Development of Instruments to Assess Teacher and Student Perceptions of Inquiry Experiences in Science Classrooms

Abstract

This study describes the development of two instruments to investigate the extent to which students are engaged in scientific inquiry. As a result of the instrument development process employed, each finalized instrument consisted of 20-items separated into five categories. Both instruments were found to be internally consistent, with high reliability estimates. Factor analysis showed two factors for each instrument that, while not clustering the items into the five categories, did show item clustering that is consistent with research literature about students’ engagement in inquiry experiences. Based on the analyses completed, the instruments appear to be useful instruments for use in comprehensive assessment packages for assessing the extent to which students are experiencing inquiry in science classrooms.

Keywords:

• Scientific inquiry
• Reform
• Research instrument