often occurs out of context:
"There is a strong temptation to assume that presenting subject matter in its perfected form provides a royal road to learning. What is more natural than to suppose that the immature can be saved time and energy, and be protected from needless error by commencing where competent inquirers have left off? The outcome is written large in the history of education. Pupils begin their study of science with texts in which the subject is organized into topics according to the order of the specialist. Technical concepts, with their definitions, are introduced at the outset. Laws are introduced at a very early stage, with at best a few indications of the way in which they were arrived at. The pupils learn a “science” instead of learning the scientific way of treating the familiar material of ordinary experience." (Chapter 17: The Development of Attention, para. 4)
My own academic experience of science closely followed Deweys dystopic scenario above, very little of the learning resembled authentic scientific practice. While it is impossible to expect students to rediscover the pre-existing body of scientific knowledge so that they have experienced it all themselves, it is possible to explore new areas of interest within a field using a more authentic form of scientific practice.
Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy, released in 1993 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, takes further steps to distinguish between inquiry and the current practice in most high school science classes:
"The usual high school science “experiment” is unlike the real thing. The question to be investigated is decided by the teacher, not the investigators; what apparatus to use, what data to collect and how to organize the data are also decided by the teacher (or the lab manual); time is not made available for repetitions or, when things are not working out, for revising the experiment; the results are not presented to other investigators for criticism; and, to top it off, the correct answer is known ahead of time." (p. 9)
It is the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Dewey’s belief that by reducing learning to memorization of predigested information we strip students of the rich learning possibilities inherent in authentic scientific exploration. In a recent class the students and myself set out to determine whether adding a solute had any effect on the boiling point of water. In groups they boiled water with different concentrations of sugar and salt. After they collected their data they graphed their results and presented them to the class. Even though I set up this exploration by soliciting student ideas about what concentrations to use and how to set up their apparatus, it is only slightly different from a ‘traditional’ lab. The answer is easy to research, I chose the topic we were going to explore, and I wanted them to practice graphing and interpreting data, all very common goals for high school lab exercises. Where it took a dramatic turn was after the students presented their data. It was all over the map. We couldn’t conclusively determine what the effect of a solute was on the boiling point of water if our lives depended on it. In traditional classrooms students would have been graded on their performance (against the known outcome of adding solute to water) and they would have had a discussion about what the ‘right’ answer was and then moved on. However, in my class the students noticed that nobody had consistent data. They began to speculate about what could have affected their results. We tabulated an extensive list of possible experimental errors and then devised a procedure to eliminate as many as possible. The class also decided to do multiple trials of each solution to enlarge the sample size and make the results more statistically relevant. Then as a class they conducted the experiment. Thermometers were standardized; one heating pad was heated first and used for every trial; one person kept time for temperature recordings, and data was collected in a Google spreadsheet. Once the data was collected the trials were averaged and graphed. The results were far more consistent and the students felt that they could conclusively show that adding sugar to water increased the boiling point. Determining this from their own data was significantly more powerful than learning it passively from me in a lecture. The students owned the learning and they owned the results.
However, as a student, I also see the value in learning from the work of others and not having to re-learn what has already been established. Research is a valuable learning tool and considered part of the scientific process. Scientists communicate their findings so that other scientists, or the public, can learn about what they discovered and not reinvent the wheel for their own research. Incorporating research into the classroom is a great way for students to acquire knowledge and lay foundational layers for inquiry learning. I have yet to find the perfect balance of research and inquiry, but I suspect that the two alternate, like different beads on a necklace, one strung after the other in a complementary way. This is an area I’d like to explore in more depth.
More recently, Hammerman (2006) described the eight essential elements of inquiry-based science instruction: (1) inquiry develops an understanding of basic concepts and (2) develops process and thinking skills; (3) inquiry builds understanding of ways that science is linked to technology and society and (4) provides experience necessary to support and develop or modify interpretations of the world; (5) inquiry enhances reading and writing; (6) allows for a diversity of strategies or learning; (7) allows for a variety of ways for students to show what they know; and (8) actively engages students in the learning cycle. These are wonderful ideals, however, whether they are met in all inquiry-based classrooms is debatable.
My Definition of Inquiry
Consistent with the literature, I define inquiry skills as observing, questioning, exploring, researching, and connecting. These practices make up more than just good scientific practice; they provide the foundation of reasoning with which to view learning and the world around us.
Observing includes refining attention to detail, pattern and anomaly recognition, and cultivating patience while suspending judgment. Students usually treat observation in a self-explanatory and rote fashion, but in actuality it is a subtle skill that requires practice and cultivation over a long period of time.
