Scientific Inquiry with Information Technologies: High School Students' Experiences

This initial study focused on high school students' experiences about their understanding of, and abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, two foci emphasized by the National Science Education Standards in the strand on "science as inquiry". The research method consisted of Likert-scale survey with space provided for students' comments about the two parallel foci of science as inquiry. The data were collected from 45 students (29 females and 16 males) from Grades 9 to 12. The results of this study has indicated that on the average 82.06% and 78.71% of the students developed better understanding of, and abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry, respectively. These increases were further supported by evidence from qualitative data. This study lays the foundation for future studies on mapping learning progressions on scientific inquiry with information technologies. This study reiterates the need to emphasize the importance of "how do we come to know what we know in science". (Contains 2 tables.)