Investigating the relationship between instructional practices and science achievement in an inquiry-based learning environment

Abstract

This study investigates the discrete effects of inquiry-based instructional practices that described the PISA 2015 construct 'inquiry-based instruction' and how each practice, and the frequency of each practice, is related to science achievement across 69 countries. The data for this study were drawn from the PISA 2015 database and analysed using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). HLMs were estimated to test the contribution of each item to students' science achievement scores. Some inquiry practices demonstrated a significant, linear, positive relationship to science achievement (particularly items involving contextualising science learning). Two of the negatively associated items (explaining their ideas and doing experiments) were found to have a curvilinear relationship to science achievement. All nine items were dummy coded by the reported frequency of use and an optimum frequency was determined using the categorical model and by calculating the inflection point of the curvilinear associations in the previous model e.g. students that carry out experiments in the lab in some lessons have higher achievement scores than students who perform experiments in all lessons. These findings, accompanied by detailed analyses of the items and their relationships to science outcomes, give stakeholders clear guidance regarding the effective use of inquiry-based approaches in the classroom.

The status of and challenges facing secondary science teaching in Tanzania: a focus on inquiry-based science teaching and the nature of science

“…Secondly, there is the need to address the tradeoffs between enhancing students' science achievement and enabling students to acquire process skills such as scientific inquiry and informed views of NOS. In a study that involved 69 countries which participated in the 2015 Program for International Students Assessment (PISA), Cairns (2019) found that the aspect of open inquiry such as students designing their own experiments and having a debate about science investigation were negatively correlated with science achievements. Meanwhile, students arguing about science questions and drawing conclusions were not correlated with achievement.…”

“…Meanwhile, students arguing about science questions and drawing conclusions were not correlated with achievement. Instead, teacher-directed items such as teacher explaining how a scientific idea is applied were related to gains in science achievement (Cairns, 2019). Therefore, given that science teachers in Tanzania must aspire to raise students' science achievements, formal arrangements such as having few class hours dedicated to IBST and NOS activities each week can help to focus on these process skills.…”

“…The role of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education in realising social and economic development is well acknowledged (Fitzgerald et al, 2019;Semali & Mehta, 2012). Thus, improving the teaching of STEM subjects has become a top school priority (Cairns, 2019). In relation to this, IBST (Areepattamannil, 2012;Cairns & Areepattamannil, 2019;Fitzgerald et al, 2019;National Research Council (NRC), 1996) and informed views of NOS (Billingsley & Fraser, 2018;Das et al, 2019;Fernandes et al, 2018;Herman et al, 2015) are among the essential aspects of science teaching and scientific literacy in general.…”

“…To demonstrate further, according to Cairns and Areepattamannil (2019) and Nadelson et al (2013), IBST calls for science teaching and/or learning to be done in a way almost similar to the actual science practice done by professional scientists. Although research on the effects of IBST on science achievement has produced mixed results (Cairns, 2019), IBST is associated with enhanced students' interests and self-efficacy of science (Cairns & Areepattamannil, 2019;Fitzgerald et al, 2019), conceptual understanding of science (Gaskill et al, 2006;Linn et al, 2003) and the development of self-regulation skills (Crujeiras-Pérez & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2019;Moote, 2019). Understanding NOS ensures that science teaching and learning is informed through the assumptions about the nature of scientific knowledge.…”

The effectiveness of video-based interaction on professional science teachers to improve elementary school students achievements

“…Student activity sheets also encourage student activity in remembering, understanding, applying, and analyzing. Student worksheets can also help provide instruction on what students should do (Cairns, 2019). Thus, learning tools that are systematic and relevant in the preparation, process, and competency objectives will have consistent results on other topics.…”