Questioning is perhaps the most intuitive of the inquiry skills. Humans are innately curious creatures, and our capacity to generate questions about our environment is nearly infinite. As a class exercise I recently had students generate questions about class discussions and readings every day. By the end of the week we had a phenomenal question bank on scientific phenomena. The challenging aspect to questioning is to develop questions that allow for exploration. Questions such as ‘How does magnetism work?’ are difficult for students to design an experiment around. However, reframing the question to state, ‘What materials exhibit magnetic properties?’ clearly lends itself to exploration and concrete data collection. Testable questions are difficult to frame, especially for students new to the inquiry process. Creating investigable questions around which an experiment may be developed will require careful scaffolding.
Exploring combines the execution of experimental steps, data collection, data analysis, and supporting a claim from evidence gathered. This is probably the most significant and difficult portion of the inquiry process requiring the most guidance before students feel comfortable with the steps involved. However, if students can frame an investigable question, the data collection usually flows quite easily. Formulating a claim from their observations and understanding exactly what they have found requires practice. I use mini explorations as extra practice for students to create hypothesis or claims about what is going on. For example, during gas law explorations students place a small marshmallow in a 50mL syringe. They then increase or decrease the pressure by capping the end and pulling or pushing on the plunger. The marshmallow shrinks and expands respectively. After exploring and observing what happens to their marshmallow, students generate a hypothesis about what is happening at the molecular level. Claims are written on the board and the students cobble together a more refined hypothesis from the existing ideas. Even though the experiment portion is controlled and simple, this type of exercise helps students develop scientific reasoning based on prior knowledge and to generate claims based on observations. An extension of the activity is to have students generate another more in depth experiment to test their new claim.
In order to bridge the gap between the novice nature of student inquiry skills and the goal of content acquisition, I have added researching as an inquiry skill. This allows for students to consult the literature on their topic and learn from experts. Scientists keep abreast of the accumulating literature in their field of interest, building on their knowledge base. It is imperative that students who are just beginning to construct an understanding of scientific principles, access expert opinions to help form accurate concept schema of the discipline being explored. In my classroom this often comes after an initial exploration to solidify and refine their newly acquired knowledge.
The final step in the inquiry loop is connection. Discussing, publishing, or presenting claims and evidence from exploration helps students anchor their work in the broader community and engages them in the global discourse around their area of study. An authentic audience also helps with motivation and legitimizes the efforts students put into their work.
Challenges to Implementing Inquiry in the Classroom
Given the emphasis on inquiry in the NRC released standards and the literature, why have more teachers and districts not implemented inquiry based teaching strategies in their classrooms? The reasons range from external legislative constraints such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, to inadequate teacher training, to pedagogical resistance of teachers or administrators. Further complicating successful implementation are underlying issues related to student motivation and engagement.
The NCLB Act passed by Congress in 2001 linked funding to student performance in basic skills. Inquiry skills are very difficult to assess, and standardized tests often revert to assessing basic content knowledge instead of the more complex inquiry based skills stressed in the national standards. In addition, schools receiving title I funds are required to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), meaning that students in a particular grade must receive higher scores than the previous year’s students in the same grade (No Child Left Behind, 2002). Schools in jeopardy of not making annual yearly progress may feel significant pressure to teach to the test. This type of pressure often reduces the classroom environment to a ‘drill and kill’ type of teaching style. This has drastic consequences for student motivation and engagement (Sheldon and Biddle, 1998).
Implementing inquiry in the classroom is challenging. Most teachers are educated through lecture-based classes in university. According to a survey by Abraham (1997) 91% of universities in the United States use direct laboratory instruction in general chemistry. In addition, a survey of high school chemistry teachers found that almost half did not use any type of inquiry based laboratory activities in their classroom (Deters, 2005). Teachers often default to what they feel most comfortable with in a classroom, and it often mirrors their own educational experience. It is difficult to adopt inquiry-based methods of teaching if you have never experienced it yourself.
The planning stage is often the most important and one of the most difficult for the novice teacher. Inquiry-based learning is not something that can be put into action in the classroom quickly. A great deal of thought is required to address how standards will be incorporated, how students’ knowledge and performance will be assessed, and how to navigate the open ended nature of student exploration. The teacher’s responsibility during inquiry is to support and facilitate student learning (Bell et. al. 2010). The trick is to support student learning without providing too much information–eliminating the need for students to engage in critical thinking–but providing enough to prevent undo frustration. Without prior experience it can be a difficult line to walk.
Novice teachers’ first attempts to scaffold inquiry in the classroom can be disastrous, as I have learned from personal experience. Without significant and artful scaffolding, many students lack the skills to participate in open-ended inquiry. The first few times I tried an open inquiry design, a handful of my students possessed the necessary skills to run with the project, and the vast majority floundered, unable to begin. The most challenging aspects for them were coming up with an area to explore without really having any prior experience with the subject matter, and with the inquiry process itself. I had assumed that everyone had already been exposed to science fairs and experiment design beginning in elementary school, which was my experience when I was a child. What was immediately obvious in my classroom was that students did not understand how to (a) generate an investigable question, or (b) logically create an experiment to test an investigable question once they had thought of one.
