Explicit instruction on procedural and epistemic knowledge – is it happening? A video-based exploration of classroom practice

ABSTRACT

Background

Inquiry-based instruction is a prominent teaching strategy in science education that is assumed to be an effective means to foster not only students’ understanding of science content but also their procedural and epistemic knowledge concerning inquiry processes. Empirical studies have repeatedly shown that inquiry-related activities should be combined with instruction that explicitly addresses procedural and epistemic knowledge to support students’ learning effectively.

Purpose

The aim of this study is to explore to what extent explicit instruction on procedural and epistemic knowledge is occurring in inquiry-based biology and chemistry lessons.

Sample

The sample analysed in this study consist of 16 inquiry-based biology and chemistry lessons recorded in German classrooms.

Design and Methods

The video recordings of the lessons were analysed in three steps. First, event-based codes were used to identify all phases of a lesson in which students were engaged in an inquiry-related activity (e.g. developing questions, planning investigations). Second, each phase was analysed with respect to features of explicit instruction (e.g. explications of inquiry strategies). Third, event-based codes were used to capture individual features of explicit instruction in a phase.

Results

In our sample explicit instruction on procedural knowledge occurred rarely and mostly in the form of brief sidenotes rather than as a comprehensive and deliberately planned action. Furthermore, explicit instruction on epistemic knowledge was virtually non-existent. However, we observed that many tasks and questions that are given by the teachers during their lessons have a high potential for making procedural (and epistemic) aspects explicit.

Conclusion

While this explorative study does not allow for causal explanations for the lack of explicit instruction, its findings provide important insights into classroom practice. Implications for teacher education and future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Inquiry-based instruction
• explicit instruction
• classroom practice
• video study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/02635143.2022.2153245

Ethics Statement

Data collection and handling was approved by the federal authorities of the state Berlin (Germany). Informed consent was obtained from all teachers, students, and students’ parents prior to data collection.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) under Grants TI 336/10-1 and UP 12/3-1.