Effects of Inquiry Based Learning Approach on Creative Thinking and Scientific Process Skills

Abstract

A constructive framework leads teachers to create an environment, which allows them and their students to question themselves, ask questions, make research and facilitate comprehension. How can teachers influence students while they are creating new information and are changing existing concepts? Teachers can have this influence by encouraging the students to observe the nature, interact with the nature and question the nature (Smith et al., 1993). Scientific research refers to scientists' way of learning the natural world and children's best way of learning the science (Brunner, 1960). In other words, if students carry out scientific practices according to the inquiry-based teaching and learning philosophy, they reach better meanings about the structure of science and become more interested in science (Roth, 1992). Making inquiries help students pose suitable questions, seek answers for them and solve the problems they encounter in daily life (Germann, 1994). Two individuals may not comprehend the same concept in the same way. They can confirm the phenomena they perceive through inquiries to this end. Inquiry-based learning provides the teachers and students with the opportunity of making inquiries about the natural world and using the evidence, they obtained in order to test these perceptions (Alouf&Bentley, 2003). This study was carried out in order to examine the effects of inquiry-based learning approach on creative thinking and scientific process skills of preservice science teachers. It was conducted in the 3 rd grade teaching technologies and material development course of the Department of Science Education in the education faculty of a state university in Turkey in the fall term of 2013-2014 academic year. Semi-experimental pattern with experimental and control groups was used in the research. The number of students included in the study group is 92 in total. While 45 of them are included in the experimental group, 47 of them are included in the control group. Average scores of previous terms were compared and it was indicated that the groups are equal. The study was carried out by the researcher in both groups for 12 weeks and whether there were significant differences among the creative thinking levels and scientific process skills of the student group receiving education on the basis of the program prepared by using inquiry-based learning approach and of the student group receiving education via traditional teaching method was examined. In the research, Torrance Creative Thinking Test (TYDT) and Scientific Process Skill (BSB) Test were used as data collection tool. TYDT can be applied on age groups ranging from kindergarten to university. The test which merely consists of a paper-pencil test with no additional study has a verbal form and a figure form. These forms are separate and measure different dimensions of creativity. TYDT has 10 activities in total, seven of them in the verbal form and 3 of them in the figure form. In this study, TYDT figure form A was used (Korkmaz, 2002). According to Gerald...

The Effect of Student-Centered Approaches on Students' Creative Thinking Skills: A Meta-Analysis Study

“…In the meta-analysis study conducted by Ören and Sarı (2019), the effect of research-inquiry based learning on students' higher order thinking skills is moderate and positive (ES=0.66), while in this meta-analysis study, the effect on CTS which is among higher order thinking skills is insignificant and low. This may be due to the fact that there is the only one study included in the scope of meta-analysis (Şensoy & Yıldırım, 2017). Generally, it is seen that research, interaction and activity-based learning positively affect students' higher order thinking skills, especially CTS (Aktamış, Hiğde & Özden, 2016).…”

Görme Yetersizliği Olan Öğrencilere Yönelik Geliştirilen Fen Etkinliklerin Bilimsel Süreç Becerileri Öğrenimine Etkisi

“…Bu çalışma, görme yetersizliği olan öğrencilerin öğrenmelerini aktif kılacak yapılandırıcı yaklaşıma uygun ders planlarının öğrencilerin bilimsel süreç becerilerine olumlu etkisini ortaya koymaktadır. Çalışma verileri alanyazında yapılmış mevcut çalışmalarla (Bülbül, 2013;Çalıkoğlu, 2014;Günşen vd., 2018;Kızılaslan ve Sözbilir, 2017;Kuru ve Akman, 2017;Köklükaya ve Yıldırım, 2018;Öztürk, 2016;Öztürk vd., 2017;Öztürk ve Başbay, 2017;Şahin, 2018;Şensoy ve Yıldırım, 2017) uyuşmaktadır.…”

“…Bu sayede bireylerin öğrendikleri kalıcı hale gelecek ve bireyler bilimsel süreç becerilerini aktif olarak kullanacaklardır. Alanyazın incelendiğinde; bilimsel süreç becerilerine yönelik olarak okul öncesi dönemde bilimsel süreç becerileri (Aldemir ve Kermani, 2017;Günşen, Fazlıoğlu ve Bayır, 2018;Hong ve Diamond, 2011;Katz, 2011;Kuru ve Akman, 2017;Mantzicopoulos, Samarapungavan ve Patrick, 2009;Peterson, 2009;Saçkes, Trundle ve Bell, 2013;Toprakkaya, 2016;Yağcı, 2016), hazırlanan etkinliklerin öğrencilerdeki bilimsel süreç becerilerine etkisi (Kanlı, 2007;Şensoy ve Yıldırım, 2017), öğretim programlarında ve kitaplarda yer alan bilimsel süreç becerilerinin tespiti (Dökme, 2005;Kanari ve Millar, 2004;Kılıç, Haymana ve Bozyılmaz, 2010;Özdemir ve Yanık, 2017), öğretmenlerin bilimsel süreç becerileri (Bozkurt, 2014; Güler ve Şahin, 2015) ve üstün yetenekli öğrencilerin bilimsel süreç becerileri (Çalıkoğlu, 2014; Özdemir, 2017) çalışmaları yapılmıştır. Görme yetersizliği olan öğrencilerin bilimsel süreç becerilerine yönelik olarak ulusal ve uluslararası alanyazında Bülbül (2013), Kızılaslan (2019), Kızılaslan ve Sözbilir (2017)'in yapmış olduğu görme yetersizliği olan öğrencilere yönelik tasarlanan etkinliğin bilimsel süreç becerileri açısından incelenmesi çalışmaları yer almaktadır.…”