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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 16, Issue 1, Article 2 (Jun., 2015) |
According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau (2011), the research school in the current study was located in rural northeast Georgia and served students from kindergarten through fifth grade. In this northeastern Georgia county, the research school was one of three elementary schools, and qualified as a Title I school. The county in which the school was located had a population of 22,084 in 2009. In 2008, the per capita income was $29,131, and in 2010, 18% of people living in the county were living below the poverty level. According to the Profile of General Demographic Characteristics (2011), the demographics of the county was 87% White, 8% Black, and 4% Hispanic (pg. 1). During the 2012-2013 school year, 447 students were enrolled in the research school, of which 75 students were enrolled in fifth grade.
According to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (2011), the research schools’ demographics were 77% White, 15% Black, 6% Hispanic, and 2% multi-racial. Students in the research school who qualified for the free or reduced lunch program totaled 65%. Students in the research school who received special education services were 12%, while 5% were gifted, and 4% were students with Limited English Proficiency. According to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement (2011), 23% of students were enrolled in early intervention programs (EIP) at the research school (Student and School Demographics section, Percentage of Enrollment, p. 1).
The research participants were fifth-grade students (N = 42) in two science classes at the research school. Students were randomly assigned to fifth-grade science classes by the school administration. Convenience sampling was used to select participants from two of the 4 fifth-grade classes. Students within the classes selected for the current research were in two heterogeneously grouped regular education science classes. There were no students classified as ELL who participated in the study. The study included five students classified as special education, and six students classified as gifted.
The traditional class was the control group. Students in the traditional class (N = 20) included 10 females and 10 males. The number of students receiving special education services was six, while two students received gifted services.
The inquiry class was the experimental group. Students in the experimental class (N = 22) included 11 males and 11 females. There were no students receiving special education services, while four students received gifted services.
Students’ achievement data were determined from the previous year’s science section of the Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) for students who scored 800 or higher, met or exceeded the standards on the CRCT. The average score for student participants on the science section of the CRCT was 850.6. The mean score on the CRCT for the traditional group was 846.35, and the mean score on the CRCT for the inquiry group was 854.9.
The adult participant in this study was the teacher-researcher. The teacher-researcher was a fifth-grade math, social studies, and science teacher with 25 years of teaching experience, who held a master’s degree in exceptional education and an additional certification in early childhood education. The teaching experience of the teacher-researcher included nine years of teaching students in exceptional education and 16 years of teaching students in the regular classroom.
Demographic and achievement scores for student participants are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of the Fifth Grade, Traditional Class and Inquiry Class
Traditional Class
N = 2Inquiry Class
N =22Gender
Female Male Race/Ethnicity
White Black Hispanic 2013 April science Score on CRCT Standard Deviation This research study was conducted during the first 8-weeks of the school year. The intervention was conducted during science classes lasting 50 minutes per day, five days per week. The first 5 minutes of each class were spent reviewing of the previous day’s lesson and introducing the present day’s learning target. The last 5 minutes of the instructional period were used to bring closure to the lesson and assess understanding. Students in both the inquiry and traditional groups were presented with the same physical science learning targets from the Georgia Performance Standards (GPS), and required to perform the same number of experimental tasks. The teacher-researcher taught students in both the traditional and the inquiry class. Comparisons were made between students in the traditional and inquiry classes in terms of science achievement, impact of science attitudes, and engagement in science activities. The pretest, Physical Science Knowledge Assessment, (PSKA), (Appendix A) was administered to both groups during the first week of classes and prior to the implementation of the intervention. The PSKA was a Likert scale with 15 questions. Students in both groups also completed the Science Attitudes Survey, (SAS), (Appendix B) prior to beginning the unit of study. The SAS was a Likert scale with 10 questions.
The teacher-researcher hypothesized that using IBL methods to teach science may have a positive impact on student academic achievement, and also expected improvement of student attitudes toward science and growth in engagement in classroom activities through the use of IBL.
Students in the traditional class began a physical science unit during the third week of classes. The teacher-researcher guided students in a step-by-step process of structured learning experiences, presented the learning target goals and provided students with the information and definitions of terms that were required in the standards of the unit. Materials essential for experimentation were provided to student groups by the teacher-researcher. Students conducted experiments following step-by-step instructions regarding procedures and were told what data to collect. The teacher-researcher explained the concepts and responded to all questions posed by students in the traditional group. The process was repeated on various days for a minimum of three times each week over the course of a 6-week period. Science investigations were completed Monday through Thursday for the initial three weeks and Tuesday through Thursday for the remaining three weeks.
