Effectiveness of the Inquiry Method in Teaching Science in the Primary School - Research Paper Example

Effectiveness of the Inquiry Method in teaching Science in the Primary school 1.1 Background Information. According to the Australian Science Teachers association, the understanding of the knowledge of science and possessing the scientific inquiry skills is the fundamental way of effective science teaching. Scientific knowledge inquiry does not involve the utilizing of processing skills in science but also the scientific knowledge. Inquiry approach refers also to the students’ ability to understand, investigate and analyze critically the obtained data. In this approach, learning: 1. Process does not only depend on the learning process but also on the learners’ knowledge. 2. Involves meaning construction. 3. The final responsibility of the learning process depends on the learner. Inquiry according to many science educators is the best way for students to earn science. According to Barman (2002), he defines inquiry as the method where the teacher chooses the question and the students plan and executes the experimental procedures. Inquiry is the searching of information through questioning. Inquiry learning is a method that emphasizes on constructivist ways of learning. Inquiry method becomes associated with science subjects. According to Ban chi and Bell (2008), they suggest that there are four basic levels in inquiry method of learning; structured inquiry, confirmation inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry. In confirmation inquiry, students receive structured questions and procedures, and the results known in advance. In structured inquiry, questions and procedures become provided, but the students are to come up with a detailed explanation. This explanation should be supported by the evidence they have collected. With open inquiry, students design their own experiments; create their own questions and procedures. There are no prescribed results that the students have to achieve. 1.2 The problem statement For many students, there is difficulty in comprehending and application of the taught concepts. This leads to many of them developing a poor attitude towards learning science, and the importance of science. Therefore, research into effective ways of teaching science is necessary and provides us with 2 crucial information: science teaching and learning should begin at school and the most fundamental basis of learning is to understand a concept. The purpose of this research is to find out how best we can use the inquiry method to help students in their science coursework. 1.3 Research Questions I. Is inquiry method an effective way of teaching science in Primary school. Ii. What can be done to ensure inquiry method gets adopted in the teaching of science in primary schools? 1.4 Objectives 1.4.1 Main objective To establish how inquiry method is an effective way of teaching science in Primary school. 1.4.2 Specific Objectives I. To find out if inquiry method is an effective way of teaching science in Primary school. Ii. To establish what can be done to ensure inquiry method is in the teaching of science in primary schools. 1.5 Significance of the study. Students cannot comprehend technical science work through the use of chalk and board method of teaching only. There are various ways a teacher can use in teaching science. This process depends on the scope of teaching. Factors such as; students’ capabilities, their background and the class capacity are some of the limiting factors in the students’ academic development. Researches done on this field have found out that teachers attitude as the main difficulty faced by teachers in implementing this science teaching process on the students under achievements. In order to counter affect this, use of inquiry method is quite useful. This method instills extensive knowledge on the students than just listening in the classroom (Jordan,24). 1.6 Limitations of the study The use of inquiry method is different from other methods by its emphasis on data gathering, reasoning from the evidence and explaining information from the available data. To most teachers, this move from the traditional instructional approach is difficult, and it has pervasive effects on the learner. Teachers and students also engage in mind clashes. Teachers instead of trying to manage the classroom by keeping the students attentive, need to encourage students to talk with each other, and form other collaborative learning strategies. Establishing a conducive environment for learning is not an easy task to do; this is because discarding traditional teaching practices is hard to do. 2.0 Methodology Quasi-experimental design is a method of experimental research used widely in science subjects. This is a planned interference by the researcher on the natural arrangement of occurrences. The emphasis laid on the experiment shows the high regard given to the information provided. The importance of using quasi experimental design comes from the search for inferences about causes and relationships compared to simply description. Researchers do not need to describe the events but making inferences about what caused the event. To gain this information, some form of experimental design become required. The purpose for this design is to remove this alternative causes, leaving only the real factor which is the real cause (Jordan, 13). 2.1 Method of Data Collection Sampling becomes used in the study, and the quantitative data generated by the despondence’s answer that becomes obtained from administered questionnaires. Data is collected from 50 pupils. The respondents consist of pupils in year 6 from two classes (Tobin, 21). 