3.2 INQUIRY–BASED SCIENCE EDUCATION
3.2.7 Teachers’ practices and learners’ performance in
83 Level-3 and Level-4 inquiry activities are characterised as high level inquiry activities, as they require significant cognitive demand on the part of the learner (Bell et al., 2005). In Level-3 inquiry activities, learners are presented with a teacher-posed research question, but the learners devise their own methods and solutions to answer the question. In this “guided inquiry,” learners practice investigation design. Level-1 or Level-2 inquiry activities can be transformed into a Level-3 activity by having the learners develop their own, teacher- approved method to answer the investigation question (Bell et al., 2005).
Level-4 inquiry activities are those in which the learners are responsible for choosing the investigation question, designing their own procedure for answering the question, and developing their own solutions to the problem (Bell et al., 2005). Only after learners have completed activities at the first three levels are they prepared to tackle the open inquiry of Level-4. This second perspective is supported by numerous studies illustrating learners’
difficulties during inquiry learning. For example, in science settings learners have difficulties with scientifically controlling experiments; they may use biased interpretation of empirical data, and often formulate inappropriate inferences to explain the results obtained (Toth et al., 2002; Chen & Klahr, 1999; Kozlowski, 1996.)
In the South African context, ‘hands-on’ type of activities may be classified as Level-1 and Level-2 type of inquiry activities, while ‘hypothesis-testing’ may involve grades from Level-3 to Level-4 kinds of inquiry activities in the NCS (DoE, 2005b). However, in the CAPS version of the curriculum, the only prescription is that all seven skills must be assessed by the end of an academic year (DBE, 2011b). According to the CAPS policy (DBE, 2011b) in Grades 10 and 11 three practical pieces are prescribed together with a practical examination while in Grade 12 only three pieces of practical work are prescribed for formal assessment.
Furthermore, the CAPS policy does not indicate how the seven skills ought to be assessed.
Hence, the focus becomes one of process skills. The danger of such a situation is the independent or out of context address of these skills. Therefore there is the potential of minimising learner practice and understanding of the role and use of the process skills threaded together in a complete investigation. This state of affairs is no different from somebody learning the steps of a dance, but not having the opportunity of practising these steps in a dance.
84 approaches managed in part by learners (Praia & Marques, 1997, cited in Marques, et al., 2000). As far as present types of ‘routine’ or ‘traditional’ practical work matters, it is of concern that many learners are unable to give a clear account of what they have been doing during these activities and the reason for doing it (Hodson, 1990). In addition, Yip (2007), illustrates the poor understanding of the concept of hypothesis by learners. It is therefore apparent that deep-seated beliefs including attitudes have to be changed in order to encourage and enable a thorough and conscious, active participation of the learners. In other words, classroom experiences are tools enabling learners to improve their explanations about natural phenomena rather than the end of a process itself (Marques, Praia, & Futuro, (1996), cited in Marques et al., 2000).
According to epistemological thinkers such as Bachelard, Kuhn, Lakatos or Popper, truly investigative practical work should be seen both in the context of problem solving and as an attempt to look for solutions to questions not already answered, rather than being a verification activity. In other words, they have called for practical work, which is investigative or inquiry in nature (Marques et al., 2000). Some science educators may disagree with these epistemological thinkers, if a great deal of emphasis is placed on the contextual, and practical aspects of the learning environment, including the demands of written examinations, the competence and commitment of teachers and the availability of resources. However, when one examines the imperatives of the South African Life Sciences curriculum particularly LO1 for Grade 12 (refer to Table 3.3) one would notice that it calls for more open-ended and less structured tasks.
The lack of knowledge and understanding creates severe restrictions on a teachers’ ability to plan, prepare and implement lessons that will help learners develop an image of science that goes beyond the familiar ‘body of knowledge’ (Gallagher, 1991). Very often, teachers incorrectly equate inquiry activities with highly structured activities. Researchers have referred to such activities as traditional because it seems to be involved in transmitting information from the teacher or the textbook to the learners (Prawat, 1992; Howard, McGee, Schwartz & Purcell, 2000; Kang & Keys, 2000). The highly structured tasks which require learners to follow it step-by-step as a ‘cookbook’ (Hofstein & Lunetta, 2004) serves to verify or confirm established knowledge (Tsai, 2002). In addition, Tsai (2003) also points out that before carrying out the ‘inquiry’ activity the teacher explains the procedure to be followed and that such procedure merely serves the purpose of memorising the scientific truths.
85 From a constructivist viewpoint, following such rigid and structured procedures does not take into account the importance of learners’ prior knowledge and such knowledge is therefore of no consequence in such a learning environment (Windschitl, 2002; Roehrig & Luft, 2004).
Furthermore, such structured and closed activities do not allow for debates and discussions.
Also, such lessons usually lack deep probing questions to guide learners’ thinking (Feyzioglu, 2012). Instead, the types of questions posed are of the lower cognitive type which leads the learners towards the teachers’ expected answers and is therefore information seeking (Chinn, 2007). In open-ended activities, which are learner-centred and which encourages learner autonomy, the type of questions posed by the teacher to support such independent learning should be of the constructive type, which calls for analysis, reflection and metacognition.
