A Case Study of High School Students'''' Doing Open-ended Inquiry Activity

• Main Authors: Hung-Wen Liu, 劉宏文
• Other Authors: Huey-Por Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/13474512956386858703

博士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 科學教育研究所 === 89 === The purpose of this study was to investigate the following questions associated with open-ended inquiry environment: the features of problems framed by students, the process of problem elaborating and problem solving, the perception of open-ended inquiry student had, and the construction of science knowledge in personal and group level during open-ended inquiry activity. Over a one-year period, the researcher used interviews, survey, concept maps, laboratory reports, paper-pen tests as data collecting tools, and qualitative analysis as methodology to describe a wide range of phenomena which happened in open-ended inquiry in three groups of nine students. It was found that the problems students brought up were closely related to their daily life experiences. Besides, they could be shaped gradually through the interactions among individuals and resources to such an extent that they could be explored by means of quantitative measurements. Problems which emerged in the period of open-ended inquiry, could not be predicted. For these emergent problems, there are no algorithms, which lead to solutions. Through open-ended inquiry, students learn to cope with the contingences and indexicality to solve the problems. Students seem to be able to engage in complex cognitive activity when they work in a group and situational inquiry settings. But individual students could not transform these activities and skills efficiently to context-free environments. Both students'''' interests in science and extent of participating in inquiry, were the major factors to bear on the learning achievements in open-ended inquiry. Through the connection between concepts and the construction of proposition relations, student engaged in science talks and structured their conceptual framework each other. The results of collaborative concept mapping were expressed in the within-group similarities of individual maps. But individuals still hold on to specific ideas when these misconceptions were not discussed overtly. Students'''' understanding about science knowledge becomes deeper and more complex when students have engaged a number of practices to interact with the phenomena they studied. At the initial stage of exploration, students experienced greater difficulties in formulating their research problems because of lacking cognitive capacity and subject content knowledge. It was important to assist students in framing more complex research questions through the metaphor of apprenticeship. Over time, students became increasingly independent and began to design most of the investigations on their own; on the other hand, students became more responsible and reflective on their learning process. There were many similarities between students'''' work and that of scientists. But there were still essential differences between the two. These differences aroused from conceptual background rather than from specific rationality to scientific thinking. Based on the results of this research, it was suggested that high school students should learn science concepts, process, and skills efficiently from authentic science activity. In order to help students to experience the uncertainties, ambiguities, and the social nature of scientific work, we should instruct students to learn science in contexts constituted in part by ill-defined problems.