A common mistake novice teachers make is lacking the vision to see where students’ weaknesses lie. Bain (2005) points out that teachers often assume that students will hold the same assumptions and thinking processes as a professional within that discipline. However, students have not yet developed the prerequisite body of understanding to work in this manner and must be adequately guided to ensure success and eventual mastery. Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) reviewed multiple studies that suggest that minimally guided instruction causes student frustration, incomplete concept schema development and cognitive working memory overload, impairing long-term learning and information retrieval (Brown, 1994; Arocha and Patel 1995; Sweller, 2004).
In response, Hmelo-Silver et. al. (2007) argued that inquiry and problem-based learning were not intended to be minimally guided, and in fact require extensive scaffolding and guidance for students to actualize the benefits of working in complex environments. The key would seem to lie in teacher professional development opportunities. However, studies on teacher professional development aimed at increasing inquiry based instruction have had mixed success. Factors such as deep content knowledge, access to inquiry experiences, teachers preconceived beliefs about their students’ ability to learn science, and institutional support mechanisms all play a significant role in the efficacy of inquiry based professional development (Banerjee, 2010; Johnson, 2006; Leonard et. al. 2011).
In an effort to help teachers scaffold inquiry, Banchi and Bell (2008) suggest there are four levels of inquiry based learning in science education: confirmation inquiry, structured inquiry, guided inquiry, and open inquiry.
I plan to use these layers in scaffolding inquiry in my classroom to help students become familiar with inquiry skills and move towards greater autonomy in a structured and supported manner.
The Thorny Issue of Student Motivation and Grit
One of the critical factors in student learning is motivation. Early work by Pintrich et. al. (1993) described three aspects of motivation; relevance, mastery, and autonomy. If a task is felt to be relevant or important to the individual they are far more likely to complete it than if it feels unnecessary. In addition, if a person feels that the task is within their capabilities, something they can do well, they are also more likely to attempt it. Finally, if a person has significant input into how they will complete the task, they have a higher level of motivation to complete the task as compared to a situation where they do not have autonomy over how the task is performed. These factors play a role in affecting conceptual change, where a concept is described as a belief, idea, or way of thinking. In science, this progression may start with a scientific observation such as; gravity makes things fall towards the ground. Watching astronauts in space would require a shift in our thinking about gravity; it doesn’t seem to apply in space. This shift is of course not entirely correct, and requires yet another conceptual shift before accurately describing the phenomenon; that all physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their masses.
Pintrich found that students who were goal oriented in nature required little external motivation to complete tasks and pursued deeper learning strategies such as rehearsal, elaboration, and information organizational strategies such as concept maps. He also found that students across the board perform better on tasks when they value them, when they believe they can do well on them, and when they believe they are in control of the outcome of their own effort. To this end, more authentic tasks, more student autonomy, and more student authority are associated with higher levels of student motivation. Inquiry learning often includes these features. Unfortunately, research relating inquiry and student motivation is sparse. Early research by Mistler-Jackson and Songer (2000), as well as, Patrick and Yoon (2004) both observed small numbers of students throughout an inquiry based unit. However, due to a small sample size (n=6) and that their results were not linked to typical motivational constructs such as that developed by Pintrich, their results were difficult to categorize in a useful way. The researchers claimed that according to pre and post assessments the six focus students gained significant knowledge of the atmospheric science covered in the program and interviews revealed a high level of motivation. Sandoval and Harven (2011) analyzed urban middle school students’ perceptions of the value and difficulty of specific inquiry tasks in the context of Expectancy-Value Theory developed by Wigfield and Eccles (2000). Expectancy-Value Theorists believe that humans are goal oriented beings and will alter their behavior to maximize expected success and value from tasks they perform. They found that students rated the utility of inquiry tasks highly and furthermore they found that students valued the utility of knowing how to back up their ideas with evidence. Interestingly, disadvantaged students felt this was more useful than their more socioeconomically advantaged counterparts. Another study exploring professional development and inquiry underscores the necessity of clearly communicating the relevance of inquiry. In informal surveys researchers found that while 83% of students liked guided inquiry, and 54% felt that inquiry helped them to improve their self confidence, students did not think that inquiry was useful in preparing for graduation tests and college. They had learned from their older peers that hardly any inquiry was done in college courses (Banerjee, 2010).
