Prospective elementary teachers' abilities in tackling a contextualized physics problem as guided inquiry

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative study, with a descriptive and interpretative nature, of the abilities of prospective elementary teachers (PETs) to solve a contextualized problem of physics through a process of guided inquiry. Specifically, an analysis was made of the PETs' abilities to (a) formulate hypotheses; (b) plan inquiry procedures aimed at testing hypotheses; and (c) draw conclusions from the inquiry (i.e., interpret experimental data to accept or reject their hypotheses, and recognize the limitations of the inquiry that they had conducted). The study participants were 17 PETs who were receiving training in science teaching. They were organized into small groups to solve the physics problem proposed to them. The study's data were extracted from the inquiry reports that the groups prepared by following a script with open-ended questions. The results revealed the PETs' strengths and weaknesses in addressing the different scientific practices that had been required in the process, as well as showing that they all had achieved some improvement in their inquiry abilities after completing the activity. A discussion of the results is given with a view to improving the training of PETs in inquiry-based science learning.

Validation of an instrument for assessing basic science process skills in initial elementary teacher education

“…Indeed, the fact of confirming what was expected, unfortunately, in light of the vast amount of research carried out with PETs, indicates that the questionnaire presented has acceptable validity and that the data attained are reliable. Specifically, the questionnaire allowed corroboration of results obtained in previous qualitative studies on the performance of PETs in relation to SPSs, such as identifying researchable questions (Cruz-Guzmán et al, 2017), formulating scientific hypotheses (García-Carmona, 2020a;Yoon et al, 2012), taking measurement accuracy into account (García-Carmona, 2019), planning an inquiry (García-Carmona et al, 2017), identifying and handling variables (Aydoğdu et al, 2014;Criado et al, 2019;Montero-Pau et al, 2017), and handling and interpreting data (Aydoğdu et al, 2014;García-Carmona, 2020a).…”

“…Most of them have been conducted in the context of inquiry-based science education (e.g., Abell et al, 2006;Newman et al, 2004;García-Carmona et al, 2017) and reveal that PETs have quite a few limitations in the performance of SPSs. Thus, PETs have difficulties in identifying and controlling variables (Aydoğdu et al, 2014;Criado et al, 2019;Montero-Pau et al, 2017;Rintayati et al, 2020), formulating researchable questions (Cruz-Guzmán et al, 2017), posing scientific hypotheses (García-Carmona, 2020a;Yoon et al, 2012) and planning school inquiries to test them (García-Carmona et al, 2017). PETs also have shortcomings in making measurements (García-Carmona, 2019) and inferring (Aydoğdu et al, 2014;Chabalengula et al, 2012) in the context of a school scientific inquiry.…”

“…In the literature, one finds that students' SPSs are quite frequently evaluated using a qualitative approach, for instance, analysing their productions about an activity of inquiry (Cruz-Guzmán et al, 2017;García-Carmona, 2019, 2020aOh, 2010), through class observations and field notes (Yoon et al, 2012), class session recordings (Oh, 2010), or personal interviews (Abd Rauf et al, 2013). This approach has the advantage that it allows the research to go into some depth into the degree of development of these SPSs and the difficulties that hinder their understanding.…”

“…Nonetheless, most studies of PET science education levels have focused on scientific knowledge (e.g., Arslan et al, 2012;Verdugo et al, 2016). Much scarcer have been those aimed at analysing their SPSs (Chabalengula et al, 2012;García-Carmona, 2019, 2020a. For this reason, we set out to design and validate a questionnaire to evaluate the levels of SPSs in PET training.…”