Effect of confirmation and structured inquiry on attitudes toward school science

Abstract

Guided and open inquiry strategies are found to improve students’ attitudes toward science. Yet, confirmation and structured inquiry are more often enacted by teachers. The effectiveness of these approaches involving high teacher guidance remains unexplored. Students in six classes (N = 119, Mage = 11.25 years) were assigned to control (lecture) or treatment (confirmation or structured inquiry) groups. The intervention consisted of two units of 3 h each. Following the intervention, students in the structured inquiry condition reported more intentions to enroll in school science than their counterparts in the confirmation inquiry or lecture group. There were no differences in enjoyableness, self-efficacy, usefulness, and relevance of school science between pedagogical conditions. The findings support the use of structured inquiry over confirmation inquiry and lecture-based strategies for developing students’ science career aspirations, which has implications for science teacher professional development and the design of instructional resources.