Development of a teaching-learning sequence for scientific inquiry through argumentation in secondary physics education

Enabling students to engage in independent scientific inquiry is a highly valued but seemingly elusive goal of (secondary school) science education. Therefore, this study aims to determine and understand how to effectively develop inquiry knowledge in students. The chosen approach to enable students to plan, carry out and evaluate a physics...

‘Would you dare to jump?’ Fostering a scientific approach to secondary physics inquiry

Secondary school students often only use the rules for doing scientific inquiry when prompted, as if they fail to see the point of doing so. This qualitative design study explores conditions to address this problem in school science inquiry. Dutch students (N = 22, aged 14–15) repeatedly consider the quality of their work: in a conventional,...

Differences and similarities in approaches to physics LAB-courses

Many universities attempt through their lab courses to teach students how to successfully engage in physics inquiry. It is known that doing so effectively requires students to participate in genuine inquiry: Learning to do science by doing science. Still, many different approaches can be envisioned. Should students always pose their own research...