These seemingly dissonant views on inquiry point to the importance of student perceptions about their own learning and highlight the fact that students can have a significant effect on their own ability to learn. If students do not see immediate value in the subject at hand they will often lose focus quickly and disengage. This is a difficult situation for the inquiry based science teacher, because despite the increased autonomy, authenticity, and potential for mastery of true inquiry, it is also very, very hard. The tendency for students to shut down or resist taking on the thinking required to do authentic inquiry is substantial, even with careful scaffolding. Current research by Duckworth and Seligman (2005) has shed some light on this piece of the learning puzzle. They found that self-discipline was a better predictor of academic performance than IQ. In fact, the researchers found that:
"Highly self disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic- performance variable, inluding report card grades, standardized achievement test scores, admission to a competitive high school and attendance. (p.941)"
These self disciplined students may be similar to individuals who fell into the ‘goal oriented’ category coined by Pintrich. Duckworth and Seligman go on to speculate that our society’s focus on instant gratification may mean that today’s students have not developed the self discipline required to achieve academic success. Whether or not our cultural self discipline is on the decline, I think Duckworth and Seligman’s research is valid and profound.
So what factors result in disciplined action? The roots may circle back to motivation and require us to further unpack the research in this area. Vallerand, et. al. (1992) break down motivation into three main categories: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation. These categories are further broken down to create a continuum of motivational factors influencing curiosity, persistence, learning and performance. A brief summary of each type follows below.
Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation can be broken down into three main types. Intrinsic motivation–to know is the motivation to learn purely for the experience of learning new things. Intrinsic motivation–to accomplish is defined as the pleasure received when accomplishing or creating something and the feeling of competence associated with it. Finally, intrinsic motivation–to experience stimulation is the driving force behind individuals seeking opportunities to delve into cognitive pleasures such as seeking out stimulating discussions, visiting museums for the aesthetic and intellectual rush, or experiencing flow or peak experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975).
Extrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation lies behind behaviors that are engaged in as a means to an end and not for their own sake. However, they form a continuum from lower to higher levels of self-determination. The first and lowest level is external regulation, which is compliance through rewards and constraints. An example would be a student studies because their parents have taken away their X-Box until they do so. The second external motivator is introjected regulation, where the student begins to internalize the reasons for their actions (Vallerand, et. al., 1992; Deci et. al., 1991). For example, a student may study for an exam because that is what they believe good students do. The final category is identification, where an individual has incorporated a behavior due to perceived importance to himself or herself. For example, a student may choose to study biology because it is something they feel is important for them and their future.
Amotivation
The final category is amotivation, the complete lack of motivation. Individuals often feel this when they feel that situations are beyond their control or influence, that their actions will have no bearing on the outcome of a particular situation (Deci and Ryan, 1985).
Despite two decades of increased focus on teaching science through inquiry, it is still the exception rather than the rule in American high school classrooms (Deters, 2005). In 1996 the National Science Education Standards (NSES) published by the National Research Council (NRC) stated:
"Schools that implement the Standards will have students learning science by actively engaging in inquiries that are interesting and important to them."
"Students could not achieve the Standards in most of today’s schools. Implementation of the Standards will require a sustained, long-term commitment to change." (p. 13)
However, in the interim sixteen years only modest progress has been made towards systematic change. In its most recent publication, A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas, the NRC defines scientific and engineering practices as: “asking questions and defining problems, planning and carrying out investigations, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing explanations and designing solutions, engaging in argument from evidence, and obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.” These practices reflect the process that scientists go through to create an understanding of scientific phenomena, and it is assumed that following these practices provides a more authentic experience for students as researchers and active participants in constructing their own understandings of the world around them.
The challenge for educators such as myself, is to develop curriculum that is accessible for a wide range of abilities that still meets these criteria, and accomplishes the tasks of both creating an accurate understanding of scientific principles, as well as developing and refining inquiry skills used to practice science. There are a number of challenges to successful implementation of inquiry-based classrooms that will be discussed after a closer look at the history of inquiry as a pedagogical movement in education.
Origins of Inquiry
Inquiry has its roots in social development theory, constructivism, and open learning. Vygotsky’s theories on social development revolve around the role of social interaction in learning and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD); the zone in which optimal learning is achieved. ZPD is defined as the distance between a student’s ability to perform a task with guidance or peer collaboration, and the student’s ability to solve the problem independently. Once success is experienced the student is able to seek successive challenges (Vygotsky, 1978). Constructivism builds on this idea of layering knowledge to create meaning in a stepwise fashion. The approach emphasizes the need for students to experience the learning environment first hand, what is described as experiential learning. The student takes an active role in layering new mental constructs about the world around them through concrete interactions that provide a solid foundation of trustworthy knowledge. Inquiry learning also assumes that knowledge is built in this step-wise fashion.
