International Journal of Science Education

ISSN: 0950-0693 (Print) 1464-5289 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tsed20

Inquiry as a context-based practice – a case

study of pre-service teachers’ beliefs and
implementation of inquiry in context-based
science teaching

Jaana Herranen, Päivi Kousa, Erik Fooladi & Maija Aksela

To cite this article: Jaana Herranen, Päivi Kousa, Erik Fooladi & Maija Aksela (2019): Inquiry
as a context-based practice – a case study of pre-service teachers’ beliefs and implementation
of inquiry in context-based science teaching, International Journal of Science Education, DOI:
10.1080/09500693.2019.1655679

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2019.1655679

Published online: 20 Aug 2019.

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION
https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2019.1655679

Inquiry as a context-based practice – a case study of pre-

service teachers’ beliefs and implementation of inquiry in
context-based science teaching
a a b a
Jaana Herranen , Päivi Kousa , Erik Fooladi and Maija Aksela
a
Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; bDepartment of Science
and Mathematics, Volda University College, Volda, Norway

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The aim of this study is to provide an understanding of context- Received 22 August 2018
based inquiry teaching within a humanistic perspective on science Accepted 9 August 2019
education by studying pre-service teachers’ beliefs about inquiry
KEYWORDS
and their implementations of inquiry in their context-based Teacher beliefs; inquiry-
teaching sequences. Therefore, five pre-service teachers enrolled in based learning; context-
a university undergraduate course called ‘Inquiry-based chemistry based learning; humanistic
education II’ (5 ECTS) were involved in an empirical case study. The perspective
pre-service teachers’ implementations of inquiry were studied from
their reports on self-designed context-based inquiry teaching
sequences for students age 13–15, and their beliefs by
interviewing them after the course. The results indicate that the
most frequent aspects of inquiry, which were implemented, were
that inquiry (i) includes a context, (ii) is a way to act, (iii) is a way to
think, and (iv) includes source/information evaluation and
argumentation. The pre-service teachers’ beliefs about inquiry
were shown to reflect manifold aspects of inquiry, such as the
difficulty in explaining it. However, this difficulty in encapsulating
inquiry into a clear-cut definition is not necessarily an impediment
to inquiry-based teaching. Furthermore, inquiry is inherently
context-bound, and context-based teaching requires extra-
situational knowledge from the context and not only declarative
knowledge from science. This should be considered to support
effective professional development.

Introduction
Inquiry is a part of science curricula worldwide (Crawford, 2014), and the science edu-
cation community has long promoted the adoption of more process-oriented science edu-
cation with an emphasis on inquiry (Rocard et al., 2007). Due to concerns about inquiry
being ‘rare and enigmatic’ in science classrooms (Crawford, 2014, p. 516), challenges
remain in promoting pre-service teachers’ learning and understanding of inquiry to
help them implement inquiry in their own teaching.
However, there are many competing definitions of inquiry (Crawford, 2014), and fur-
thermore, the purposes or goals of including inquiry in teaching is often not clear to

CONTACT Jaana Herranen jaana.herranen@helsinki.fi Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, University of

Helsinki, A.I. Virtasen aukio 1, Helsinki 00014, Finland
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

teachers and researchers. A humanistic perspective on science education shifts the focus
from a subject-centred perspective towards the students’ own lives outside school, empha-
sising the nature of science, including its social, cultural and human aspects (Aikenhead,
2006). Although humanistic perspectives have previously been incorporated in inquiry
(e.g. Buxton, 2006), this article takes into consideration not only what the students
want to learn, but also what is potentially useful for them as future citizens (e.g. Aiken-
head, 2006), as well as for teacher education (e.g. Calabrese Barton, Furman, Muir,
Barnes, & Monaco, 2007; Kousa, Kavonius & Aksela, 2018).
One approach in this direction is the use of context-based education; addressing mean-
ingful science learning in terms of the chosen context. Rather than asking, which context is
suitable to given science content, the question is ‘what do the students “need-to-know” to
understand the context?’ (Bulte, Westbroek, de Jong, & Pilot, 2006). In addition to making
the learning of concepts more meaningful for the students, contexts from ‘everyday life’
are expected to promote positive attitudes to science, and possibly promote knowledge
transfer between the science classroom and life outside formal education (Gilbert, Bulte,
& Pilot, 2011).
Although inquiry practices have been reviewed recently (Rönnebeck, Bernholt, &
Ropohl, 2016), and context-based approaches previously applied with inquiry (Glynn &
Winter, 2004) more research on the topic is needed. Considering the teachers’ perspective
could narrow the gap between theory and practice of context-based inquiry. In this study,
pre-service teachers’ (PSTs’) beliefs about, and their implementations of, inquiry, were
studied. The work is informed by research showing that teachers’ classroom practices
are affected by their beliefs (Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992; Roehrig & Luft, 2006), and
that these beliefs are in turn affected by their professional knowledge (Kind, 2015). The
research questions of this empirical case study were:

(1) How do the PSTs implement inquiry in their context-based teaching sequences?
(2) Which beliefs do the PSTs express about inquiry in relation to context at the end of
the course?
(3) How is context described in the PSTs’ inquiry teaching sequences?

Background
Inquiry in science education
In science education, the word ‘inquiry’ has been widely discussed for decades, yet it still
carries several parallel meanings and connotations (Crawford, 2014; Rönnebeck et al.,
2016). When surveying education policy documents, Abrams, Southerland, and Evans
(2008) identified three common goals for including inquiry in science education (not
necessarily mutually exclusive); learning about inquiry, learning to inquire, and using
inquiry as an approach/method to learn science content. These goals are connected to
three types of knowledge. First, the knowledge about science as a process, the epistemic
domain of inquiry (Duschl, 2008). Second, procedural knowledge and thinking skills,
the procedural domain of inquiry (Furtak, Seidel, Iverson, & Briggs, 2012). Third, declara-
tive knowledge of scientific concepts, or as Duschl (2008) has classified it, the conceptual
domain of inquiry. Although these separate goals and types of knowledge can be identified
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 3

