A theoretical and empirical exploration of intrinsic problems in designing inquiry activities

A central concern in science education is promoting inquiry activities, and a significant amount of research in science education has addressed what inhibits this goal. However, this research has tended to be focused on implementation issues. Levels of implementation are correlated with extrinsic barriers such as time, resources and teacher knowledge, but the internal structure of inquiry remains unexamined. This article considers whether there are also some ways in which inquiry based instruction is intrinsically difficult. That is, given perfect conditions for implementation, devising inquiry activities is a non-trivial matter, and there are patterns to the difficulties in doing so. This article to provides both a theoretical and empirical basis for the intrinsic problems associated with the construction of inquiry activities. The authors present a theoretical framework that connects contemporary studies of science to the classroom context. They then examine a case study of teacher education students designing inquiry-based instruction to demonstrate empirical evidence of intrinsic problems. Their ultimate goal is to improve the ability of teacher educators to guide science teachers in fulfilling this central task of their work. [Author abstract]