Investigation Into The Current Situation Of The Implementation Of Scientific Inquiry Activity In Senior High School Physics

With the enactment of "Basic Education Curriculum Reform Program (Trial)" in 2001, China began a new round of the reform of basic education curriculum. Physics Curriculum Standard of Ordinary Senior High School has been carried out since 2003. Firstly, Shangdong, Guangdong, Hainan and Ningxia province started the reform of the senior high school curriculum in 2004. Till 2010, most parts of China have participated in the reform.During this round of reform, Physics Curriculum Standard of Ordinary Senior High School aims to improve citizens'scientific quality, to cultivate students'creative ability. The curriculum standard demands to offer students more space, more opportunities to inquire independently; to foster their scientific inquiry ability and scientific spirit. The curriculum standard places importance on scientific inquiry:scientific inquiry is a learning method and itself needs to be learned. Adhering to this guiding ideology, different versions of experimental textbooks based on the Physics Curriculum Standard of Senior High School arrange inquiry activities in different ways for teachers to choose. Practical teachers are filled with passion for inquiry activities in teaching. But there are still many unsettling questions:how do textbooks arrange inquiry activities? How do teachers carry out inquiry activities? what are the results? What factors have exerted any influence? What questions need being solved?In order to answer the questions above, this thesis designs four researches:First, the research on the requirements of scientific inquiry in the curriculum standard, including the requirement of scientific inquiry ability and inquiry activities; second, the research on the arrangement of scientific inquiry in different versions of textbooks: through statistics of the number and the ways of inquiry activities in different versions of textbooks, this research analyzes the consistency between the textbooks and the standard, and the presentation of the inquiry process; third, the statistical analysis of present teaching situation of inquiry activities in the experimental cities:using questionnaires and interviews to make an investigation on the implementation of scientific inquiry in practical teaching, this research aims to learn about teachers' knowledge and views about inquiry, how they choose inquiry materials, and the influencing factors in the implementation of scientific inquiry; fourth, the research on teaching cases of inquiry activities:by observing teachers'lessons, the fulfillment of inquiry activities is recorded. And combining these records with the main questions appeared in questionnaires and interviews, this research goes further to find the main reasons and tries to put forward corresponding suggestions.First of all, this thesis compares the arrangement of the inquiry activities in two versions of physics textbooks. One version is published by Shandong Science and Technology Press, the other is published by the People's Education Publishing House. Secondly, the questionnaires on present situation of inquiry activities are completed by teachers in 23 schools and by students in 9 schools. These schools are scattered in 6 different provinces. Teachers in these 12 schools are also interviewed. And teaching cases in these 6 schools are deeply analyzed. These teaching cases include the whole process of a class:teachers' preparation, presentation, students'response, and after-class reflection, summary, and discussion. And then analyzing the result of interviews and cases, this thesis makes researches on the present situation of the fulfillment of inquiry activities, try to analyze existing questions, find out effective factors. The main conclusions drawn from this study are as follows:1. Physics Curriculum Standard of Ordinary Senior High School makes basic demands for scientific inquiry and physics experiment ability from three dimensions: knowledge and skill; process and method; emotion, attitude and value. Totally, there are 27 articles describing these demands. Among them,11 articles are distributed throughout all the modules. Each module has one or two articles. The curriculum standard clearly prescribes that these 11 articles must be finished in the way of inquiry, and these inquiry activities should include entire elements to fulfill the entire cultivation of students'inquiry ability. Some other articles give some hints on how to develop inquiry elements. And the curriculum standard also offers 94 suggestions, among which 37 involve fairly complete or partial inquiry elements. And 14 examples of experiments are provided in appendix.2. Although the two versions of physics textbooks compared in our study each have something new in general compilation, both of them pay great attention to the completeness and rationality of knowledge framework, the logic in physics itself, the regular and gradual arrangement of knowledge points. From the perspective of implementation of students'three-dimension objectives, these textbooks stress the digging of thought and methods; specially care about experiments and scientific inquiry, consciously change some traditional confirmatory experiments into inquiry activities, and embody a continuation and development of textbooks. The two versions arrange the inquiry activities in different ways, but follow the curriculum standard faithfully. These textbooks offer complete, detailed guidance on inquiry activities. They both set up a lot of activity columns to lead students to conduct different kinds of inquiry activities. In all the compulsory textbooks and optional textbook three, textbooks by Shandong Science and Technology Press organize totally 265 inquiry activities, among which 159 are experiment inquiries; textbooks by the People's Education Publishing House arrange totally 153 inquiry activities, among which 114 are experiment inquiries. Most of these inquiry activities are interesting and simple. Through these activities, greater interest is developed; different kinds of inquiry abilities are cultivated. Among these inquiry abilities, communication and cooperation, analysis and argumentation, and the abilities of doing experiments and collecting data are attracted more attention, the abilities of raising questions and making guesses are less concerned.3. Most of teachers and students agree that inquiry activities are greatly helpful to develop students'abilities, especially the ability of operating experiment instruments, the ability of logic reasoning, the ability of communication and cooperation. All of the interviewed teachers carry out the inquiry activities required by the curriculum standard. During these activities, they give detailed guidance, from raising questions to drawing conclusions, especially inquiry designing, inquiry steps and some other procedures which are more likely to make mistakes, and they don't offer students'large independent space.4.83% teachers only fulfill the required inquiry activities, and they are lack of the initiative of the exploration of inquiry materials.81% teachers slightly change the inquiry activities based on students'abilities, hardware conditions and teaching periods. They think teachers should avoid some activities which are difficult in fulfillment and profound in theory, and do more activities which are simple to accomplish and close to students'life experience.73% teachers only involve four or less than four inquiry elements. 5. Traditional teaching thought and evaluation systems still exert great influence on teaching activities. All of the interviewed teachers accomplish the inquiry activities required by the curriculum standard; 67% teachers carry out most of the inquiry activities in textbooks; but 92% teachers don't spend enough time on inquiry activities: the teaching hours which include inquiry activities only occupy less than one third of the whole teaching hours. Teachers don't fully understand inquiry:in most cases, they only think of inquiry as a tool to discover knowledge, to master concepts and rules. They don't think inquiry itself needs teaching.6. Teachers are trained mainly in theory, and teachers are lack of practical guidance. Teachers know the significance of inquiry activities, but they are still confused about the fulfillment of inquiry activities. They know what the three-dimension objectives of the new curriculum standard are, but they don't know how to achieve them.In order to make inquiry activities perform the best in physics of senior high school, in order to achieve the objectives of the curriculum standard, in order to carry out inquiry activities more effectively, the thesis gives three suggestions based on the conclusions of this study.1. Inquiry activities in textbooks should be tied with students'life experience as closely as possible, and laboratory equipment doesn't need to be too advanced. The arrangement of inquiry activities in textbooks should be more open, and there is no need to offer too detailed inquiry cases and steps.2. Provide students with more activity opportunities, and only in practice, can students'inquiry ability and innovation awareness be developed. Considering the short of time periods, teachers should not only make plans to fulfill some selected inquiry activities which are more suitable for students, but also encourage students to finish inquiry activities after class or combine them with research-based learning and School-based Curriculum.3. Teachers who have undergone training know what to do, but they still don't know how to do it. So it is essential for teachers to explore further in the future, and follow-up training is more important and necessary.