The Process of Facilitating Knowledge Acquisition and Retention: An Inquiry into Magnetic Poles with Challenging Questions

Abstract

The current research is to give an example to the inquiry-based science teaching implementations for facilitating knowledge acquisition and retention in a short period of time. Thus, the aim of the research is to transfer of acquired knowledge into different situations using sequential inquiry activities, which have challenging questions for inquiry about what the magnetic pole is and how to discover it. The research was designed as a pre-experimental, one-group pre-test/post-test (N=65) with a retention-test. Sequential inquiry-based science activities were applied to provide a series of developmentally appropriate experiences and discussions, which concretely scaffold participant's ideas of magnetism. According to the results, the participants interpreted the magnets and magnetic poles regarding their functions. The common view of the participants was that a magnetic pole should be at the ends. This view is associated with upper-lower or internal-external surfaces for a ring magnet. Finally, with a sphere magnet, both upper-lower or internal-external surfaces have lost their functions and the inquiry begins with the question "How to find the poles of a magnet?" In that process, students get to engage and feel that they do not know something that they should know.

A Cross Sectional Survey about Students Agreement Rates on Non-Scientific Ideas concerning the Concept of Magnet

“…When the responses of the students were examined, it was seen that students' agreements on non-scientific ideas took their least value in the university level. This finding showed parallelism with the research which reported more correct responses from teacher candidates as a result of the given instruction (Ince & Yilmaz, 2012;Okulu & Oğuz Ünver, 2018). Teacher candidates become experts in their field with the help of the university education.…”

“…When the results obtained from item 4 were considered, it was realized that a relatively high percentage of agreements were obtained from university students (19.4%). This is also in line with the literature (Okulu & Oğuz Ünver, 2018). The researchers underlined the conduction of proper learning activities during courses and utilization of scientific inquiry for the elimination of those misconceptions.…”

“…The general results obtained from the study showed that the students from all educational levels agreed with non-scientific ideas concerning the concept of magnet. Most of those non-scientific ideas were prevalent misconceptions in line with the studies concluding misconceptions determined at different grade levels (Ince & Yilmaz, 2012;Lemmer et al, 2018;Okulu & Oğuz Ünver, 2018;Preston, 2016;Yuksel, 2011). Also, there was a significant relationship between students' responses and their grade levels for all the items except the first and sixth item.…”

“…As can be seen, there are misconceptions about magnetism issue both in students in different grade levels and in teachers. When the research is analyzed, it is realized that non-scientific ideas about magnetism were generally detected with the help of the studies focusing on students at a definite age (Christidou, Kazela, Kakana & Valakosta, 2009;Çolak, 2014;Çoramık, 2012;Gülçiçek, 2004;Ince & Yilmaz, 2012;Karabacak, 2014;Kartal Taşoğlu & Bakaç, 2014;Okulu & Oğuz Ünver, 2018;Yuksel, 2011). Few studies deal with children aged 3-8 (Smolleck & Hershberger, 2011) and 9-18 (Bar et al, 1997).…”

“…Data were collected with the help of a concept test. The data collection tool was developed by the researchers as a result of the analysis of the literature (Bar et al, 1997;Bar & Zinn, 1998;Barrow, 2000;Burgoon et al, 2011;Çoramık, 2012;Gülçiçek, 2004;Güneş, 2017;Hickey & Schibeci, 1999;Ince & Yilmaz, 2012;Karabacak, 2014;Okulu & Oğuz Ünver, 2018;Preston, 2016;Smolleck & Hershberger, 2011;Tanel & Erol, 2005). Firstly, a pilot test was developed.…”