Effectiveness of Inquiry Based Laboratory Instruction on Developing Secondary Students' Views on Scientific Inquiry

摘要

The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of inquiry-based laboratory instruction on ninth grade students' scientific inquiry views. In this study an argument driven inquiry approach to laboratory instruction was used to teach a Chemistry lesson where the nature of the aspects of scientific inquiry was explicitly taught. This explanatory study was conducted with 36 ninth grade students during their regular Chemistry course. Students participated in four activities related to the periodic table, bond character and molecular polarity, density, and gases that were designed with respect to the argument-driven inquiry (ADI) instructional approach as a regular Chemistry course guided by their classroom teacher. The specific nature of scientific inquiry aspects was highlighted in the ADI activities. A views about scientific inquiry (VASI) questionnaire was used to investigate students views of scientific inquiry before and after the instruction. The result of the study showed that the views of students on scientific inquiry improved in all aspects after the implementation.