Von Glaserfeld (1989), a prominent constructivist wrote:
"Students may not have the same particular goals that scientists try to attain. But unless we assume that they share, with the inventors and developers of the conceptual models we call science, the goal of constructing a relatively reliable and coherent model of their individual experiential worlds, we cannot lead them to expand their understanding. Memorizing facts and training in rote procedures cannot achieve this." (p. 133)
Open learning theorists propose learning without the constraints of a ‘right answer,’ or explicit objectives, and instead emphasize following a path of inquiry, where students manipulate information and actively seek to create meaning from a set of given materials or circumstances. Both John Dewey and Martin Wagenschein were strong proponents of open learning as a means to understanding over rote memorization of knowledge. In his 1916 Democracy and Education Dewey discusses how in a school environment learning often occurs out of context:
"There is a strong temptation to assume that presenting subject matter in its perfected form provides a royal road to learning. What is more natural than to suppose that the immature can be saved time and energy, and be protected from needless error by commencing where competent inquirers have left off? The outcome is written large in the history of education. Pupils begin their study of science with texts in which the subject is organized into topics according to the order of the specialist. Technical concepts, with their definitions, are introduced at the outset. Laws are introduced at a very early stage, with at best a few indications of the way in which they were arrived at. The pupils learn a “science” instead of learning the scientific way of treating the familiar material of ordinary experience." (Chapter 17: The Development of Attention, para. 4)
My own academic experience of science closely followed Deweys dystopic scenario above, very little of the learning resembled authentic scientific practice. While it is impossible to expect students to rediscover the pre-existing body of scientific knowledge so that they have experienced it all themselves, it is possible to explore new areas of interest within a field using a more authentic form of scientific practice.
Benchmarks for Scientific Literacy, released in 1993 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, takes further steps to distinguish between inquiry and the current practice in most high school science classes:
"The usual high school science “experiment” is unlike the real thing. The question to be investigated is decided by the teacher, not the investigators; what apparatus to use, what data to collect and how to organize the data are also decided by the teacher (or the lab manual); time is not made available for repetitions or, when things are not working out, for revising the experiment; the results are not presented to other investigators for criticism; and, to top it off, the correct answer is known ahead of time." (p. 9)
It is the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Dewey’s belief that by reducing learning to memorization of predigested information we strip students of the rich learning possibilities inherent in authentic scientific exploration. In a recent class the students and myself set out to determine whether adding a solute had any effect on the boiling point of water. In groups they boiled water with different concentrations of sugar and salt. After they collected their data they graphed their results and presented them to the class. Even though I set up this exploration by soliciting student ideas about what concentrations to use and how to set up their apparatus, it is only slightly different from a ‘traditional’ lab. The answer is easy to research, I chose the topic we were going to explore, and I wanted them to practice graphing and interpreting data, all very common goals for high school lab exercises. Where it took a dramatic turn was after the students presented their data. It was all over the map. We couldn’t conclusively determine what the effect of a solute was on the boiling point of water if our lives depended on it. In traditional classrooms students would have been graded on their performance (against the known outcome of adding solute to water) and they would have had a discussion about what the ‘right’ answer was and then moved on. However, in my class the students noticed that nobody had consistent data. They began to speculate about what could have affected their results. We tabulated an extensive list of possible experimental errors and then devised a procedure to eliminate as many as possible. The class also decided to do multiple trials of each solution to enlarge the sample size and make the results more statistically relevant. Then as a class they conducted the experiment. Thermometers were standardized; one heating pad was heated first and used for every trial; one person kept time for temperature recordings, and data was collected in a Google spreadsheet. Once the data was collected the trials were averaged and graphed. The results were far more consistent and the students felt that they could conclusively show that adding sugar to water increased the boiling point. Determining this from their own data was significantly more powerful than learning it passively from me in a lecture. The students owned the learning and they owned the results.
However, as a student, I also see the value in learning from the work of others and not having to re-learn what has already been established. Research is a valuable learning tool and considered part of the scientific process. Scientists communicate their findings so that other scientists, or the public, can learn about what they discovered and not reinvent the wheel for their own research. Incorporating research into the classroom is a great way for students to acquire knowledge and lay foundational layers for inquiry learning. I have yet to find the perfect balance of research and inquiry, but I suspect that the two alternate, like different beads on a necklace, one strung after the other in a complementary way. This is an area I’d like to explore in more depth.
More recently, Hammerman (2006) described the eight essential elements of inquiry-based science instruction: (1) inquiry develops an understanding of basic concepts and (2) develops process and thinking skills; (3) inquiry builds understanding of ways that science is linked to technology and society and (4) provides experience necessary to support and develop or modify interpretations of the world; (5) inquiry enhances reading and writing; (6) allows for a diversity of strategies or learning; (7) allows for a variety of ways for students to show what they know; and (8) actively engages students in the learning cycle. These are wonderful ideals, however, whether they are met in all inquiry-based classrooms is debatable.
My Definition of Inquiry
Consistent with the literature, I define inquiry skills as observing, questioning, exploring, researching, and connecting. These practices make up more than just good scientific practice; they provide the foundation of reasoning with which to view learning and the world around us.
