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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 11, Issue 1, Article 3 (Jun., 2010) |
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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 11, Issue 1, Article 3 (Jun., 2010) |
Alternative understanding about scientific inquiry
1Winnie Wing-mui SO and 2Mei ZHONG
1The Hong Kong Institute of Education
Email: wiso@ied.edu.hk
2Faoshan University, P.R. CHINA
Email: mmzhong@126.com
Received 23 April, 2010
Revised 2 Jun., 2010
Scientific inquiry has been widely seen as an important approach of science education for facilitating understanding of science and development of scientific thinking. Through analysis of pupils’ written proposals and final reports, this research attempted to explore pupils’ alternative understanding about scientific inquiry. The analysis showed that pupils did not always learn about what science was and acquired scientific way of thinking just by hands-on activities. On the contrary, some pseudoscientific explanations were commonly found in pupils’ work and reports. Improving pupils’ understanding of the different types of investigation, the establishment of concept of evidence, and enhancing science as argument should be the future of directions of scientific inquiry learning.
Keywords: scientific inquiry; nature of science; scientific thinking
Copyright (C) 2010 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 11, Issue 1, Article 3 (Jun., 2010). All Rights Reserved.