How Effective Is Inquiry Learning for Students With Mild Disabilities?

Abstract

This investigation was intended to determine whether students with learning disabilities (LD) and mild mental retardation (MR) differed from normally achieving students with respect to inductive thinking on an inquiry learning task involving pendulum motion. Twenty normally achieving students, 18 students with LD, and 16 students with MR were provided individually with guided coaching, in a prespecified sequence of steps, intended to promote induction of the association between pendulum length and pendulum motion. After the initial guided activity, 75% of the normally achieving students and 50% of the students with LD, but none of the students with MR, provided the correct induction. Over one fourth of the students with LD, and nearly all of the students with MR, required all of the prescribed coaching levels, including direct explanation of the rule. Students with LD and MR were less likely to correctly answer transfer/application questions. Implications for teaching are provided.

Science and Social Studies for Students With Disabilities

“…Mastropieri, Scruggs, and Butcher (1997) provided an interactive demonstration of pendulum movement to normally achieving students, as well as students with learning disabilities and mental retardation. After observing the swing rate of pendulums of different lengths, students were invited to create a general rule for pendulum movement (i.e., the longer the string, the slower the pendulum swings).…”

Effect of Strategy Instruction on Fourth-Grade Dual Language Learners' Ability to Monitor Their Comprehension of Scientific Texts

“…As mentioned in the literature review, while children with learning disabilities may be able to participate in, and benefit from, instruction derived from constructivist principles, they need coaching and guidance in order to be successful (Mastropieri, Scruggs, & Butcher, 1997). This work draws on the bases of social constructivist theory laid down by Vygotsky (1978).…”

Reducing educational failure

“…A number of authorities suggest that some students make much better progress in basic academic skills when they are directly and explicitly taught (Lloyd, 1988;Thompson, 1992;Kameenui, 1993;Pressley and McCormick, 1995;Mastropieri, Scruggs and Butcher, 1997). In particular, slower learning students, poorly motivated students, and students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds appear to acquire basic skills more rapidly when taught by methods involving a great deal of teacher modelling and guided practice.…”

“…This is particularly so when discovery methods are applied to the learning of basic skills (Graham and Harris, 1994;' Pressley and McCormick, 1995;Mastropieri, Scruggs and Butcher, 1997). Regardless of how these students function outside school, in school they appear not to have the effective task-approach strategies .…”