An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students' understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline

verfasst von

Judith Lederman, Norman Lederman, Selina Bartels, Juan Jimenez, Mark Akubo, Shereen Aly, Chengcheng Bao, Estelle Blanquet, Ron Blonder, Mariana Bologna Soares de Andrade, Catherine Buntting, Mustafa Cakir, Heba EL-Deghaidy, Ahmed ElZorkani, Estelle Gaigher, Shuchen Guo, Arvi Hakanen, Soraya Hamed Al-Lal, Cigdem Han-Tosunoglu, Annemarie Hattingh, Anne Hume, Serhat Irez, Gillan Kay, Ozgur Kivilcan Dogan, Kerstin Kremer, Pi-Chu Kuo, Jari Lavonen, Cheng Liu, Enshan Liu, Shiang-Yao Liu, Bin Lv, Rachel Mamlok-Naaman, Christine McDonald, Yaozhen Pan, Eric Picholle, Ana Rivero García, Carl-Johan Rundgren, David Santibáñez-Gómez, Kathy Saunders, Renee Schwartz, Frauke Voitle, Jakob von Gyllenpalm, Fangbing Wei, Jocelyn Wishart, Zhifeng Wu, Huang Xiao, Yalcin Yalaki, Qiaoxue Zhou

Abstract

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.

Externe Organisation(en)

Illinois Institute of Technology
Valparaiso University
Florida State University
American University in Cairo
Zhejiang University
Universite de Bordeaux
Weizmann Institute of Science
Universidade Estadual de Londrina
University of Waikato
Marmara University
University of Pretoria
Beijing Normal University
Universität Helsinki
Universidad de Sevilla
University of Cape Town
IPN - Leibniz-Institut für die Pädagogik der Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik
National Pingtung University of Science and Technology
National Taiwan Normal University
Zhejiang Normal University
Griffith University Queensland
Zhejiang International Studies University
Universite de Nice-Sophia Antipolis
Stockholm University
Universidad Catolica Silva Henriquez
Georgia State University
University of Bristol
Hacettepe University
Shanghai Xinyang Middle School

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Journal of Research in Science Teaching

Band

56

Seiten

486-515

Anzahl der Seiten

30

ISSN

0022-4308

Publikationsdatum

13.03.2019

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Ausbildung bzw. Denomination

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 4 – Qualitativ hochwertige Bildung

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21512 (Zugang: Unbekannt)