Investigating the development of secondary students' views about scientific inquiry

The purposes of this study were to (1) investigate 127 high school students' views about scientific inquiry at different grade levels, and (2) to describe factors such as the teacher's views about scientific inquiry, his teaching, and his curriculum that facilitated or constrained students' views about scientific inquiry. The majority of students held naive and mixed views for many aspects about scientific inquiry. There were few differences among students' views about scientific inquiry when comparing ninth/tenth graders to eleventh/twelfth graders. Despite the teacher having informed views and implementing aspects of inquiry-oriented teaching, few students held informed views for many aspects. When comparing the findings of the present study to past VASI studies, students had more mixed and informed views for specific VASI items. Based on interviews with the teacher and a review of the teacher's curriculum, these mixed and informed views about scientific inquiry were explicitly addressed in the classroom.