Inquiry-based science meaning

Inquiry Science

What is inquiry-based science?

Scientists study the natural world. They try to answer questions about the world around them. When conducting research scientists use a number of skills. These skills are called the science process skills. They include observation, description, question finding, planning of experiments, prediction, and experimentation (NRC 1996). Scientists use these skills in a methodical sequence. One such sequence, and the most well known is the �scientific method,� but there are others. Scientists also possess certain attitudes and beliefs that they have when using these skills and methods. Altogether these different factors make up scientific inquiry; this is what scientists are doing when they are conducting research. Scientific inquiry is actually a good name for the work that scientists do, because when conducting science scientists are trying to find the answers to questions and problems they have and they are inquiring in a scientific way.

Inquiry-based science is a teaching method in which students work in a similar way as scientists when they are doing research. In inquiry-based science the student formulate their own questions, create hypotheses, and design investigations that test these hypotheses and answer the question proposed (NRC 1996, NRC 2000). The work students do in inquiry-based science mirrors the work which scientists do when they are conducting research. Students use similar process skills and methods as research scientists. To put it simply the students work as �junior scientists.�

It is important to recognize the differences between inquiry-based science and non-inquiry forms of science teaching. Simply by having students �do an experiment� does not mean they are engaged in inquiry-based science. In a typical non-inquiry lesson the teacher would explain the important points of the topic being learnt, then the students would be given an experiment to do to reinforce this knowledge. The students would be given a worksheet explaining what methods they had to follow to complete the experiment, and maybe even be told what results they were expected to find. Everything would be written up in a lab book as a lab report at the end of the lesson. A professional scientist working in a research laboratory does not work in such a way.

A lesson taught using inquiry-based methods is very different. The teacher would introduce the topic in some way maybe with a demonstration or by showing the students some interesting phenomenon. Maybe the teacher would pose a problem about the topic to the students, or maybe if the students are advanced enough the teacher could guide the students to find a problem on their own. The students would then be expected to formulate a question about the problem; from this question they would develop a hypothesis. Instead of being given a worksheet, or a detailed list of instructions to follow the students would be expected to develop a method themselves. After the experiment the students would be expected to decide if their initial hypothesis was correct or not and then to try to solve the problem. They are doing more than simply doing an experiment they are working like real scientists.

Extract from 'teaching inquiry-based science' by Mark Walker. Available from amazon bookstore, here.

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