Teachers’ use of inquiry and language scaffolding questions when preparing an experiment

Authors Anne Bergliot Oyehaug, Maria Kouns, Elwin Savelsbergh
Published in European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education
Publication date 2024
Type Article

Summary

This study analyze data from three national contexts in which teachers worked with the same teaching materials and inquiry classroom activities, investigating teachers’ use of strategies to promote interaction and scaffolding when participating in a professional development program. The data material is collected from three case studies from the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, respectively. Each case is from a teaching unit about green plants and seed sprouting. In one lesson in this unit, students were involved in planning an experiment with sprouting seeds, and this (similar) lesson was videotaped in three national settings. The main research question is, as follows: How do primary teachers use questions to scaffold conceptual understanding and language use in inquiry science activities? The data analysis shows that teachers ask different kind of questions such as open, closed, influencing and orienting questions. The open, orienting questions induce students to generate their own ideas, while closed orienting and influencing questions often scaffold language and content-specific meaning-making. However, both open, closed, orienting and influencing questions can scaffold student language and conceptual understanding. Often, teacher questions scaffold both language content-specific meaning-making at the same time. The study shows the subtle mechanisms through which teachers can use questions to scaffold student science literacy and thereby including them in classroom interaction.

On this publication contributed

  • Elwin Savelsbergh | Professor | Research group Science and Technology Education
    Elwin Savelsbergh
    • Professor
    • Research group: Research group Curriculum Development in Primary and Secondary Education

Language English
Published in European Journal of Science and Mathematics Education
Year and volume 12 1
Key words inquiry questions, science experiments, language scaffolding, primary school science, literacy
Digital Object Identifier 10.30935/scimath/14074
Page range 139-155

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