This study focuses on the ability of high-school chemistry students, who learn chemistry through the inquiry approach, to ask meaningful and scientifically sound questions. We investigated (a) the ability of students to ask questions related to their observations and findings in an inquiry-type experiment (a practical test) and (b) the ability of students to ask questions after critically reading a scientific article. The student population consisted of two groups: an inquiry-laboratory group (experimental group) and a traditional laboratory-type group (control group). The three common features investigated were (a) the number of questions that were asked by each of the students, (b) the cognitive level of the questions, and (c) the nature of the questions that were chosen by the students, for the purpose of further investigation. Importantly, it was found that students in the inquiry group who had experience in asking questions in the chemistry laboratory outperformed the control grouping in their ability to ask more and better questions.

The study described in this article is based on a long-term comprehensive series of investigations that were conducted in the context of teaching high school chemistry in the laboratory using inquiry-type experiments. The students that study chemistry according to this program are involved in an inquiry process that included all the inquiry skills namely: identifying problems, formulating hypotheses, designing an experiment, gathering and analyzing data, and drawing conclusions about scientific problems and phenomena. While conducting these activities in small collaborative groups, they were encouraged to discuss their ideas about the scientific phenomena they were observing with their classmates and they were provided the time needed to accomplish it. A case study of inquiry activity of a group of three students is described and analyzed using a model of metacognition that was presented by Schraw (1998). The transcripts of the interviews of 20 students were analyzed using a model of Flavell et al. (2002). It was found that while performing the inquiry activity, the students practiced their metacognitive abilities in various stages of the inquiry process. The analysis of the interviews indicated that the students that participated in the research expressed their metacognitive knowledge regarding the inquiry activity. Thus, it is claimed that an inquiry-type laboratory that is properly planned and performed can give students an opportunity to practice metacognitive skills, which are regarded in recent years as one of the key goals in our attempt to broaden the scope of learning skills developed through learning science.

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Over a period of more than 60 years, the chemistry laboratory has been extensively and comprehensively researched and hundreds of research papers, reviews, and doctoral dissertations have been published, investigating the laboratory as a unique learning environment. However, there were challenges and pedagogical questions regarding its educational effectiveness and benefits for teaching and learning chemistry. At the beginning of the 21 st century there was a call to rethink (and research) the goals for learning chemistry in the laboratory. This is especially applicable in an era in which we are trying to enhance the goal of teaching "chemistry for all students" and/or for the benefit of what is fondly called "future citizens". Working for more than 15 years with colleagues and students, we researched the potential of establishing an inquiry-type chemistry laboratory for developing high-order learning skills, namely, skills for the future or skills for life, including metacognitive and argumentative skills, and the ability of students to ask relevant questions resulting from an inquiry-type chemistry laboratory.