within the concept of inquiry, they are intertwined, e.g. declarative content knowledge
cannot easily be isolated from the practices involved in doing inquiry (Crawford, 2014).
Declarative knowledge may, or indeed should, emerge from this process. In addition,
goals of inquiry are connected to what is taught. For example, it has been suggested
that science content related to sustainable development should be taught using inquiry-
based methods as an approach (Burmeister, Rauch, & Eilks, 2012).
Although these goals or definitions do a reasonable job of covering most perspectives
concerning inquiry in the education research literature, they are not necessarily helpful for
the teacher in their day-to-day practice. Furthermore, due to the ambiguous nature of the
term inquiry, it may encompass or overlap with other major fields in science education
research, such as Nature of Science (NOS) (e.g. Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004) and argumen-
tation (e.g. Erduran & Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2008). Indeed, Rönnebeck et al. (2016) also
noted a lack of research on the interrelation between scientific inquiry, scientific knowl-
edge and NOS, in their review of inquiry in science education.
In addition to the research community, teachers also have various beliefs, views and
perceptions of inquiry (e.g. Breslyn & McGinnis, 2012; Brown, Abell, Demir, &
Schmidt, 2006; Luft, 2001), although there seems to be consensus about what inquiry is
not (Crawford, 2014). This ‘non-inquiry’, often equated with direct instruction, is concep-
tualised as didactic teaching where teachers lecture, ‘deliver content’ and students listen
(Crawford, 2014). Crawford (2014) has also assimilated such laboratory instruction, in
which the students merely verify results, to direct instruction, although in many cases it
is categorised as confirmatory inquiry (e.g. Banchi & Bell, 2008). The categorisation of
inquiry into several levels, confirmatory, structured, guided, and open (e.g. Banchi &
Bell, 2008), leads to different views about the optimal form of inquiry. While some
studies have described open inquiry as the most desirable form of inquiry (Brown et al.,
2006), others have promoted guided inquiry as it is considered to better consider the rea-
lities of the classroom (Smithenry, 2010).
Crawford (2014) has raised a concern that it is likely that PSTs enter, and even go
through their training with simplistic views about inquiry. Considering the above-
described multiplicity of meaning, purpose and use of inquiry, it is not surprising that tea-
chers have encountered different interpretations of inquiry in their education. As a result,
it may be easier to grasp and use a simple definition than try to hold such a belief about
inquiry that consists of several definitions or understanding. Research suggests that tea-
chers’ experiences about inquiry and inquiry teaching, and the theoretical foundations
built through their education, influence their beliefs and conceptions. In turn, these can
be affected by the disciplines they teach (Breslyn & McGinnis, 2012), their teaching experi-
ences (Luft, 2001; Friedrichsen, Munford, & Orgill, 2006), and their previous experiences
with authentic research (Windschitl, 2003). For instance, Windschitl (2003) showed that
teachers who had significant undergraduate or professional experience with authentic
research chose to use open and guided inquiry in their own teaching, compared to the
teachers who had fewer or no authentic research experiences. Furthermore, beliefs
might change as a result of teaching practice. In a study by Luft (2001) involving experi-
enced and less experienced teachers, it was found that experienced teachers’ practices
changed more than their beliefs, whereas the opposite was the case for the less experienced
teachers, who in addition had less interest in implementing student-centred teaching than
the more experienced teachers were.
4 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

Context-based teaching and its relation to inquiry

The aim of context-based approaches is to tackle two of the major questions in science
education – those of relevance and transfer (Aikenhead, 2006; Gilbert, 2006). Gilbert
(2006) points to five problematic issues within science education to motivate a shift
towards context-based approaches in science teaching: curricular overload; science
content taught as isolated facts lacking clear connections to each other; lack of knowledge
transfer between the science classroom and life outside school; lack of students’ experi-
enced relevance of learnt science content; and inadequacy of justifying learning of
science content because it simply forms basis for the next science course, instead of
emphasising scientific literacy. These issues correspond well with what is lamented by pro-
ponents of a humanistic perspective.
Research of context-based science education has involved two main theoretical per-
spectives, as evident in the works of Gilbert (2006) and King and Ritchie (2013). The
approach taken by Gilbert (2006) frames context as a social and behavioural setting,
which requires the use of specific language and extra-situational background knowl-
edge. King and Ritchie (2013), on the other hand, draws on the notion of field accord-
ing to Bourdieu (1977), ‘to represent both the physical location and the structure and
resources that constitute that location’ (King & Ritchie, 2013, p. 1163; ‘location’ must
here be understood in a broad sense not having fixed boundaries, for example chem-
istry classroom resources, such as water testing equipment, can be used to examine a
local water site). Similar to Gilbert et al.’s (2011) interest in knowledge transfer between
contexts as discourses, King and Ritchie (2013) use the term ‘fluid transitions’ (or ‘toing
and froing’) ‘[…] to represent approximately how the students’ conversations and
written work smoothly transitioned back and forth between the concepts and
context’ (p. 1165). Although in different words, this resembles, what Gilbert (2006)
describes as ‘context as social circumstance’, which emphasises the social and cultural
aspects of context.
The connection between inquiry and context-based teaching can be approached from
different angles (e.g. King, 2012; Klassen, 2006). Inquiry can be considered to be a com-
ponent in context-based teaching (Glynn & Winter, 2004) or inquiry- and context-
based approaches can be seen as distinct approaches with similar goals (King, 2012).
As a departure point, context-based approaches take a specific context and thus
promote providing content knowledge on a ‘need-to-know’ basis only (Bulte et al.,
2006). Concerns have been raised that it can lead to insufficient learning as concept
areas might be missed out or incompletely covered (King, 2012). However, according to
reviews by Bennett, Lubben, and Hogarth (2007) and King (2012), empirical studies indi-
cate that learning outcomes from context-based courses are at least equivalent with that
achieved from conventional approaches through which attempts are made to ensure
that all curriculum content is covered.

Materials and methods

Research method
This is a qualitative case study (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011) carried out in an
undergraduate university course, called ‘Inquiry-based chemistry education II’ which
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 5

was run in 2014 (see Appendix 1 for in-depth description). The course is part of a Finnish
chemistry teacher education programme, one goal of which is to educate lifelong research-
oriented practitioners (Aksela, 2010). Six PSTs attended the course, of which five provided
contributions that make up the empirical data (including written answers to a short task,
written project reports, and interviews (see Table 1)).
As shown in Table 1, the short task was designed to capture features of inquiry, and
those features (named as categories from that point on) were then used when analysing
how the PSTs chose to implement inquiry in their context-based teaching sequences. It
has previously been shown that teachers’ practices are affected by their beliefs (Nespor,
1987), the PSTs’ beliefs were also studied, as both components (beliefs and practices)
were considered to give important insight in understanding inquiry as a context-based
practice. As beliefs are not easily studied directly (Pajares, 1992), interviews were included
as a source of empirical data.
During the analysis, the data were coded into coding units, and units with similar con-
tents were grouped into categories (Krippendorff, 2004). The categories were then grouped
into broader themes based on the similarities and differences between the categories. The
interpretation of the coding was negotiated to reach consensus by the researchers coding
the data individually followed by negotiation, until all researchers agreed upon which
coding units belonged to which categories and which categories belonged to which
themes. The content analysis was carried out in four phases using atlas.ti software (Krip-
pendorff, 2004):

(1) Short task: At the beginning of the course, the PSTs individually wrote a text ‘What is
inquiry?’ Before the task, they were expected to read some of the course literature
(Abrams et al., 2008), participated in the first lesson about the course and its main
themes, and encountered the course syllabus (Appendix 1). The short task was ana-
lysed inductively by two researchers using open coding techniques by reading the
texts multiple times and picking up aspects of inquiry from the texts to construct cat-
egories (Cohen et al., 2011). The categories were grouped into themes reflecting that
variety, as described above.
(2) Project reports: The PSTs’ implementations of inquiry were studied from their project
reports written at the end of the course about their context-based teaching sequences.
The reports included descriptions of; the chemistry relevant for the chosen topic, the
pedagogical aspects (such as how inquiry was implemented), and the activity in detail.
In the analysis, the implementations were analysed using a combined inductive and
deductive process, in which exact categories from the first phase were used deduc-
tively whilst at the same time (inductively) identifying possible new aspects of
inquiry. This allowed us to identify which aspects of inquiry from the theoretical

Table 1. The connection between empirical material and research questions.

