An experimental efficacy study of science achievement and attitude development amongst 8th grade students using an inquiry, integrated science-mathematics-engineering model of inst

Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this research is to test the efficacy of an inquiry model of science instruction to show best practice or what the Institute for Education Sciences refers to as "what works." The research will ask what works with regard to science instruction for middle school students and under what circumstances. The subjects will be 8th grade students from two collaborating districts: Chicago Public Schools and Kalamazoo Public Schools. The research activities include: a) Develop, adapt and revise science instructional practices according to the components of the Model. b) Summer school program where Model practices will be experimentally tested against expert direct instruction using the random assignment of subjects to treatment/control groups. c) Regular school year implementation of the Model practices accompanied by quantitative and qualitative field research. The broader impact of the study will be the validation or rejection of the inquiry science model of instruction. given the near universal advocacy of inquiry pedagogy, the proposed research will have an exceptionally broad impact regardless of its findings. It will either lend credible experimental support to what is now widely advocated practice, or will precipitate a serious reconsideration of what is considered to be appropriate science pedagogy at the school level. Moreover, given the urban setting of the research, the findings will support improved science education amongst the neediest of American students.