2.2 Test Instruments Achievement scores become assessed by a single science achievement test. The questions selected include: I. How is a shadow formed? Ii. What is the position of the sun, the earth and the moon during the solar and lunar eclipse? Iii. Name the three different sources of light. Iv. Give examples in everyday life to show that light travels in a straight line. V. Why are shadows sometimes short and sometimes long on a sunny day? Vi. What happens to a ray of light when it passes through water? Vii. What is the position of the sun, earth and the moon when a solar eclipse occurs? Viii. What are the conditions for a rainbow to be seen? Ix. When the solar eclipse does occur? X. What substance transmits some light but diffuses and absorbs the rest. There will be two such kinds of tests. The first one is the pre test while the second one will be a class test. The pre test gets done without any grading to see how the pupils fair. The class test becomes used for the grading purpose. The pretest covers the basic knowledge and the detailed comprehension of questions dealing with light. The pre test had a maximum score of 10 while the class test had a maximum of 20. 2.3 Design and data collection Lessons become conducted over a three week period with 3, 40 minute lessons per week. Because this is the first year where these pupils become exposed to formal science quizzes, the concept of light is new to them. Some qualitative data get taken based on the pre test and class test that contained questions related to light. Table 1: Mean Scores for Pre and Class Tests Although the mean scores differed between the two classes, all pupils averaged a mean of 5.8 for the pre test and 6.7 for the class test. There is an average of 30.4% increases in results from the Pre test to Class test. This resembles a vast improvement in terms of understanding scientific concepts. It can also be seen that class A fared better than class B. This is because of the following factors: A) Class A teachers were competent in conducting the inquiry based approach lesson well. B) The student’s ability to compare and contrast answers, C) Students’ retention skill. The high mean score could also mean that: there becomes repeated drilling of the scientific terms, successful regurgitation of knowledge/ facts acquired from class, effecting teaching methods and also learning strategies. Low mean scores do not necessarily mean that there was the lack of application of concepts or failing to understand the scientific concepts, but do to: A) Lack of emphasis on the fundamental scientific concepts. B) Pupils’ retention ability. C) Familiarization of the terms used. Some key questions become taken into consideration after the pre tests get conducted. The basis for selecting these questions becomes largely correlated to the lessons conducted during the three weeks. For example, Question 2, 7 and 9 are related to the topic on Solar Eclipse whereas Question 10 is related to the topic Reflection of light. This becomes done to ascertain the extent of the degree of accuracy in terms of getting the scientific concepts as a result of the experimental learning that took place in the class. For example, the researchers would like to find out, if the students were able to determine substances that absorb light and those that transmit light. This is crucial because one of the outcomes from learning is to identify substances that are opaque, translucent and transparent. There were 4 teachers used in the science experiment, two men and two women. Two teachers (one man, one woman) taught the class that used the traditional method of teaching. This is the chalk and board method. The other two teachers (one man, one woman) taught in the class where they used the inquiry method. The first class becomes grouped as class B while the other classes get grouped as class B. The educational program of the group using the inquiry based method consisted of various integrative facets that included selected materials for experiments. This included, designed form of the eclipses, water, and a source of light. The materials were available for the participating class throughout the three weeks the research gets done. Teachers get informed of what to achieve and of the topics they were to teach. They get the class test in advance to adequately prepare the pupils for the test (Jordan, 13). 2.5Data collection The data used in this research was both primary data and secondary data. Questionnaires and interviews become used as the source of primary data. Questionnaires handed to both groups that participated in the research. This was to find out which method of teaching they preferred. Interviews become done to the teachers in order to gather more information on the method of teaching in depth. The secondary data is found from the different publications on effective teaching methods. 2.6 Data Analysis The data gets analyzed using Microsoft-Excel- a computer package and presented in graph forms. SPSS release 13 gets employed for the statistical analysis. Inquiry method becomes found in high level (mean6.8). Determination of this level was through the Nugent, Stepper and Hudson (2001) thumb of rule that states that results get used to show the magnitude in continuum. High scores indicate a significant magnitude while low scores indicate a small magnitude. Group A scored a high percentage in both tests conducted. As expected, the group that used the inquiry method (Group A) performed better than Group B that used the chalk and board method (Karplus, 40). This goes on to explain that the inquiry method is the most effective way of teaching science in the primary school. Teachers should adopt this method in order to make learning effective and efficient in their schools. Works Cited Chin, C. (2006). Classroom interaction in science: Teacher questioning and feedback to Students’ responses. International Journal of Science Education, 28(11), 50-68. Jordan, L. K. (2005). Integrating inquiry across the curriculum. California: Corwin Press. Karplus, R. (1974). Science Curriculum Improvement Study Teachers Handbook. Berkeley: University of California. Tobin, K. T. (1994). Research on instructional strategies for teaching science. In Gabel, D. L. Handbook of Research on science teaching and learning. . New York: Macmillan. Read More