Anecdotal comments from students about
the course are positive. Students comment that they
enjoy actually ‘doing something’ as opposed to
simply listening as in traditional lecture courses.
Students find the practical activities especially
interesting as they are something they can actually
use themselves in the classroom when they are
practicing teachers. Because the students do the
practical work themselves, they feel they better
understand what inquiry-based science is, and how
they could teach it themselves. Students were given
questionnaires which asked what views they had
about inquiry-based and open teaching both at the
beginning and end of the course. The results
indicated that students would be more willing to
incorporate aspects of inquiry into science lessons
when they became teachers after they had taken the
course.