Observing includes refining attention to detail, pattern and anomaly recognition, and cultivating patience while suspending judgment. Students usually treat observation in a self-explanatory and rote fashion, but in actuality it is a subtle skill that requires practice and cultivation over a long period of time.
Questioning is perhaps the most intuitive of the inquiry skills. Humans are innately curious creatures, and our capacity to generate questions about our environment is nearly infinite. As a class exercise I recently had students generate questions about class discussions and readings every day. By the end of the week we had a phenomenal question bank on scientific phenomena. The challenging aspect to questioning is to develop questions that allow for exploration. Questions such as ‘How does magnetism work?’ are difficult for students to design an experiment around. However, reframing the question to state, ‘What materials exhibit magnetic properties?’ clearly lends itself to exploration and concrete data collection. Testable questions are difficult to frame, especially for students new to the inquiry process. Creating investigable questions around which an experiment may be developed will require careful scaffolding.
Exploring combines the execution of experimental steps, data collection, data analysis, and supporting a claim from evidence gathered. This is probably the most significant and difficult portion of the inquiry process requiring the most guidance before students feel comfortable with the steps involved. However, if students can frame an investigable question, the data collection usually flows quite easily. Formulating a claim from their observations and understanding exactly what they have found requires practice. I use mini explorations as extra practice for students to create hypothesis or claims about what is going on. For example, during gas law explorations students place a small marshmallow in a 50mL syringe. They then increase or decrease the pressure by capping the end and pulling or pushing on the plunger. The marshmallow shrinks and expands respectively. After exploring and observing what happens to their marshmallow, students generate a hypothesis about what is happening at the molecular level. Claims are written on the board and the students cobble together a more refined hypothesis from the existing ideas. Even though the experiment portion is controlled and simple, this type of exercise helps students develop scientific reasoning based on prior knowledge and to generate claims based on observations. An extension of the activity is to have students generate another more in depth experiment to test their new claim.
In order to bridge the gap between the novice nature of student inquiry skills and the goal of content acquisition, I have added researching as an inquiry skill. This allows for students to consult the literature on their topic and learn from experts. Scientists keep abreast of the accumulating literature in their field of interest, building on their knowledge base. It is imperative that students who are just beginning to construct an understanding of scientific principles, access expert opinions to help form accurate concept schema of the discipline being explored. In my classroom this often comes after an initial exploration to solidify and refine their newly acquired knowledge.
The final step in the inquiry loop is connection. Discussing, publishing, or presenting claims and evidence from exploration helps students anchor their work in the broader community and engages them in the global discourse around their area of study. An authentic audience also helps with motivation and legitimizes the efforts students put into their work.
Challenges to Implementing Inquiry in the Classroom
Given the emphasis on inquiry in the NRC released standards and the literature, why have more teachers and districts not implemented inquiry based teaching strategies in their classrooms? The reasons range from external legislative constraints such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, to inadequate teacher training, to pedagogical resistance of teachers or administrators. Further complicating successful implementation are underlying issues related to student motivation and engagement.
The NCLB Act passed by Congress in 2001 linked funding to student performance in basic skills. Inquiry skills are very difficult to assess, and standardized tests often revert to assessing basic content knowledge instead of the more complex inquiry based skills stressed in the national standards. In addition, schools receiving title I funds are required to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), meaning that students in a particular grade must receive higher scores than the previous year’s students in the same grade (No Child Left Behind, 2002). Schools in jeopardy of not making annual yearly progress may feel significant pressure to teach to the test. This type of pressure often reduces the classroom environment to a ‘drill and kill’ type of teaching style. This has drastic consequences for student motivation and engagement (Sheldon and Biddle, 1998).
Implementing inquiry in the classroom is challenging. Most teachers are educated through lecture-based classes in university. According to a survey by Abraham (1997) 91% of universities in the United States use direct laboratory instruction in general chemistry. In addition, a survey of high school chemistry teachers found that almost half did not use any type of inquiry based laboratory activities in their classroom (Deters, 2005). Teachers often default to what they feel most comfortable with in a classroom, and it often mirrors their own educational experience. It is difficult to adopt inquiry-based methods of teaching if you have never experienced it yourself.
The planning stage is often the most important and one of the most difficult for the novice teacher. Inquiry-based learning is not something that can be put into action in the classroom quickly. A great deal of thought is required to address how standards will be incorporated, how students’ knowledge and performance will be assessed, and how to navigate the open ended nature of student exploration. The teacher’s responsibility during inquiry is to support and facilitate student learning (Bell et. al. 2010). The trick is to support student learning without providing too much information–eliminating the need for students to engage in critical thinking–but providing enough to prevent undo frustration. Without prior experience it can be a difficult line to walk.