Such questions should provoke thought and encourage learners to justify their actions (King, 1994).
The structured activities involve the use of worksheets prepared by the teachers or from a textbook. Learners follow the instructions in these worksheets and continue to perform the task at hand. At the end of the lesson the teacher provides the learners with the expected results usually without considering learners’ results and understanding (Peers, Diezman &
Watters, 2003).
Teachers may lack confidence in managing a class of learners who may seem to be disorderly if they engage actively and co-operatively with their peers and the teacher and therefore opt to design lessons in which they can have a greater degree of control (Bryan, 2003; Roehrig &
Luft, 2004; Tsai, 2003).
While inquiry instruction involves active learner engagement and is therefore learner-centred, not all hands-on activities advocate inquiry. Similarly, not all inquiry activities need to be hands-on. It is possible for learners to engage in inquiry through analysing existing data (Bell et al., 2005) as indicated earlier, without the need for hands-on data collection. All inquiry–
based activities do not have to engage learners in activities where they must design investigations and therefore physically carry them out on their own.
Learners often have an objectivist orientation towards science, viewing the process of science as looking for facts rather than as the creation of knowledge (Tobin, Tippins, & Hook, 1995).
Penner and Klahr (1996) found that learners failed to recognise the spirit of inquiry as a
86 process that combines a physical or experimental and a cognitive or intellectual aspect. That is, a process which attempts to understand natural phenomena. Learners often see practical investigative tasks as activities aimed at obtaining pre-determined results. Hence, they plan their experiments accordingly or their teachers prepare the plans for them.
Learners’ scientific inquiry skills are dynamic and it is therefore dependent on internal cognitive factors as well as external contextual or environmental factors. These factors include interest and motivation in science, epistemological understanding of the scientific process and its value (Smith, Maclin, Houghton, & Hennessey, 2000), familiarity with the area of investigation, and the context of the activity (Germann, Aram, & Burke, 1996; Kuhn, Garcia-Mila, Zohar, & Andersen, 1995), environmental support of inquiry activities (Greeno, 2001), and communication abilities (Germann, Aram, & Burke, 1996).
For learners to be able to design and carry out valid investigations on their own they will need a great deal of support and plodding in the lower grades. Therefore, there is a need for teachers to provide the necessary guidance and scaffolding for inquiry instruction to enable learners to develop their abilities and understandings of inquiry to the point where they can confidently design and conduct their own investigations from start to finish (Peters, 2009).
In this regard the NCS intended to groom Grades 10 and 11 learners to be able to engage with open-ended tasks in Grade 12 (DoE, 2005b), as illustrated in Table 3.2. This study also determined whether teachers do provide such scaffolding and the extent to which the teachers’
knowledge and beliefs determined this. In addition, while learners need not have to physically carry out the investigation it is important for them to have an idea about the design of the investigation, so that they could develop their skills of speculation and predicting and sharpen their ability to think critically and creatively.
According to Bell, Blair, Crawford, and Lederman (2003) allowing learners to engage in
‘hands-on’ activities alone will not necessarily help to develop the appropriate understandings of the concepts or content and processes. Instead, learners need to actively engage in purposeful conversation and thinking about scientific knowledge and science processes. In this respect Bell (2008) contends that understanding the nature of science requires debate, discussion and reflection on the distinctiveness of scientific knowledge and the scientific processes. Moreover, learners need to be guided through the process of learning about science as they do science (Schwartz, Lederman, & Crawford, 2004). Effectiveness of learning
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‘about’ science by ‘doing’ science has been shown to be successful when there is a linking of science concepts to process skills instruction (Binns, Schnittka, Toti, & Bell, 2007). The implementation of this approach allows learners to learn about the nature of science and science knowledge and processes as they develop the skills necessary to do science. The teacher explicitly links science concepts to activity-based lessons incorporating science process skills such as, observing, measuring and classifying (Schwartz et al., 2004).
In order to benefit fully from inquiry activities, both epistemic demand and regulation of cognition appear to be crucial components in all stages of learners’ investigative efforts (Bell et al., 2003). Epistemic demand can direct the learner on the task and can improve the outcome of the inquiry learning activities. In order to facilitate the activity of epistemic demand, the learner may be guided in small steps to the execution of a certain inquiry stage.
For example, guidance in the hypothesis generating stage may provide the learner with an example of a statement for a hypothesis. These instructions provide learners with general and cognitive strategies that may be used to perform their learning tasks (Hong, McGee, &
Howard, 2001). However, epistemic demand alone may not be enough to change learners’
view of inquiry (Bell et al., 2003). They will need to use regulation of cognition to monitor the solution (Hong, McGee, & Howard, 2001; Kluwe & Freidricksen, 1985). In addition, the nature of guidance and support provided by the teacher is also an important factor. Dewey’s comment was apt when he argued that,
“We learn by doing and by thinking about what we are doing”
(Rowe, 1978 p. 216).
According to Hong et al., (2001) the regulation of cognition and not the knowledge of cognition is a predictor in open-ended tasks.