Answers to the short task ‘What
is inquiry?’
Inquiry categories
Inquiry (RQ1 & RQ2)
Written project reports Interviews
Implementations of inquiry in context-based inquiry Beliefs about inquiry in relation
teaching sequences to context
Context (RQ3)
6 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

short task were transferred into actual teaching. Explicit coding units were identified
by coding the text as stated in the text. Coding instances of inquiry ‘implicit’ in the text
required interpretations on part of the researchers, such as looking for the PSTs’
intentions, ideas behind what was written, and examples of aspects clearly of an
inquiry nature in which the PSTs did not state as inquiry. Therefore, implicit
coding units included some interpretation about the aspects that the PSTs were think-
ing, according to the researchers understanding. An example of coding of explicit and
implicit instances is presented in Appendix 2. Thus, along with identifying, which cat-
egories were present, new categories also emerged from the data.
(3) Interviews: At the end of the course, the PSTs participated in semi-structured interviews
(Appendix 3). The themes created in the second phase were used to analyse the interview
data to describe the themes in more detail. Amongst other things, the PSTs were asked
how they understood inquiry, and to give examples or to elaborate their statements.
The interviews were audio-recorded, and the relevant parts of the interviews determined
as those which concentrated on the pre-services teachers’ beliefs about the definition of
inquiry. The parts chosen were transcribed verbatim, coded by the first author, and then
verified by the second author, followed by negotiation to consensus.
(4) Second analysis of project reports and interviews: To understand inquiry as a
context-based practice, the category ‘includes a context’ (21) was further analysed
from the project reports, in terms of how the context was described in the projects,
and how it was connected to other inquiry categories. The connections were
formed by scanning which inquiry categories were linked to this category (21)
in the same sentences or in the same paragraph. In addition, the PSTs’ beliefs
(from the interviews, phase 3) of those associated or overlapping categories were
analysed to understand the PSTs’ beliefs on the connection between inquiry and
context-based teaching. The analysis was conducted by the first author, and
verified by the second author.

Reliability and validity

Reliability consists of three parts: stability, reproducibility and accuracy (Krippendorff,
2004), out of which stability and reproducibility could be considered rigorous in this
case study. However, the results were compared to previous literature on the topic (in
the Discussion section). Accuracy was also achieved by rehearsing the coding process
amongst the coders by first coding one text, and discussing the coding, before proceeding
to code the remaining texts (Krippendorff, 2004). Stability is provided through the process
of repeated coding of the data, as well as descriptions of the teaching sequences. Reprodu-
cibility was measured by using an external interrater. Cohen’s kappa was calculated with
IBM SPSS Statistics 24.0 giving a result of 0.65 with 95% CI [0.44, 0.94], indicating that the
coding was reliable (a kappa value above 0.6 can be considered as moderate or substantial
depending on the reference literature used (see, e.g. McHugh, 2012)).
Validity can be viewed in terms of sampling and semantics. Semantic validity is taken
into consideration by giving detailed descriptions of the data categories and themes. To
address pragmatic validity, the results should be viewed in relation to previous research
findings and theoretical work in the conclusions (see, e.g. Krippendorff, 2004).
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 7

The project has been approved by the Norwegian Data Protection Official for Research,
NSD (one researcher was Norwegian necessitating this approval), and the Unit of Chem-
istry Teacher Education in which the course took place. The PSTs were informed about the
course being studied and which data from the course would be used. Participation was
voluntary and consent was given by all five students participating in the study.

The setting of the study: the course ‘Inquiry-based chemistry education II’
The aim of the 5 ECTS course was to promote PSTs’ understanding and implementation
of inquiry-based teaching practices. The course consisted of two parts (see Appendix 1)
including educational theory and practice of context-based inquiry, and design of
context-based inquiry teaching sequences. The PSTs also tested the designed teaching
sequences with students age 13–15.
Four of the five students participating in the course, providing data for this research,
had chemistry as their first teaching subject and mathematics as their second, whilst
one participant had mathematics as their first subject, and chemistry as their second.
Except for the course ‘Inquiry-based chemistry education I’ (5 ECTS), which all had
already taken, the PSTs had not attended any courses about inquiry-based teaching
prior to this.
The PSTs planned and carried out their projects individually or in pairs. Even though
the task was presented as an open task whereby students could choose any context to
study, all three projects were planned in various food-related contexts. The projects
were: chemistry of gingerbread cookies and leavening agents, berries as natural indicators,
and pungency in chili varieties (see detailed project descriptions in Appendix 4).
In the gingerbread project, the aim was for the student to learn about, and to engage in,
inquiry practices through studying the effect of various leavening agents on gingerbread
cookies. The context was chosen because it was assumed that a familiar context would
help the students to concentrate on the inquiry. The project included hands-on activities
based on a given problem on which out of three leavening agents (baking powder, baking
soda, and Hartshorn salt) would work best in the cookies. The problem was framed as an
economic/societal question, situated in a cookie factory. The data collection step in the
inquiry activity to provide material for discussion and argumentation was sensory evalu-
ation of home-baked cookies made with the three leavening agents.
In the berry trio project, the aim was for the students to learn about inquiry and con-
cepts related to acids and bases, and to move between the contexts (chemistry laboratory
and kitchen). Here, the students tested different berries for a layered dessert, where the
layers had a slightly different pH, to find out which of the berries would best act as an indi-
cator in a dessert. The use of bilberries in kitchen chemistry teaching has previously been
described from a combined culinary and educational perspective (see Töyrylä, Aksela,
Hopia & Fooladi, 2013), so the PSTs were familiar with the fact that at least bilberries
would work.
In the chili project, a research group context was planned to be used in the project along
with the food context. By research group context it was meant that the students would par-
ticipate in the project by taking the role as researchers. The research group context was
incorporated to teach the students about research as a problem-solving process. In the
project, the students investigated the pungency of chili varieties for subsequent imagined
8 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

use in a chili dish. In planning the chili project, the PST developed his/her own version of
the Scoville scale (see, e.g. Borges, 2001) using water instead of alcohol as the solvent, thus
making it possible to taste the solutions at school.