Novice teachers’ first attempts to scaffold inquiry in the classroom can be disastrous, as I have learned from personal experience. Without significant and artful scaffolding, many students lack the skills to participate in open-ended inquiry. The first few times I tried an open inquiry design, a handful of my students possessed the necessary skills to run with the project, and the vast majority floundered, unable to begin. The most challenging aspects for them were coming up with an area to explore without really having any prior experience with the subject matter, and with the inquiry process itself. I had assumed that everyone had already been exposed to science fairs and experiment design beginning in elementary school, which was my experience when I was a child. What was immediately obvious in my classroom was that students did not understand how to (a) generate an investigable question, or (b) logically create an experiment to test an investigable question once they had thought of one.
A common mistake novice teachers make is lacking the vision to see where students’ weaknesses lie. Bain (2005) points out that teachers often assume that students will hold the same assumptions and thinking processes as a professional within that discipline. However, students have not yet developed the prerequisite body of understanding to work in this manner and must be adequately guided to ensure success and eventual mastery. Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006) reviewed multiple studies that suggest that minimally guided instruction causes student frustration, incomplete concept schema development and cognitive working memory overload, impairing long-term learning and information retrieval (Brown, 1994; Arocha and Patel 1995; Sweller, 2004).
In response, Hmelo-Silver et. al. (2007) argued that inquiry and problem-based learning were not intended to be minimally guided, and in fact require extensive scaffolding and guidance for students to actualize the benefits of working in complex environments. The key would seem to lie in teacher professional development opportunities. However, studies on teacher professional development aimed at increasing inquiry based instruction have had mixed success. Factors such as deep content knowledge, access to inquiry experiences, teachers preconceived beliefs about their students’ ability to learn science, and institutional support mechanisms all play a significant role in the efficacy of inquiry based professional development (Banerjee, 2010; Johnson, 2006; Leonard et. al. 2011).
In an effort to help teachers scaffold inquiry, Banchi and Bell (2008) suggest there are four levels of inquiry based learning in science education: confirmation inquiry, structured inquiry, guided inquiry, and open inquiry.
- Confirmation inquiry is useful when a teacher’s goal is to reinforce a previously introduced idea; to introduce students to the experience of conducting investigations; or to have students practice a specific inquiry skill, such as collecting and recording data.
- In structured inquiry, questions and procedures are still provided by the teacher; however, students generate an explanation supported by the evidence they have collected.
- In guided inquiry, the teacher provides students with only the research question, and students design the procedure to test their question and the resulting explanations. Since this kind of inquiry is more involved than structured inquiry, it is most successful when students have had numerous opportunities to learn and practice different ways to plan experiments and record data.
- At the fourth and highest level of inquiry, open inquiry, students have the purest opportunities to act like scientists, deriving questions, designing and carrying out investigations, and communicating their results. This level requires the most scientific reasoning and greatest cognitive demand from students.
I plan to use these layers in scaffolding inquiry in my classroom to help students become familiar with inquiry skills and move towards greater autonomy in a structured and supported manner.
The Thorny Issue of Student Motivation and Grit
One of the critical factors in student learning is motivation. Early work by Pintrich et. al. (1993) described three aspects of motivation; relevance, mastery, and autonomy. If a task is felt to be relevant or important to the individual they are far more likely to complete it than if it feels unnecessary. In addition, if a person feels that the task is within their capabilities, something they can do well, they are also more likely to attempt it. Finally, if a person has significant input into how they will complete the task, they have a higher level of motivation to complete the task as compared to a situation where they do not have autonomy over how the task is performed. These factors play a role in affecting conceptual change, where a concept is described as a belief, idea, or way of thinking. In science, this progression may start with a scientific observation such as; gravity makes things fall towards the ground. Watching astronauts in space would require a shift in our thinking about gravity; it doesn’t seem to apply in space. This shift is of course not entirely correct, and requires yet another conceptual shift before accurately describing the phenomenon; that all physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their masses.
Pintrich found that students who were goal oriented in nature required little external motivation to complete tasks and pursued deeper learning strategies such as rehearsal, elaboration, and information organizational strategies such as concept maps. He also found that students across the board perform better on tasks when they value them, when they believe they can do well on them, and when they believe they are in control of the outcome of their own effort. To this end, more authentic tasks, more student autonomy, and more student authority are associated with higher levels of student motivation. Inquiry learning often includes these features. Unfortunately, research relating inquiry and student motivation is sparse. Early research by Mistler-Jackson and Songer (2000), as well as, Patrick and Yoon (2004) both observed small numbers of students throughout an inquiry based unit. However, due to a small sample size (n=6) and that their results were not linked to typical motivational constructs such as that developed by Pintrich, their results were difficult to categorize in a useful way. The researchers claimed that according to pre and post assessments the six focus students gained significant knowledge of the atmospheric science covered in the program and interviews revealed a high level of motivation. Sandoval and Harven (2011) analyzed urban middle school students’ perceptions of the value and difficulty of specific inquiry tasks in the context of Expectancy-Value Theory developed by Wigfield and Eccles (2000). Expectancy-Value Theorists believe that humans are goal oriented beings and will alter their behavior to maximize expected success and value from tasks they perform. They found that students rated the utility of inquiry tasks highly and furthermore they found that students valued the utility of knowing how to back up their ideas with evidence. Interestingly, disadvantaged students felt this was more useful than their more socioeconomically advantaged counterparts. Another study exploring professional development and inquiry underscores the necessity of clearly communicating the relevance of inquiry. In informal surveys researchers found that while 83% of students liked guided inquiry, and 54% felt that inquiry helped them to improve their self confidence, students did not think that inquiry was useful in preparing for graduation tests and college. They had learned from their older peers that hardly any inquiry was done in college courses (Banerjee, 2010).
