Abstract
Worldwide, scientific inquiry is a highly valued outcome in science education. Asking questions is the leading element of scientific inquiry; however, it is not easy for students to generate scientific questions, especially questions inspired by a theory’s predictions. The present study examines an instructional intervention that aimed to enhance elementary school students’ generation of theory-inspired questions. The topic of the curricular unit was combustion. Two studies were done, both using a pre-, mid-, post-design. In Study 1, 3 classes of sixth-grade students (N=115) collaboratively engaged in inquiry-based learning in order to promote scientific thinking; they repeatedly explored and explained specific combustion phenomena, using theory. In Study 2, 3 classes of sixth-grade students (N=117) engaged in inquiry-based learning with question-centered instruction. The results from written assessment tasks indicated that the level of student-generated questions improved from pre- to post-test in both studies, and that the students in Study 2 showed greater improvement than did those in Study 1. These results suggest that interventions including inquiry-based learning with question-centered instruction may effectively promote elementary school sixth graders to ask theory-inspired questions.
