Chapter 7
The Process Skills of Inquiry
by Doris Ash
By being aware of the parts that make up the whole, a teacher can help children learn the skills necessary to plan and carry out successful inquiry investigations. While the inquiry process can be represented in many different ways, this chapter gives one interpretation that can help teachers identify and use the valuable "process skills" of inquiry.
"When education is viewed as inquiry, important things happen. The focus of education becomes learning and the task of teaching becomes one of supporting the inquiry process."
--Harste (1993)
Imagine kindergarten children exploring how potatoes grow. The children start by carefully looking at potatoes. One of the first things they notice is that the potatoes have sprouts. They wonder about the sprouts and what they might do. The teacher elicits more observations and questions. Among other things, the children suggest that potatoes grow under the ground. They wonder if potatoes have seeds, and what a potato seed might look like.
The teacher helps the children generate a list of their questions:
What is a sprout?
How can you get plants without planting seeds?
Do the sprouts have anything to do with getting new potatoes?
Should we plant all or part of the potato?
In order to answer some of these questions, the teacher suggests that students investigate in more detail. Based on their questions and observations, he organizes the children into similar interest groups so that they can work together in small groups of two or three. The teacher then asks the students to begin by creating a plan that includes a list of the materials they think they will need and drawings of what they will put into the dirt--a whole potato, half a potato, the part with or without a sprout, and so on. The child who wondered about the seeds wants to include seeds in his plan. On his own, he has found a book in the classroom that supports his theory that potatoes have flowers and seeds. The teacher suggests that he research this piece after the initial experiments are underway.
Next, the children plant their potatoes according to their plans. When the plants begin to sprout, the students uproot them to look for evidence of change. They notice that some of the potatoes they planted have rotted, but others have grown. They see roots and the beginnings of new little potatoes attached to these roots under the ground. They hypothesize that the potato pieces that originally had sprouts were the ones that grew into the plants with the little potatoes attached to their roots.
The children have many more questions, and again the teacher lists these for the class.
How long would it take to grow a larger potato?
How many potatoes would grow from each plant?
Can one of the new little potatoes be used to grow another potato plant?
How much of the potato needs to be buried in order to grow a small plant?
It is near the end of the year, so the teacher suggests that the children try some followup experiments at home during the summer.
The Parts of the Process
When learners interact with the world in a scientific way, they find themselves observing, questioning, hypothesizing, predicting, investigating, interpreting, and communicating. These are often called the "process skills" of science. Process skills play a critical role in helping children develop scientific ideas.
A sometimes bewildering variety of interpretations of process skills, including their number, order, and relative importance, exists in local, state, and national science education standards. Here we suggest one possible interpretation of seven of the process skills of science (Harlen and Jelly, 1997):
Observing-watching carefully, taking notes, comparing and contrasting
Questioning-asking questions about observations; asking questions that can lead to investigations
Hypothesizing-providing explanations consistent with available observations
Predicting-suggesting an event in the future, based on observations
Investigating-planning, conducting, measuring, gathering data, controlling variables
Interpreting-synthesizing, drawing conclusions, seeing patterns
Communicating- informing others in a variety of means: oral, written, representational
Observing
Observation of real phenomena begins the inquiry process and continues throughout all its phases. For the kindergartners studying potatoes, observation, the starting point for their endeavors, also led them from one step to the next.
In making observations, the learner gathers evidence and ideas about phenomena and begins to identify similarities and differences. He may also begin to see patterns or understand the order in which events may have taken place. Close observation provides the evidence that allows ideas to be checked, and it therefore needs to be detailed and relevant. The learner must have confidence that her observations are valuable.
The Eyes Have It: The Growing Science Inquiry Teaching Cycle," a video by the National Gardening Association, Burlington, Vermont.
"The Eyes Have It: The Growing Science Inquiry Teaching Cycle," a video by the National Gardening Association, Burlington, Vermont.
Because observation skills can more easily be developed than other process skills, they are often more consciously practiced with younger students. But, as shown above, even kindergartners have the ability to move beyond observation to other areas of investigation.
Questioning
Curiosity drives the inquiry process--it generates questions and a search for answers. In process of asking series is first step finding Questioning therefore basis from which continues. It at heart process. habit mind that can be encouraged any learning setting. An ethos classroom allows learners freedom to move into uncharted territory begin explore what they dont know or need better understand.
The questions the kindergartners asked about the potatoes arose from watching real phenomena in an unhurried fashion. These questions recurred regularly throughout the children's exploration. As they worked, each question led to an action, which in turn led to the use of other process skills, including asking more questions. This is the nature of inquiry, which is not a linear process.
Equally important to raising good questions is the process of selecting questions that might be followed with fruitful investigations. In the school setting, one of the most important skills we can develop is to understand better which questions can be answered by experimentation, and which cannot. Children become aware of this gradually. Part of the inquiry process is determining how to turn non-investigable questions into investigable ones, and learning how to recognize questions that are generative, long lasting, and interesting enough to foster a rich investigation.
The Eyes Have It: The Growing Science Inquiry Teaching Cycle," a video by the National Gardening Association, Burlington, Vermont.
The Eyes Have It: The Growing Science Inquiry Teaching Cycle," a video by the National Gardening Association, Burlington, Vermont.
Hypothesizing
Our kindergartners, by their actions, suggested that perhaps the sprout itself was associated with the growth of the potato. This is a tentative explanation for the function of the sprout. It is based on available evidence, and it is, essentially, a hypothesis.
Hypothesizing suggests an explanation consistent with available observations, questions, and evidence. When a student makes a hypothesis, he links information from past experiences that may explain both how and why events occur. (See "To Hypothesize or Not to Hypothesize?" on page 61.)
Inquiry starts when something catches our interest and we take time to observe it very carefully. Hypothesizing arrives after we have an opportunity to observe, comment, raise questions, and explore with materials. We raise questions based on experience and observations and continue to gather experiences with the particular phenomenon. Along the way, hypotheses are created, but they may arrive well into the experience and act as a way of pulling together accumulated information.
Predicting
Predictions are central to the process of testing whether or not a hypothesis is on the right track. This process takes away the need for guessing. A prediction goes beyond available evidence to suggest what will happen in the future. A learner who says, "If I do this, then that will happen" has a way of finding out how something works.
There are a variety of ways to use evidence. Young children may make conclusions that are only slightly related to available evidence. Older children may use evidence in more sophisticated ways, including recognizing patterns of data from which to extrapolate or interpolate. The greater the use of evidence to link the original ideas to future behaviors, the more useful and testable the prediction.
Typically, a prediction is based on evidence from past knowledge and/or experience, and upon immediate evidence gained through observation. It is important to know how to gather evidence and how it can be used to best advantage. Predictions invite the orderly gathering of evidence for a specific purpose.
Investigating