The Study of Pupil Primary Concepts, Selected Skills and Cognitive Operations within an Inquiry-Based Activity

摘要

Aims of science education require an interdisciplinary approach and collaboration between physics, chemistry, biology and geography. In all these subjects, pupils have to study natural processes through targeted activities, among which inquiry activities dominate. Our team has long been involved in the development of teaching materials supporting inquiry-based science education and in teacher training in this field. In the paper, we will focus on introducing one of these activities - Why is salt used on roads in winter?. Verifying it with pupils of lower and upper secondary school levels enabled to study the initial pupil concepts related to the investigated topic as well as the level of selected pupil skills and cognitive operations. Our study suggests that most respondents did not meet similar activity in classes, although it is included in the content of three subjects (science, physics and chemistry). Pupils did not have an opportunity to conduct a relevant experiment and gain practical experience with the influence of sodium chloride on ice. They therefore had misconceptions about the topic. In addition, pupils did not have sufficiently developed selected skills, such as measuring negative temperature values, plotting a graph, describing of observed phenomena, and their use of higher cognitive operations was limited. The study also proved an important role of the teacher in formulating conclusions and new knowledge in the end of the activity.