The role of inquiry in science education: Analysis and recommendations (original) (raw)

Abstract

For many years, the science education community has advocated the development of inquiry skills as an essential outcome of science instruction and for an equal number of years science educators have met with frustration and disappointment. In spite of new curricula, better trained teachers, and improved facilities and equipment, the optimistic expectations for students becoming inquirers have seldom been fulfilled. A recent assessment of the status of science education in the United States brought this point home once again as large discrepancies were found between what is desired and what exists (Welch et al., 1979a). But this time, rather than seek blame in poor teaching, unused facilities, or out-of-date curricula, we turned instead to the original statements of goals and expectations. We believe that the statements of desired student outcomes, including our own (Welch et al., 1978), contain sufficient shortcomings and limitations to justify a reconsideration of our expectations for inquiry learning in science education. The process that led to this conclusion and its implications are described in this paper. We consider inquiry to be a general process by which human beings seek information or understanding. Broadly conceived, inquiry is a way of thought. Scientific inquiry, a subset of general inquiry, is concerned with the natural worid and is guided by certain beliefs and assumptions. Because the development of inquiry skills is one of the goals for science education, it was a natural focal topic for a study of science education carried out by a group of scholars under the auspices of Project Synthesis (Harms, 1978). (1) To specify the "desired state" for effective inquiry learning The task of the Inquiry Group was threefold:

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References (10)

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