How Teachers Respond to Children’s Inquiry

Abstract

This study examined how teachers respond when children engage in inquiry-based deviations from a planned task. Thirty-one teachers each completed a brief science activity and accompanying worksheet with a student confederate. Teachers were given one of two goals for the study: help the students complete a worksheet or help the students learn more about science. The instructions had a significant effect on the teachers’ responses to students’ deviations. Teachers in the worksheet condition tended to discourage deviation and draw the students back to the task at hand, whereas teachers in the learn more condition were more likely to encourage and expand on the deviation. Apart from their responses to students’ deviations, nearly all teachers were classified as encouraging, suggesting that an articulated goal for the activity has a particular effect on the response to deviations. Implications for the role of teachers in the development of children’s curiosity are considered.

Using Mind Maps to Make Student Questioning Effective: Learning Outcomes of a Principle-Based Scenario for Teacher Guidance

“…Although student SIS questioning is deemed important, it is rarely observed in classrooms (Engel & Randall 2009). Although many teachers acknowledge the importance of intellectual curiosity, in practice they struggle to balance freedom for students SIS questioning with curricular pressures (Engel & Randall 2009).…”

“…Although many teachers acknowledge the importance of intellectual curiosity, in practice they struggle to balance freedom for students SIS questioning with curricular pressures (Engel & Randall 2009). In education, therefore, the challenge emerges to build a bridge between the intellectual curiosity and personal interests of students (the student perspective) and the responsibility for coverage of the curriculum and attainment of learning goals (the teacher perspective).…”

Development and validation of a questionnaire to measure primary school children’s images of and attitudes towards curiosity (the CIAC questionnaire)

“…Finally, some studies suggest that teacher-directed and standardized approaches to learning are limiting children's natural tendency to be inquisitive learners (Claxton and Carr 2004;Engel 2006;Engel and Randall 2009). As we described in the introduction of this paper, such approaches may easily teach children that there is just one correct answer to teachers' questions and that being inquisitive is disruptive to classroom instruction (e.g., Post and Walma van der Molen 2018).…”

“…Studies concerning children's curiosity in primary school settings suggest that the educational content and pedagogy offer children little encouragement to be curious, even as part of inquiry-oriented educational activities (Engel 2006(Engel , 2011Engel and Randall 2009;Fortus 2014). Lesson activities usually emphasize to children the notion that there is just one correct answer to or solution for questions and assignments, and that diverse question-asking and explanationseeking is disruptive to teachers' pre-scripted instruction (Post and Walma van der Molen 2018;Van Booven 2015).…”

Enquiry-based science in the infant classroom: ‘letting go’

“…This view is particularly apposite when enquiry-based approaches are considered, as they have been shown to be efficacious in stimulating children's curiosity and interest about the world (Bartley, Mayhew, and Finkelstein 2009;Bell, Urhahne, Schanze, and Ploetzner 2010;Engel and Randall 2008). Indeed, some of the key goals for early years education worldwide are to gain an understanding of the world through observation and exploration (DfE 2014a;DfE 2014b;National Research Council 2000;Poisson 2000).…”