Effective Inquiry-Based Science Programs

In this Review of Educational Research article, Dermot Donnelly and Marcia Linn (University of California/Berkeley) and Sten Ludvigsen (University of Oslo, Norway) report on their international study of inquiry-based learning for pre-college students. “Even though the potential of inquiry to positively impact learning is evident,” say the authors, “enacting inquiry has met considerable difficulties within school contexts.” These include new roles and responsibilities for teachers and students, teachers’ lack of experience, background knowledge, and training, and the fact that inquiry approaches often take more time and may not be aligned with high-stakes assessments. 

Donnelly, Linn, and Ludvigsen begin by suggesting four possible degrees of structure and support for inquiry-based pedagogy:

• Level 0: Teacher-led inquiry – All instructions are provided by the teacher as the class verifies a scientific concept, principle, or law.
• Level 1: Structured inquiry – Students get instructions for finding answers to a particular problem defined by the teacher.
• Level 2: Guided inquiry – The teacher gives students a question and students design the experiment and develop their own findings.
• Level 3: Open-ended inquiry – Students decide the question and the means to solve it, with teacher support as needed.

The best inquiry programs, the authors say, explore meaningful and authentic scientific questions; use powerful visualizations; get students collaborating with each other; develop autonomous and metacognitive learning; and provide teachers with the support to implement programs effectively, while allowing flexibility to customize the curriculum. A key element, which the authors say needs more study, is finding the “sweet spot” between giving students too much guidance – which makes science “appear formulaic” – and too little guidance – encouraging “superficial and mindless explorations.”

“Impacts and Characteristics of Computer-Based Science Inquiry Learning Environments for Precollege Students” by Dermot Donnelly, Marcia Linn, and Sten Ludvigsen in Review of Educational Research, December 2014 (Vol. 84, #4, p. 572-608), http://bit.ly/1vFJsPM; Donnelly can be reached at dfdonnelly@berkeley.edu.

From the Marshall Memo #562