Research On The Function Space And Effect Of Technology To Enable Scientific Inquiry Learning

With the continuous development of science and technology, science education paradigm has gone through many changes. Generally, it has shown a tendency of changing from "knowledge-oriented" to "inquiry-oriented". It can be found from the official science education standards and guidance frameworks published by many countries that allowing students to carry out scientific inquiry learning has become the main trend of science education worldwide. However, numerous studies have shown that the implementation of inquiry learning in science education practice is not optimistic. It can be explained for a series of problems like the formalism of inquiry, students' lack of autonomy, the inquiry environment's seperation from the real world... These are problems which constrain the development and improvement of students' scientific inquiry skills. On the other hand, the rapid development of information technology and its application in education, especially the gradual maturity of virtual simulation technology, may offer a way to overcome the difficulties and obstacles in inquiry learning, and the inquiry learning activities which are often difficult to carry out in real classroom can thus turn to be much more practicable, consequently enhancing the efficiency of inquiry learning.The core research of this dissertation is to learn how technology enables the inquiry learning to be implemented in science education and its main impacts. From the literature review to the theory framework construction, and further to the empirical study, this dissertation represents the research work in a progressive way and shows the refinement step by step. Four main research questions below have been studied:1) what's the connotation of inquiry learning in science education? 2) What's the Function Space (functional dimension) of technology to enable scientific inquiry learning? (3)How are the typical inquiry learning environment cases been designed and how do they work, what are their effects? (4) How virtual world enables the implementation of inquiry learning and what are its impacts on learning outcomes?Firstly, the dissertation has made a systematic study on the theories related to the inquiry learning, including its definition and characteristics, its typical pattern, inquiry levels and the general elements through its implementation. A review has been made on the actual status of the empirical studies and their findings. Analysis has been done on the practical problems met through the implementation of inquiry study in China's basic education. Secondly, the definition and connotation of technology enabled inquiry learning have been proposed based on the reflection of the information technology teaching value. And analysis has been made about the function space of technology to enable inquiry learning under the related learning theories. Furthermore, studies and analysis have been taken out on the existing cases of inquiry learning environment and their research findings, by the method of case study. The function space was optimized based on the findings of case study. Finally, as there's a lack of empirical research about the inquiry learning enabled by virtual world in China, this research focuses on the technology based inquiry study of virtual world Omosa, and carries out an empirical study in two middle schools of S City for one and a half year by a mixed research method. Two rounds of research have been taken place, first round as the exploratory study (T Secondary School) and the second one as the formal study (L Secondary School). Qualitative data has been collected through the classroom observation, interviews and other forms, quantitative data has been collected by questionnaires. The research focuses on the ways that the technology enabled inquiry study of virtual world has been carried out, as well as the students'outcomes on the dimensions of exploring ability, construction of knowledge and scientific attitude, and their potential reasons.Based on the situated learning theory of anthropological perspective, through the review and reflection of the implementation of Omosa, we believe that the nature of the science inquiry learning enabled by Omosa virtual world is the students'legitimate peripheral participation in scientific inquiry practice. Omosa virtual world creates real and meaningful problem situations and exploration space for students, who can roam in the virtual world to explore, observe, and make surveys to gather data. Scientific inquiry knowledge involves the formation and development of scientific inquiry skills, which is in the scope of tacit knowledge. In Omosa course, students'inquiry learning occurs through their scientific inquiry practice on the island Omosa. With the changing of "student scientist" role, students gradually understand and master the tacit knowledge of scientific inquiry, and thus enhance their inquiry skills. Teachers as one member of scientific inquiry community, providing scaffolding in time, can help students overcome difficulties in the open inquiry learning process, so as to improve inquiry learning outcomes.In the aspect of learning outcomes of the inquiry learning enabled by Omosa virtual world, we have made the following findings through data analysis:(1) In terms of the improvement of inquiry skills, the T test of the data collected from questionnaires before and after the scientific inquiry showed that, the experimental class which used Omosa virtual world has achieved a significant progress on the items of the understanding of the process and the elements of scientific inquiry (t=3.11, df= 49, p=.003). The questionnaire concerned the scientists and scientific research, hypothesis, experimental design, observation and inference, scientific measurement, the relationship between experimental design and hypothesis testing, the presentation of scientific findings by chart. The related analysis found that students' sense of self-efficacy through the inquiry-based learning of Omosa can affect students' individual learning self-assessment, but there is no significant correlation. There is slight negative correlation between self-efficacy and inquiry skills improvement. Also, there is no significant correlation between the exam score and self-assessment, neither the inquiry skills improvement. However, students with learning difficulties in regular classes have been active during the inquiry learning program, and have shown great improvements through the scientific inquiry learning, which indicates their good academic performance. (2) In terms of knowledge construction, the learning content of Omosa is about the theme of ecosystems, the survey results and student work reflect that Omosa course can help students construct the knowledge about ecological system. (3) In terms of attitudes and values, the research data also shows that Omosa can help students to get a correct understanding of scientists' scientific practice, and to form a good attitude towards science.