Improving Middle School Students’ Understanding about Scientific Inquiry through Creative Problem-Solving Modules enriched with the History of Science

Abstract

Research showed that middle school students’ understandings of scientific inquiry in Türkiye are inadequate in spite of the science curriculum reforms that have been conducted in recent years. And thus, contemporary science curricula should be organized as learning environments where students can find creative solutions to real-life problems using inquiry, collaboration, and reflection and can experience the process of creating scientific knowledge. In line with this, in this study, it was aimed to improve the understanding about scientific inquiry of middle school students through learning environments namely Creative Problem-Solving Modules Enriched with History of Science, and to compare their effectiveness with the current science curriculum.
The participants of the study were students in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades, who were grouped as intervention (N=141) and control (N=77). Since it is a quasi-experimental study, classroom interventions namely Creative Problem-Solving Modules Enriched with History of Science were implemented in the intervention classrooms for one academic year, whereas in the control group classes, the Ministry of National Education Science (MoNE) curriculum practices, which has the vision of scientific literacy and is based on the inquiry-based teaching approaches, were applied. The data collection tool of the study was Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI) Questionnaire developed by Lederman et al. (2014) which consists of open-ended questions. VASI was administrated as a pre-test and post-test to both groups, and additionally focus group interviews were conducted with VASI questions.
The results showed that the changes in the understanding of the aspects of SI-2 (There is no single set or sequence of steps followed in all investigations) and SI-8 (Explanations are developed from a combination of collected data and what is already known) were found statistically significant in favor of intervention groups. Moreover, although the lowest percentage of naïve students were found in the intervention groups prior to interventions, it was found that the current curriculum practices were not found as effective as the Creative Problem-Solving Modules Enriched with History of Science in improving these understandings of middle school students. In line with this, the Creative Problem-Solving Modules Enriched with History of Science helped students in the intervention groups to be at the informed level on all aspects of SI except SI-1 (Scientific investigations all begin with a question but do not necessarily test a hypothesis) and SI-2 (There is no single set or sequence of steps followed in all investigations). However, no students from the control groups were found at the informed level in 5 of 8 aspects of SI (SI-1, SI-2, SI-5, SI-7, and SI-8). While the effect of the Creative Problem-Solving Modules Enriched with History of Science interventions on the development of scientific inquiry understandings varies by grade level; it was also found that current inquiry-based science curriculum practices had a limited effect regardless of the grade level. The results showed that in the intervention groups in which the modules were implemented, 7th and 5th grades were the ones who improved their understanding the most. In line with the study results, implications were discussed and recommendations for policymakers are provided.