Causal Effect of Inquiry Teaching on Science Achievement in PISA 2015 in Japan

Abstract

Inquiry teaching, which emphasizes the autonomy of students in learning, has become popular in science education because it is considered to promote students’ learning. However, previous studies have found mixed evidence regarding the effect of inquiry teaching on achievement; some found positive effects but others found the opposite. Hence, this paper investigates the causal effect of inquiry teaching on science achievement in Japan using the data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015. We first classified the students into five groups based on the level of inquiry teaching that the students received. Using this as a treatment variable, we estimated the generalized propensity score by multinomial logistic regression with 38 covariates. Further, we estimated the causal effect of the treatment on science achievement using the inverse probability weighting estimator. Achievement was found to be the highest in the group that received moderate inquiry teaching, and decreased in groups that received more excessive levels. This result is in line with the previous study that used former PISA data. We thereby conclude that inquiry teaching has a positive causal effect on achievement when conducted at a moderate level; however, its excessive use can result in a negative causal effect.