The research reported here examined the outcome of using interactive simulation technology (IST) as a guided-inquiry approach to enhance learners' conceptual knowledge of electrostatics in physics. Participants were Grade 11 physical sciences learners (n = 60) and a teacher from a rural school in South Africa. Learners were randomly assigned to an…

This study examines the epistemic disciplinary knowledge that students consider when addressing a real food emergency that requires their engagement in inquiry and argumentation practices. The study comprised two phases: (1) designing an experiment to study the emergency and (2) evaluating the real outcome of the emergency. The participants were…

The South African Physical Sciences Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) requires learners to develop science inquiry skills, including Integrated Science Inquiry Skills (ISIS). However, the performance of learners in assessment tasks related to ISIS has been consistently poor over several years. The use of ineffective pedagogical…

The purpose of this study was to observe the predictive power of the practices carried out in distance geography courses conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in students' self-efficacy in geographical inquiry skills. Fourteen variables were determined for this purpose. In this context, questions covering the individual characteristics of the…

Constructing scientific explanations of natural phenomena is an important aim of science education. Explanation oriented science teaching approaches encourage learners to engage in sense-making discussions and construct the causal accounts of the phenomena under study. This article demonstrates a lesson-design model that guides biology teachers on…

Science education is an important dimension of the European Commission's Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) objectives; however, RRI is not an explicit focus of biology teaching and few biology teachers have experience in integrating RRI in classroom practice. This study examines the impact of a three 80-minute RRI and active citizenship…

The purposes of this study were to (1) investigate 127 high school students' views about scientific inquiry at different grade levels, and (2) to describe factors such as the teacher's views about scientific inquiry, his teaching, and his curriculum that facilitated or constrained students' views about scientific inquiry. The majority of students…

The paper explores conceptions of the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI) held by five teachers who were purposively and conveniently sampled. Teachers' conceptions of the NOSI were determined using a Probes questionnaire. To confirm teachers' responses, a semi-structured interview was conducted with each teacher. The Probes questionnaire was…

This qualitative, phenomenological study presents the experiences of high-school biology students (n = 233) in an outreach programme titled Students Meet Authentic Science. The core of the programme consists of students' visits to life-science university research laboratories (from here on referred to as labs). The programme was designed according…

Inquiry skills are one of the skills that students need to master in learning biological concepts. Inquiry skills are influenced by many factors, one of which is the lesson plan. This study aims to examine the effect of inquiry lab and STEM models on inquiry skills progression. The research design used was a quasi-experiment non-randomized control…

Students' attitude towards a subject is a key indicator of academic performance, therefore its enhancement is imperative for academic success. A sample of 328 grade eleven students was selected using cluster random sampling. Two different study groups; the experimental and control groups, were composed and exposed to the guided inquiry and…

Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are necessary skills in the 21st century learning. However, the initial tests of students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills showed low scores. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to improve students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills through the POGIL (Process Oriented Guided…

In this study, two groups of 11th grade chemistry students (n = 210) performed a sequence of hands-on and virtual laboratories that were progressively more inquiry-based. One-half of the students did the laboratory sequence with the addition of a teacher-led discussion connecting student data to student-generated visual representations of…

Teacher-centered learning has no ability in empowering students' science process skills and interpersonal intelligence. This study aimed at analyzing the effect of guided inquiry on students' Science Process Skills (SPS) and Interpersonal Intelligence (II). This quasi-experiment used nonequivalent control group design. This study involved control…

This paper discusses a K-12/university collaboration in which students participated in a four-day scenario-based summer STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) camp aimed at making difficult scientific concepts salient. This scenario, Jumpstart STEM-CSI: Chocolate Science Investigation (JSCSI), used open- and guided-inquiry…