Results
Inquiry categories
Analysis of the PSTs’ written short tasks (‘What is inquiry?’) resulted in 18 categories indi-
cating several aspects of inquiry. The identified categories can be broadly placed into four
overarching themes (see Table 2, and Appendix 5 for more information).

Implementation of inquiry in context-based practices

To understand which aspects of inquiry (see inquiry categories above) were implemented
by the PSTs in their planned context-based teaching sequences, their written project
reports were studied. The analysis revealed five new categories, not previously mentioned
in the theoretical short task, inquiry: ‘is taught/learned with a concept’ (19); ‘is a coopera-
tive activity’ (20); ‘includes a context’ (21); ‘includes differentiation’ (22); and, ‘is challen-
ging’ (23). Category 19 arose as the PSTs clearly linked teaching chemistry concepts with
inquiry. For example, ‘the berry trio activity was also a good way to combine inquiry-based
learning and concept learning’. Inquiry as a cooperative activity (20) was mentioned at two
levels; includes working and discussing within the student group, but also amongst tea-
chers. For example, cooperation with the home economics teacher was suggested in
three of the reports. The PSTs’ choice of food as context was explained by them stating
that the familiarity with food helps the teacher to concentrate on inquiry rather than learn-
ing new concepts, and they furthermore assumed that the students would find it motivat-
ing. To be able to understand the context, the students had to find information about the
context (gingerbread, berry dessert/natural indicators, or pungency of chilis). However, it
was stated that transferring knowledge between the contexts, is difficult. Differentiation

Table 2. Categories of inquiry inductively deduced from analysis of short task ‘What is inquiry?’
Inquiry …
1 is difficult, or even not beneficial, to define
2 has different meaning to different people
3 includes many features
4 appears in different places/forms/situations
5 is considered more or less scientific depending on where it occurs
6 is about achieving something new or beneficial
7 is a way to act
8 is a process
9 includes making observations and collecting data
10 includes interpretation of data
11 is a way to think
12 is a part of NOS (Nature of Science)
13 is related to feelings
14 includes source/information evaluation and argumentation
15 concerns both science and society, including students’ everyday life
16 is a way to teach and/or learn
17 is a learning goal in teachers’ work
18 is not the only good/efficient way to teach
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 9

(22) was identified as a category because the PSTs did not only write about the features or
forms of inquiry (categories 3 and 4), but also suggested modifying the inquiry teaching
based on the students’ various needs.
From the written project reports, the number of both explicitly mentioned and
implicitly present coding units were counted by how many times they were mentioned
in the reports. As seen from Table 3, category 1 was not present in any of the reports
even if all the PSTs mentioned it in the short task.
Table 3 shows not only the categories in the reports, but also the counts of instances (i.e.
how many times were the categories found as a whole, and in each report). The most fre-
quent categories were that inquiry ‘is a way to act’ (7); ‘includes a context’ (21), (a new
category appearing for the first time in the written project reports); ‘is a way to think’
(11); and ‘includes source/information evaluation and argumentation’ (14). The category
‘is a way to act’ (7) was the most frequent category (most coding units fell under this cat-
egory) in the gingerbread and chili reports, and the third biggest in the berry trio report.
Each of the three pre-service teachers’ project reports included aspects of inquiry in
slightly different ways: some of the categories (e.g. ‘is a way to act’ (7)) appeared more fre-
quently in some reports than others. There are also interesting differences in the second
most frequent category ‘includes a context’ (21). It was mentioned only four times in
the gingerbread report but 12 times in each of the other two reports.

Table 3. PSTs’ implementations of inquiry in their context-based inquiry teaching sequences. Both
explicit and implicit (in parentheses) coding units are presented. New categories (19–23) are in italics.
Inquiry NBerry
categories NGingerbread trio NChili Σ
Concerns the nature of, or understanding of, inquiry as a phenomenon
4 appears in different places/forms/situations 2(3) 5(6) 1(1) 8(10)
12 is a part of NOS 2(5) 0(1) 1(1) 3(7)
3 includes many features 1(1) 0(1) 2(1) 3(3)
5 is considered more or less scientific depending on where 1(1) 0(0) 0(0) 1(1)
it occurs
2 has different meaning to different people 1(0) 0(0) 0(0) 1(0)
1 is difficult, or even not beneficial, to define 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) 0(0)
Concerns inquiry as an activity
7 is a way to act 13(0) 7(0) 21(2) 41(2)
14 includes source/information evaluation and 8(2) 5(3) 12(0) 25(5)
argumentation
6 is about achieving something new or beneficial 5(0) 4(1) 10(1) 19(2)
8 is a process 6(0) 1(1) 11(0) 18(1)
10 includes interpretation of data 4(1) 6(2) 6(0) 16(3)
9 includes making observations and collecting data 5(0) 0(1) 4(0) 9(1)
Concerns inquiry as part of teaching and learning
17 is a learning goal in teachers’ work 12(1) 6(3) 2(3) 20(7)
16 is a way to teach and/or learn 0(0) 4(0) 9(5) 13(5)
19 is taught/learned with a concept 4(0) 5(0) 2(0) 11(0)
20 is a cooperative activity 3(0) 3(0) 4(1) 10(1)
22 includes differentiation 3(0) 3(1) 1(0) 7(1)
23 is challenging 1(0) 1(0) 0(0) 2(0)
18 is not the only good/efficient way to teach 0(0) 1(1) 0(0) 1(1)
Connects inquiry to everyday life and personal aspects
21 includes a context 4(0) 12(1) 12(0) 28(1)
11 is a way to think 5(0) 10(2) 11(0) 26(2)
15 concerns both science and society, including students` 12(0) 2(0) 1(1) 15(1)
everyday life
13 is related to feelings 12(2) 3(0) 0(0) 4(2)
Σ 93(16) 78(23) 110(16) 281(55)
10 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

The table also shows how many implicit coding units for each category in each report.
Those categories which included more implicit than explicit coding units are ‘appears in
different places/forms/situations’ (4) and ‘is a part of NOS’ (12) – both of which are placed
under theme ‘Concerns the nature of, or understanding of inquiry as a phenomenon’.

Beliefs about inquiry at the end of the course

To study the PSTs’ beliefs about inquiry at the end of the course, they were interviewed,
and their answers analysed in relation to empirically derived themes. The PSTs were
assigned a random number from 1 to 5 to distinguish them apart.