These seemingly dissonant views on inquiry point to the importance of student perceptions about their own learning and highlight the fact that students can have a significant effect on their own ability to learn. If students do not see immediate value in the subject at hand they will often lose focus quickly and disengage. This is a difficult situation for the inquiry based science teacher, because despite the increased autonomy, authenticity, and potential for mastery of true inquiry, it is also very, very hard. The tendency for students to shut down or resist taking on the thinking required to do authentic inquiry is substantial, even with careful scaffolding. Current research by Duckworth and Seligman (2005) has shed some light on this piece of the learning puzzle. They found that self-discipline was a better predictor of academic performance than IQ. In fact, the researchers found that:
"Highly self disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic- performance variable, inluding report card grades, standardized achievement test scores, admission to a competitive high school and attendance. (p.941)"
These self disciplined students may be similar to individuals who fell into the ‘goal oriented’ category coined by Pintrich. Duckworth and Seligman go on to speculate that our society’s focus on instant gratification may mean that today’s students have not developed the self discipline required to achieve academic success. Whether or not our cultural self discipline is on the decline, I think Duckworth and Seligman’s research is valid and profound.
So what factors result in disciplined action? The roots may circle back to motivation and require us to further unpack the research in this area. Vallerand, et. al. (1992) break down motivation into three main categories: intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation. These categories are further broken down to create a continuum of motivational factors influencing curiosity, persistence, learning and performance. A brief summary of each type follows below.
Intrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation can be broken down into three main types. Intrinsic motivation–to know is the motivation to learn purely for the experience of learning new things. Intrinsic motivation–to accomplish is defined as the pleasure received when accomplishing or creating something and the feeling of competence associated with it. Finally, intrinsic motivation–to experience stimulation is the driving force behind individuals seeking opportunities to delve into cognitive pleasures such as seeking out stimulating discussions, visiting museums for the aesthetic and intellectual rush, or experiencing flow or peak experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975).
Extrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation lies behind behaviors that are engaged in as a means to an end and not for their own sake. However, they form a continuum from lower to higher levels of self-determination. The first and lowest level is external regulation, which is compliance through rewards and constraints. An example would be a student studies because their parents have taken away their X-Box until they do so. The second external motivator is introjected regulation, where the student begins to internalize the reasons for their actions (Vallerand, et. al., 1992; Deci et. al., 1991). For example, a student may study for an exam because that is what they believe good students do. The final category is identification, where an individual has incorporated a behavior due to perceived importance to himself or herself. For example, a student may choose to study biology because it is something they feel is important for them and their future.
Amotivation
The final category is amotivation, the complete lack of motivation. Individuals often feel this when they feel that situations are beyond their control or influence, that their actions will have no bearing on the outcome of a particular situation (Deci and Ryan, 1985).
Figure 1. Motivation as a function of self-determination.
To what extent each of these factors translates into the grit to stick to something challenging is still unknown. Early research has shown a link between intrinsic motivation and more autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation such as identification, and positive academic performance (Pintrich and DeGroot, 1990). Grolnick et. al., (1991) found that elementary students who reported more autonomous motivation for doing schoolwork had greater conceptual learning and better memory than children who reported less autonomous forms of extrinsic motivation. Does intrinsic motivation allow for deeper learning and the perseverance to overcome challenges? If so, can fostering shifts from extrinsic motivators to more autonomous forms of motivation help students in these areas? How can we best stimulate these shifts? Can inquiry based learning affect both conceptual change of students scientific schema and support more autonomous motivation?
Looking Forward
If implemented with careful scaffolding, inquiry learning has the potential to promote an understanding of authentic scientific practices and address many of the issues surrounding student motivation, such as providing more authentic learning experiences, increasing student choice, and promoting student ownership of learning. However, if students still struggle with the process, can knowledge about self-discipline and grit affect how students take on the challenge? What factors of inquiry learning contribute to student motivation?