USING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY TO FOSTER THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS' UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY: A CASE STUDY OF SCHOOLS IN GWAGWALADA AREA COUNCIL OF THE FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA
The need to help learners develop scientific proficiency and have identified informal learning environments, interactive technologies, and an understanding of inquiry as ways to support this development has been underscored as critical for the national scientific agenda. The enhancing environmental knowledge package was developed in response to this need. The package is a digitally supported, inquiry-oriented learning package and focuses on engaging primary school pupils in science practices in formal and informal settings. This study employed a mixed methods approach to explore how engagement in the project affected 46 primary five pupils’ views of scientific inquiry and if pupils’ participation shaped certain aspects of scientific inquiry. The Views of Scientific Inquiry – Elementary School Version (VOSI-E) Instrument, was adapted and administered before and after pupils had engaged with a three-week enhancing environmental knowledge package and assessed aspects including the role of questions, diversity of methods, experiments and investigations, developing scientific explanations, supporting scientific explanations, predictions and hypotheses, role of subjectivity, role of creativity, and goal of science. VOSI-E responses were analysed using a mixed-methods approach. Chi-squared test results suggest that classroom learning coupled with visits to a wildlife center can help improve pupils' understanding of scientific inquiry when integrated with technology-enhanced, field-based inquiries that emphasise the practices of science.
Egbujuo Chima Jonas, PhD
USING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY TO FOSTER THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRIMARY SCHOOL PUPILS' UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY: A CASE STUDY OF SCHOOLS IN GWAGWALADA AREA COUNCIL OF THE FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA
The need to help learners develop scientific proficiency and have identified informal learning environments, interactive technologies, and an understanding of inquiry as ways to support this development has been underscored as critical for the national scientific agenda. The enhancing environmental knowledge package was developed in response to this need. The package is a digitally supported, inquiry-oriented learning package and focuses on engaging primary school pupils in science practices in formal and informal settings. This study employed a mixed methods approach to explore how engagement in the project affected 46 primary five pupils’ views of scientific inquiry and if pupils’ participation shaped certain aspects of scientific inquiry. The Views of Scientific Inquiry – Elementary School Version (VOSI-E) Instrument, was adapted and administered before and after pupils had engaged with a three-week enhancing environmental knowledge package and assessed aspects including the role of questions, diversity of methods, experiments and investigations, developing scientific explanations, supporting scientific explanations, predictions and hypotheses, role of subjectivity, role of creativity, and goal of science. VOSI-E responses were analysed using a mixed-methods approach. Chi-squared test results suggest that classroom learning coupled with visits to a wildlife center can help improve pupils' understanding of scientific inquiry when integrated with technology-enhanced, field-based inquiries that emphasise the practices of science.