Inquiry as an activity
All five PSTs described inquiry as an activity. For example, PST 1 stated: ‘I would say, its
aim is to create something new which would be reliable and useful for humans, and it has
some kind of typical structure’. In addition, four out of the five PSTs connected ‘inquiry as
an activity’ to ‘inquiry as a way to learn or teach’ stating that: ‘In teaching, the students get
active roles, and find out something by themselves to verify results’ (PST 2),‘Acting to
learn some information, like acting physically and mentally to gain some information
or to solve some problem or is like both states’ (PST 3), and ‘It is the method that uses
the search of knowledge and then you use that knowledge to learn new things and you
learn by doing research, and finding out answers and explaining why something
happens’ (PST 4). One PST (PST 1), however, said that if she had to explain inquiry to
the students, she would say that inquiry is ‘a structured study of doing science to get
new information’ and would not combine the definition with the notion of learning by
inquiry.
Information evaluation as an important aspect of inquiry was described through par-
ticipant statements, for example:
You need to find information and recognise the relevant information and be able to think
about how the information is related to your task or what you want to do and evaluate the
… , let’s say like, create something, after you have gathered the information in your head or
physically after some experiment, and then see if it works, and evaluate it. (PST 3)

Information search, second-hand inquiry, was mentioned as an inquiry activity as

seen from the above excerpt by PST 3. Related to this, reliability was also discussed
stating that: ‘There is the information search, evaluation of the sources, which one is
the most reliable’ (PST 5). However, argumentation was not mentioned by the PSTs
in the interviews.

Inquiry as part of teaching and learning

As a learning or teaching method, inquiry was described as having ‘a problem to solve’
(PST 2). All the other PSTs’ descriptions of inquiry as a learning method were combined
with defining inquiry as an activity. In those definitions, as can be seen from the excerpts
above, learning through inquiry was considered to be active, and to be connected to learn-
ing how science is done, learning problem-solving, learning to seek information, or learn-
ing by doing research.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 11

The nature of, or understanding of, inquiry as a phenomenon

The PSTs explained the nature of inquiry mainly by stating that inquiry is something that
can have many aspects. Firstly, inquiry itself was thought to be possible to do in ‘more
ways than one’ (PST 2) or something that is ‘complex’ (PST 5). PST 1 also connected
inquiry to people’s experiences: it has many conceptions and people feel it in different
kind of ways or have their own experiences of it. Secondly, inquiry was described as some-
thing that can also be explained in many ways. PST 5 worded it the following way: ‘There
is not only one way how to explain [inquiry], or the right way or the worst way. There is no
way of comparing them [different definitions for inquiry]’.
Along with multiple definitions or understandings, two of the PSTs seemed to have
difficulties in describing inquiry in the interview. PST 2 stated that inquiry is hard to
explain and PST 3 that she/he is not sure how to describe it. However, this is not to
imply that they did not know or understand the concept of inquiry, but on the contrary,
it clearly demonstrated that they have such understanding.

Inquiry connected to everyday life and personal aspects

Inquiry was also described through the PSTs talking about how inquiry connects to
science and society. The connection was mentioned by one PST, linking that aspect to
learning. PST 5 said that inquiry is: ‘also about learning how it is done, and how the scien-
tist do it and maybe find the connections between the society and the scientists and all
that’. Thinking in inquiry was explicitly described by PST 3 the following way: ‘[inquiry
is] acting physically and mentally’, and in inquiry ‘you need to use your thinking skills’.
One interviewee specified inquiry as ‘scientific thinking’ (PST 1).

Inquiry as a context-based practice

To understand inquiry as a context-based practice, the written project reports were further
examined in terms of how context was described. In the reports, context was described as a
topic, physical place, and as a social practice.
First, the gingerbread project approached context as a topic to foster relevance for stu-
dents’ everyday life and socio-scientific issues, hopefully provoking interest amongst the
learners.
Second, the berry trio project approached context primarily as a physical place. The
knowledge about the topic, berries as natural pH indicators, was intended to be transferred
from one context (the laboratory, in which the indicators are most commonly used in
school) to another (the kitchen). Also, the connection to everyday life was described as
being important.
Third, the chili project approached context at more than one level: through the topic as
the starting point of a project, and through practice (research group and everyday life
context). The notion of students as a research group was not presented primarily by the
topic, but by the social practice, which was intended to resemble the work of scientists’.
The process was also stated as being an example of how the students could solve problems
in their everyday life.
In all three projects, connection to everyday life (15) was brought up when the PSTs
discussed inquiry as a context-based practice. In addition, the practice as a learning
12 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

goal in teachers’ work (17), making observations and collecting data (9), and creating
something new or beneficial (6) were linked to context-based practices.
When re-analysing the PSTs’ interviews, out of those categories in which context-based
practice and inquiry overlap, students’ everyday life was considered to benefit from stu-
dents being able to evaluate new information. Moreover, gaining information (collecting
data) and creating something new was connected to the same process of learning and
inquiring.

Discussion
Pre-service teachers’ implementation of inquiry
We found aspects of inquiry from the PSTs’ implementations that resemble the three per-
spectives on inquiry given by Abrams et al. (2008); learning about inquiry, learning to
inquire, and using inquiry as an approach/method to learn science content. The categories
‘is a part of NOS’ (12) and ‘is a process’ (8), and the theme ‘Concerns the nature of, or
understanding of, inquiry as a phenomenon’ (Table 3) resemble learning about inquiry.
The theme ‘Concerns inquiry as an activity’ resembles learning to inquire. However, the
category ‘is a process’ (8) does fit in here as well and has thus connections to both learning
about and learning to inquire. Although the classification by Abrams et al. (2008) is neat
and appealing, we see that (even) pre-service teachers, when allowed to engage in actual
inquiry, come up with aspects that transcend or do not fit neatly into any of the three men-
tioned classes. The most compelling examples are the themes ‘concerns inquiry as part of
teaching and learning’ and ‘connects inquiry to everyday life and personal aspects’. These
include categories that are clearly linked to formalised teaching and to the student’s life,
whilst at the same time not finding their natural place in Abrams et al.’s taxonomy.
Clearly, different manners of classification provide different perspectives.
According to the results of the work herein, the most frequent aspects of inquiry in the
PSTs’ implementations were connected to inquiry as a way to act and a way to think, as
well as the use of contexts and source/information evaluation and argumentation. Inquiry-
based teaching at school is not just following certain steps or doing investigations. An
important aspect of inquiry is to explain and argue/defend the results of investigations
and to link them to the world around us. Inquiry includes various practical and think-
ing-related aspects that the PSTs were aware of, as well as the interconnectedness
between the aspects. However, doing scientific inquiry does not necessarily correlate
with understanding it (Lederman et al., 2014). Thus, a combination of doing while expli-
citly talking about one’s choices and actions during inquiry should be encouraged to make
the thinking transparent.
Most of the coding units were found explicitly, but some were implicitly present. This
might be a result of what the PSTs thought to be important or the goal of their teaching
sequences (or aspects that they thought that the course teachers would consider impor-
tant). While they chose to explain some of the aspects of inquiry explicitly, some
aspects were by-products rather than actual goals of inquiry. Thus, when analysing
PSTs’ beliefs from their products (such as plans, reports or essays), what they write is
important, but also what they imply, gives relevant insight to their beliefs. Another poss-
ible explanation is that practical aspects are easier to articulate than others are, such as
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 13

meta-reflections about teaching, that some are considered common sense, or that they rep-
resent tacit/unarticulated knowledge. Indeed, this may explain why category 1, ‘is difficult,
or not even beneficial, to define’, features prominently in the theoretical short tasks but is
entirely absent in the project reports.

