An Analysis of Science High School Students' Inquiry Process, Activity, and Type Showed in Open-Inquiry

Abstract

Open-inquiry will be operated in revised curriculum enforced at 2010. But the school's preparation for it is insufficient. The purpose of this research was to analyze inquiry process, activity and type of science high school students that appeared in open-inquiry. For this research, we analyzed 107 inquiry subject from 214 students of science high school, and classified them based on SAPA II by using student-inquiry treatise plan, inquiry activity journal and final report. As a result of the research, the factors of basic and integrated inquiry skills are not equally included in students' inquiry tasks. There is no notable difference of basic inquiry skills according to subject, but considerable difference of integrated inquiry skills is identified. Inquiry activity is classified into experiment, experiment without controlling variables and survey. Inquiry with integrated context is very rare. Based on the results of analyses of inquiry skill and activity, we identified four different types of open-inquiry. Implications of enhancing open-inquiry to authentic inquiry are also discussed.