A Quasi-experimental Study On The Development Of Senior High School Second Year Students’ Views Of Scientific Inquiry

Scientific inquiry has always been the focus of international research in the area of science education,and curriculum reform documents promulgated at home and abroad have elaborated the important educational value of scientific inquiry and its teaching.As a significant member of scientific literacy,scientific inquiry plays a crucial role in fostering top-notch innovators and thus enhancing national competitiveness.In general,Scientific inquiry can be separated into two aspects:“doing inquiry” and “understanding inquiry”.“Doing inquiry” emphasises students’ personal involvement and experience of scientific inquiry,while “understanding inquiry” emphasises students’ understanding of scientific inquiry itself,the result of which is a view of scientific inquiry.So far,the studies on “doing inquiry” are more abundant,while the studies on “understanding inquiry” are fewer.In the recent years,domestic and international scholars have investigated and studied the developmental level of students’ view of scientific inquiry at all levels.The results indicate that the development level of students’ view of scientific inquiry in all grade is low as a whole.The second year of senior high school is an important stage for acquiring scientific thinking and skills,and it is important to develop a “informed” view of scientific inquiry in students.Against this background,the study identifies the three central questions as follows:(1)What is the state of development of the view of scientific inquiry among sophomore students?(2)What are the typical characteristics of sophomore students’ developmental level of scientific inquiry?(3)Taking the thematic content of “Fundamentals of Electrochemistry” as an example,how can meaningful pedagogical interventions be made to promote students’ view of scientific inquiry?This research was conducted on the theoretical framework of Views about Scientific Inquiry(VASI)proposed by Norman G.Lederman’s team,with its recently revised Views about Scientific Inquiry(VASI)questionnaire as the research instrument.Using 298 sophomore students from a high school in Dingzhou City,Hebei Province as the study population,a questionnaire was implemented and interviews were synthesised to analyse the level of development of students’ views on scientific inquiry,and to grasp the typical characteristics of developmental levels,and to carry out a one-semester teaching intervention for the experimental group using explicit,active and reflective teaching strategies.Post-intervention,the scientific view of inquiry questionnaire and semi-structured interviews continued to be used in post-testing to compare the outcomes of the data and to pick up effective teaching solutions.The data from the pre-test indicated that the overall level of development of students’ views on scientific inquiry in the experimental and control groups was not high,and their knowledge of the dimensions was limited to the surface and not deep enough.The best levels of student understanding were found in dimension A4(All scientists performing the same procedures may not get the same results)and dimension A8(Explanations are developed from a combination of collected data and what is already known),and more students held “Informed” views in these two dimensions.The understanding level of A1(Scientific investigations all begin with a question and do not necessarily test a hypothesis)and A6(Research conclusions must be consistent with the data collected)is poor,and more students held “Naive” views.According to the interview,it was found that extra-curricular books,classroom knowledge,and summaries of life experiences are the main ways in which students developed their views on scientific inquiry,and the vast majority would not change their opinions.The chi-square test showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of the level of development of the view of scientific inquiry in the pre-test.After implementing the classroom intervention for one semester,the data showed that the experimental group gained some level of improvement in the development of students’ views on scientific inquiry.The development of A7(Scientific data are not the same as evidence)is more developed,with the number of people who hold“Informed” views accounts for 42%.More attention needs to be paid to the fact that54.25% of students are still at the “Naive” stage of the A1 dimension(Scientific investigations all begin with a question and do not necessarily test a hypothesis),and there is still a more room for development.A chi-square test yielded that the students in the experimental group had significantly enhanced their level of development in the A1,A2,A3,A4,A6,A7 and A8 dimensions of scientific inquiry,while the students in the control group,who were taught by the direct instruction method,had approximately the same level of development in scientific inquiry as the pre-test results.The results of the study showed that it is effective to encourage students to think positively,rely on realistic inquiry situations,and use explicit,activity-based and reflective teaching strategies in the construction of “electrochemical basis” knowledge,which can effectively develop students’ view of scientific inquiry.At the meantime,the research scope of this study has certain limitations,which needs to be further studied in depth during the specific implementation.