Pre-service teachers’ beliefs about inquiry

Different, nuanced beliefs about inquiry have emerged from different studies. Although
beliefs have been claimed to be quite stable constructs (Marbach-Ad & McGinnis, 2008;
Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992), beliefs also have adaptive function (Pajares, 1992). In par-
ticular, teaching experience can affect the teachers’ beliefs (Luft, 2001). Since beliefs
influence teachers’ practices (Kind, 2015), working with beliefs could in turn support tea-
chers’ practical choices, in this case in terms of inquiry-based teaching.
Inquiry has long been seen as an ambiguous term (Crawford, 2014; Rönnebeck et al.,
2016), and the findings of our study support this. The PSTs believed that people have
different experiences about, and meanings for, inquiry. These meanings cannot even be
compared, according to one of the PST. As described in the literature (Kind, 2015), it is
likely that these beliefs are formed over a longer period, informed by teachers’ educational
and practical experiences.
The PSTs stated that inquiry is difficult or of not benefit to define, which was expressed
in the short task at the beginning of the course, as well as in the interviews. However, in
their written reports they did not communicate uncertainty in their own understanding of
inquiry. Apparently, defining it and not understanding it seemed to be the difficult thing.
Through their experiences of inquiry, they might be able to conduct several aspects of it in
practice and develop implicit knowledge of inquiry. However, explaining a concept as
ambiguous as inquiry in an abstract and comprehensive way requires organising ideas
and expressing them logically and explicitly. The ability to explain and consider what
inquiry entails, is important for the teacher, however. Students do not learn about
inquiry only by practicing inquiry, but also by reflecting on how knowledge is produced
(Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004).

The connection between inquiry and context

According to our results, the PSTs were shown as being capable of implementing inquiry
in their chosen contexts. However, context-based teaching is challenging, and the PSTs
identified difficulties in transferring knowledge between contexts. Another challenge is
that to be able to use context-based teaching, multiple kinds of knowledge are required
(what Gilbert (2006) describes as extra-situational knowledge). Both scientific and contex-
tual knowledge is required to solve context-based problems. For example, in the context of
cooking, you need to know something about cooking, and not only about the chemistry of
food. The setting, behaviour, language, and background knowledge is connected to both
chemistry and food as distinct epistemic domains. This calls for deeper teacher knowledge
of the contexts chosen if contextualisation is to be credible. As many ‘everyday issues’,
such as cooking, are inherently complex and ‘messy’, this is a challenge when those con-
texts are used at school. Herein, the PSTs chose contexts themselves and it is expected that
their choices were based on their own interests or expertise, possibly ensuring the required
14 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

extra-situational knowledge. This raises the question of whether it is the teacher or the stu-
dents who should oversee choosing the context (e.g. Calabrese Barton et al., 2007). Two
avenues could be to search for contexts in which the interests of teacher and students
overlap, or the teacher may use her/his interest to sow similar interest among the students.
In any case, research indicates that the choice of context-based approaches does not result
in poorer learning outcomes compared with coverage-oriented approaches (Bennett et al.,
2007; King, 2012).
Although context was described differently in each report, they all supported the idea
that it should be a learning goal in teaching. It was considered to be a practice in which the
students make observations and collect data. The information to be learned should then be
evaluated and used (the gingerbread project), or, in fact, transferred (the berry trio project)
to students’ everyday life. In addition, observations and data may be used in creating
something new in one’s own life (the chili project, new dishes), and thus be useful for
the students.

Conclusions and implications

Inquiry is a complex phenomenon, and the word ‘inquiry’ clearly conjures up several
meanings, all of which are more or less context-bound. However, the PSTs in our study
did not seem to struggle with either talking about, using, or implementing inquiry in
their planned context-based teaching. Clearly, using this concept and encapsulating it in
a clear definition are two different things. The PSTs in our study demonstrated beliefs
that reflected this complexity and ambiguity, but still seemed to manage to live well
with it. When including context-based inquiry in professional development programmes,
it may thus be important that beliefs are considered and built upon, rather than prescrib-
ing definitions that nevertheless may fail to capture the multitude of meanings of inquiry.
The reason why it is important to take teachers’ beliefs into consideration in teacher edu-
cation, is that individual teachers filter professional knowledge through their beliefs before
it is translated into classroom practice (Kind, 2015). This is also the case in context-based
inquiry, from which pre-service teachers have acquired various beliefs, according to our
study.
Examination of the PSTs’ written reports showed that context can be conceptualised as
a topic, as a physical place, or as a social practice, which would in turn frame the inquiry.
This is in line with Gilbert’s (2006) notion of context as social circumstance. The PSTs in
our study demonstrated that when designing context-based teaching sequences, extra-
situational knowledge (Gilbert, 2006) is imperative for the context to be credible. For
example, in the gingerbread project, systematic tasting of cookies which is a well-estab-
lished scientific practice within sensory science (e.g. Meilgaard, Civille, & Carr, 1999),
was used as a method for data collection. In that case, the chemistry was moved out of
the lab and into the kitchen, applying methods other than those that are common in con-
ventional chemistry teaching. After all, tasting the product of an experiment in a chemistry
lab would be totally unacceptable. The practical chemistry activity had to be moved out of
the chemistry lab to provide answers to a question of chemical nature. This highlights that
extra-situational knowledge should not be underestimated in context-based teaching, and
this appears to be a topic for further research that may shed light on challenges inherent in
context-based approaches. This could be approached by way of professional development
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 15