The intervention for the inquiry group began during week three of the current study. The teacher-researcher selected the curriculum content of study from the physical science section of the GPS and set the guidelines for inquiry. Students were presented with a question or problem from the standard and were instructed to investigate for the solution. Informational reading materials were provided to students in groups of four or five for the purpose of research to gain background knowledge about the problem. Students were allocated time to read materials and discuss the content. In small groups, students created questions to present to the whole class about physical and chemical changes and electricity. The teacher-researcher scaffolded instruction by guiding the students’ questions and modeling information on the curriculum content. Students were provided the necessary materials to solve the problem. Students worked independently of teacher instructions by thinking about the questions, engaging in discussion with group members, and deciding how to proceed with the experiment to solve the problem. As student groups performed the inquiry tasks, the teacher-researcher circulated between groups in order to facilitate learning, but did not provide direct answers for students. When all groups had reached a consensus, a whole class discussion was conducted to share with their peers the important facts that had been identified. At the conclusion of the lesson, students wrote about what they had learned and how they solved the problem in their science journals. The procedure was repeated Monday through Thursday of each week for 6 weeks.
At the conclusion of the physical science unit, students in the traditional and the inquiry groups completed the PSKA (Appendix A) as a posttest. Scores from the posttest were compared to the pretest to assess growth in knowledge and achievement. Students in both groups were also administered the SAS (Appendix B) during week 6 to determine any change in attitudes toward science from the beginning of the current research study. Both classes participated in the study for a 6-week period.
Data Collection. In order to determine the effectiveness of using IBL strategies in science instruction for fifth-grade students, three data collection instruments were developed by the teacher-researcher.
Physical Science Knowledge Assessment (Appendix A). A pretest was created by the teacher-researcher to assess students’ prior knowledge about physical science. The pretest, the Physical Science Knowledge Assessment (PSKA) was administered to students in both the traditional and inquiry groups in the first week of the 2013-2014 school year and prior to week 1 of the research study. The PSKA was used as the posttest in week 8 of the intervention. The teacher-researcher developed questions for the PSKA (Appendix A) from the Georgia Performance Standards, (GPS), (2012) for fifth-grade science, standards S5P1, S5P2, and S5P3. The teacher-researcher determined validity through a peer review team. The peer review team consisted of the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction for the research school’s school system, the academic coach at the research school, a science teacher from the fourth grade, and a science teacher from the third grade. The PSKA was administered to both classes using identical verbal instructions. The questions were rearranged on the posttest to accurately assess students’ acquisition of knowledge. The data from the traditional and the inquiry groups were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a paired one-tailed t-test to determine if the Inquiry-Based Learning method had an impact on students’ academic achievement in science.
Survey of Science Attitudes (Appendix B). The Survey of Science Attitudes (SSA) was a 10-item Likert-scale analysis of student attitudes about science learning and instruction (scored 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree). The SSA (Appendix B) was developed by the teacher-researcher and validated by a peer review team. The peer review team consisted of the assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction for the research school’s school system, the academic coach, and science teachers from the third and fourth grades at the research school. All students in the traditional and inquiry groups were asked to rate their attitudes toward science before the intervention began in week 1 of the study and again in week 7 at the conclusion of the study. The survey was used to analyze student attitudes about science prior to the intervention and at the conclusion of the intervention. Included in the survey were basic demographic questions about gender, race, and age. The data from the traditional and the inquiry groups were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a paired one-tailed t-test to determine whether the intervention had any effect on students’ attitudes toward science.
Fieldnotes. Fieldnotes were used by the teacher-researcher to record on-task and off-task student behaviors during science investigations. The teacher-researcher noted observations of each student’s behavior while monitoring student lab investigations. Fieldnotes were recorded during the lesson activities and immediately after lessons and activities ended.
Engagement checklist. The teacher-researcher used fieldnote observations to record scores on the Student Engagement Checklist (Appendix C). The scores were written on the checklist on Friday of each week for each student. Students who were fully engaged and remained on task were given a score of two. Students who were engaged in the task with very little deviation were given a score of one. The students who were frequently off task and had to be redirected back to the task were given a score of zero. Each student in the traditional class was assigned a number 1T through 25T while each student in the inquiry class was assigned a number 1I through 25I. The corresponding numbers were used by the teacher-researcher to identify students in the fieldnotes and on the engagement checklist. Fieldnotes were recorded by the teacher-researcher about comments, questions asked, behaviors, and attitudes of participating students. Behaviors noted in the fieldnotes were categorized according to themes and patterns to determine whether students in the inquiry class were more engaged in the learning process versus the level of engagement of students in the traditional class. Percentages of on-task behaviors were compared with off-task behaviors to determine whether the IBL method of teaching significantly affected students’ engagement in science.