programmes which could include multidisciplinary collaboration (e.g. Satchwell & Loepp,
2002), and studies of the relationship between content knowledge and extra-situational
knowledge in various contexts.
In conclusion, we have been shown that the PSTs in our study were able to plan
context-based inquiry teaching sequences without being notably restrained by the
complex and ambiguous nature of inquiry. Although they found inquiry difficult, or
even not meaningful to define, they seemed not to find it too difficult to use and apply
the concept of inquiry in meaningful manners in various contexts. It would thus be of
interest to see further studies on practice versus beliefs about context-based inquiry,
with larger number of participants, from various geographical and cultural regions, and
varying degrees of teaching experience. In addition, theoretical accounts to shed light
on the context-based nature of inquiry in teaching and learning should be welcomed.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Note on contributors
Jaana Herranen (M.Sc.) is a Ph.D. student and a teacher in the Unit of Chemistry Teacher Edu-
cation at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests are inquiry-based science education,
student-centred education and education for sustainability.
Päivi Kousa (B Pharm, Ph.D) finished her Ph.D in science education in the Unit of Chemistry
Teacher Education at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests are teacher beliefs and pro-
fessional development, mixed-ability classrooms, STSE issues in chemistry education and school-
industry collaboration.
Erik Fooladi (dr. scient.) is an associate professor at Volda University College, where he teaches
science education and home economics education. His research interests are inquiry, argumenta-
tion and epistemology in the intersections between subject domains. Examples include context-
based education, possible relationships between arts and science in teaching and learning, aesthetic
and sense experiences in education, and procedural versus theoretical knowledge.
Professor Maija Aksela has a 30-year experience in science education and teacher training in
Finland. She is the head of the Unit of Chemistry Teacher Education in the Department of Chem-
istry, University of Helsinki and LUMA Centre of Finland. Her research interests are, e.g. teacher
education and non-formal and informal education.

ORCID
Jaana Herranen http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3059-2900
Päivi Kousa http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1380-3238
Erik Fooladi http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7894-4747
Maija Aksela http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9552-248X

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Appendices
Appendix 1. A detailed course description
The course ‘Inquiry-based chemistry education II’ (called TUTKI 2) was an undergraduate compul-
sory course for pre-service chemistry teachers (5 ECTS credits) at the time of the research. At the
bachelor-level, the PSTs participated in a course ‘Inquiry-based chemistry education I’ (5 ECTS)
18 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

which was an introductory course to inquiry-based and laboratory education. During the ‘Inquiry-
based chemistry education II’ course, educational theories and practices on how to use inquiry
teaching were taught through lectures, discussions, literature, writing tasks, practical work, and
designing an inquiry teaching sequence (see Table Design and contents of the course ‘Inquiry-
based chemistry education II’). The aims of the ‘Inquiry-based chemistry education II’ course
were planned to support lifelong learning, chemistry education community, learner-centred chem-
istry teaching, sustainable development and ICT from the viewpoint of context-based inquiry. More
specifically, the inquiry-based learning related aims were:

. The PST improves in teaching using inquiry-based approach and the most recent research
. The PST improves in teaching in cooperation with the other PSTs
. The PST masters chemistry concepts and phenomena, understands how chemistry information
is produced and the significance of chemistry in societal and everyday contexts
. The PST uses a variety of approaches, teaching methods and learning environments in chemistry
teaching.

The course syllabus was:

Abrams, E., Southerland, S. A., & Silva, P. C. (2008). Inquiry in the classroom: Realities and
opportunities. Charlotte, NC: IAP.
Fooladi, E. (2013). Molecular gastronomy in science and cross-curricular education – The case
of “Kitchen stories”. LUMAT - Research and Practice in Math, Science and Technology Education, 1
(2), 17–30
Fooladi, E., & Hopia, A. (2014). Culinary claims as entry to the “how we know”s of science in an
informal learning environment. Paper presented at the NFSUN 2014 conference, Finland: Univer-
sity of Helsinki.
Gilbert, J. K., Bulte, A. M. W., & Pilot, A. (2011). Concept development and transfer in context-
based science education. International Journal of Science Education, 33(6), 817–837. doi:10.1080/
09500693.2010.493185
Hopia, A. (2013). Molekyyligastronomia [molecular gastronomy]. Retrieved from http://
molekyyligastronomia.fi. September 7, 2014.
Illeris, K. (2009). Transfer of learning in the learning society: How can the barriers between
different learning spaces be surmounted, and how can the gap between learning inside and
outside schools be bridged? International Journal of Lifelong Education, 28(2), 137–148. doi:10.
1080/02601370902756986
Mystery Boxes. (2014, September 4). Retrieved from http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
educators/teaching_resources/activities/mystery_boxes.aspx
Näsäkkälä, E., Flinkman, M., & Aksela, M. (2001). Luonnontieteellisen tutkimuksen tekemi-
nen koulussa [Scientific research/inquiry in schools]. Helsinki: Finnish national board of
education.
Pearson, P. D., Moje, E., & Greenleaf, C. (2010). Literacy and science: Each in the service of the
other. Science, 328(5977), 459–463. doi:10.1126/science.1182595
Rocard, M., Hemmo, V., Csermely, P., Jorde, D., Lenzen, D., & Walberg-Henriksson, H. (2007).
Science education NOW: A renewed pedagogy for the future of Europe. Luxembourg: Office for
Official Publications of the European Communities.
Student activity – Mystery boxes. (2011, September 4). Retrieved from http://www.sciencelearn.
org.nz/Nature-of-Science/Teaching-and-Learning-Approaches/Student-activity-Mystery-boxes
TEMI, P. (2014, September 9). Teaching enquiry with mysteries incorporated. Retrieved from
http://teachingmysteries.eu/en/
Vartiainen, J., Hopia, A., & Aksela, M. (2011). Using Kitchen Stories as Starting Point for
Chemical Instruction in High School. Paper presented at the ESERA 2011 conference, Lyon,
France. Retrieved from http://www.esera.org/publications/esera-conference-proceedings/science-
learning-and-citizenship-proceed/
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 19

Design and contents of the course ‘Inquiry-based chemistry education II’.

Course elements
Theory and supported practice
Part 1 (6 Educational theory and short task:
weeks) What is inquiry?
Examples of teaching contexts
Short written reflection tasks
Small practical inquiry activities
Design of context-based inquiry teaching sequence
Part 2 (8 Teaching sequence design
weeks) Small practical activities
Group tuition
Practical inquiry activities
Testing of practical activities
Process documentation
Presentation of teaching
sequence
Examples of content
Inquiry, context-based teaching, second-hand inquiry, assessment of
inquiry, source awareness
Cosmetics, food and cooking, nature
Nineteen tasks to link theory with practice
Inquiry activities led by lecturer (e.g. sensory analysis methods,
experiment designs)
Open task, in which topic, context and methods decided by PST pairs
Inquiry activities led by lecturers
To support reflection in planning of teaching
PSTs themselves testing practical activities included in their teaching
sequence
Selected practical activity of teaching sequence tested with class of
lower secondary students, with subsequent evaluation/reflection
Written project report
Presented at teacher education seminar

Appendix 2. Example of explicit and implicit coding

Coding
type Report Statement (=coding unit) Explanation of coding
Explicit Gingerbread ‘[last step of the teaching sequence was] the Coding unit categorised as explicitly
structure and features of scientific inquiry’ mentioned ‘inquiry several aspects, features,
or steps of inquiry’ (3).
General note: a coding unit might be part of a
category, not the whole category, such as in
this case in which the coding unit only
included the idea of features of inquiry, not
the structure of inquiry.
Implicit Chili The project is an example of an inquiry project Coding unit identified as an implicit coding unit
that consists of three parts that aims to because the idea behind that sentence is that
teach pupils about inquiry as a process and there are three parts including different
to encourage and guide them to practice inquiry features, but it is not explicitly written
their inquiry related thinking skills. in the text. An interpretation was made
during the analysis by the researchers that
the stated three parts are parts of inquiry, not
general parts of the activity.

Appendix 3. The interview guide

(1) Could you explain the concept ‘inquiry’ as you understand it?
(2) Could you share with us your thoughts about things that you’ve learnt through this course?
(3) Has your view of the concept of inquiry changed as result of doing TUTKI 2 [Inquiry-based
chemistry education II]? If so, in what way?
(4) Have you had other courses during your studies that included ways to use inquiry in teaching?
(5) Could you describe how inquiry was defined, or taught to be done, in these?
(6) Could you share with us your thoughts about context-based teaching of inquiry?
(7) Could you share with us your thoughts about how this course might be relevant to your future
work as science teacher?
(8) Which challenges, or hurdles/obstacles, do you think you’d meet if you want to implement
inquiry in your work as teacher?
20 J. HERRANEN ET AL.
(9) What is in your opinion the most important factor(s) controlling what is taught, and how
things are taught, in school? (textbook, teachers’ background, curriculum, other things)
(10) What do you feel you need more knowledge or experience about, if anything, in order to be
able to carry out context-based inquiry as a teacher?
Appendix 4. Detailed project descriptions
Context Goal according to PSTs
Ginger-bread • To learn and do inquiry
cookies and practices through the context
leavening • To learn about the nature of
agents science and scientific thinking
• To help the students to view
research critically and to break
boundaries that science would
be something inhuman
Inquiry activities Implementation
• Information search on leavening 9-grade students,
agents (pre-task) divided into groups of
• Experimental part: 2–3 students
Started with a problem: There are
three chemical leavening agents:
baking powder (a composite
product based on sodium
hydrogen carbonate, NaHCO3,
and one or two solid weak acids),
baking soda (pure sodium
hydrogen carbonate, NaHCO3)
and hartshorn salt (ammonium
hydrogen carbonate, NH4HCO3).
Which leavening agent should a
cookie factory use to make the
best cookie? To solve the
problem, the students had to
perform experiments about
leavening agents. Experiments on
leavening agents, baking cookies
and conducting sensory
evaluation. In the experiment,
each student group had to
observe the reaction between
one leavening agent and both
hot and cold water. In the
experiment, the water was
poured into an Erlenmeyer flask,
the leavening agent into a
balloon, and the balloon attached
to the flask, so that the balloon
would inflate if a gas forms in the
chemical reaction. Three parallel
batches of cookies were baked by
one of the PSTs at home, the only
difference between the recipes
being the chemical leavening
agents. This part could also have
been done at school in a home
economics class. The sensory
evaluation was done by blind
tasting each cookie and writing
the evaluation of each student to
a form. The aspects to evaluate
qualitatively were appearance,
structure, smell, taste, mouth feel,
and other if the students would
come up with something else
• Project summary on the concept of
scientific inquiry: Making of mind
map about scientific inquiry (post-
(Continued )
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENCE EDUCATION 21

Continued.
Context Goal according to PSTs Inquiry activities Implementation
task), and discussing the structure
and features of scientific inquiry.
• Berry trio • To learn about inquiry and [natural The activity was developed from a 8-grade students,
indicator related] concepts ‘bilberry trio activity’, in which a divided into groups of
• To move between the contexts three-layered dessert is made from 2–3 students
bilberries, whisked egg whites to
give a foam, lemon juice, quark and
sugar, so that different layers (all
containing bilberry) have a different
colour as result of the pH of the
respective layer (Töyrylä, et al.,
2013). The activity was developed so
that the students had access to
different berries, all containing
natural colours that may function as
pH indicators, in addition to
bilberries. The students made
layered desserts containing different
berries. In the activity, the students
had to inquire which of the given
berries would best act as an
indicator. The students were first
given background information on
natural indicators, followed by the
research question and the
procedure (both given by the
teacher). Working in groups, the
students followed the given
procedure with different berries,
and then discussed with the whole
group which of the berries worked
best as an indicator.
Chili (and a To learn about research as a The project was divided into three 8-9- grade students,
research process and problem-solving phases: divided into groups of
group context) • The students search for information 3–4 students
on different chili-related topics, and
make posters with facts about chilis.
The topics are: the Scoville test/
scale, the biological structure of chili
and chili topics, capsaicin, chilis in
cooking, the origin/history of chilis,
and cultivation of chilis.
• The students present their posters,
and start planning their empirical
tests, based on the adapted Scoville
test on chili pungency developed by
the PST (the original Scoville test:
see, e.g. Borges, 2001).
• Finally, the success and reliability is
evaluated by discussing how the
empirical tests were done, did the
results provide an answer to the
research question, and could the
test be applied with other chilis, and
how do the results from this
experiment correlate with the
official Scoville scale? Findings and
conclusions are written down.
After the project week, the students
are supposed to prepare a chili dish
based on their acquired knowledge
on chili, but this was not tested
during this course.
22 J. HERRANEN ET AL.

Appendix 5. Categories from the task ‘What is inquiry?’

Themes and categories Inquiry categories in short task Specification

Concerns the nature of, or understanding of inquiry as a phenomenon
1 is difficult, or even not beneficial, to
define
2 has different meaning to different can validly be defined in more than one way
people
3 includes many features includes several aspects, features, or steps of inquiry
4 appears in different places/forms/ includes various levels of inquiry
situations
5 is considered more or less scientific
depending on where it occurs
12 is a part of NOS (Nature of Science)
Concerns inquiry as an activity
6 is about achieving something new
or beneficial
7 is a way to act something that both scientists and non-scientists do
8 is a process
9 includes making observations and
collecting data
10 includes interpretation of data
14 includes source/information
evaluation and argumentation
Concerns inquiry as part of teaching and learning
16 is a way to teach and/or learn such as problem-solving, structured/open, etc., linked
to formalised teaching and learning (compared to
category 4)
17 is a learning goal in teachers’ work
18 is not the only good/efficient way
to teach
Connects inquiry to
everyday life and
personal aspects
11 is a way to think reflective, critical, etc.
13 is related to feelings both positive and negative
15 concerns both science and society,
including students’ everyday life