1.Approaches to enquiry

2.Traditional phases of inquiry process to progressive inquiry

3.Dialogic nature of enquiry and a variety of coding schema

This working paper reviews the literature review on enquiry (inquiry) learning to inform a schema for the key stages and aspects of a dialogic enquiry process. The paper begins by refine the meanings of dialogic enquiry arising from different perspectives on the topic. The paper continues by reviewing work on comparing progressive inquiry with traditional phases of enquiry. The next section focuses on reviewing work on dialogic nature of enquiry and the variety of staged accounts of enquiry process.

1.Approaches to enquiry

Learning occurs through a social process of inquiry (Dewey, 1938). There are different ways to approach enquiry. Reflective enquiry seeks to draw attention on the coupling of metacognition and inquiry in the context of solving open-ended, ill-structured investigations in science (KyzaEdelson, 2003). The name “reflective inquiry” thus has a double meaning, and deliberately so. The first meaning is reflection as in thinking seriously about something. The second meaning is to use a mirror to reflect an image of oneself while working (Keating et al., 1996). de Jone et al. (2006) indicate specific difficulties children have in engaging with inquiry learning, in order to general metacognitive problems in failing to regulate their behaviour or plan effectively. Shared enquiry requires a commitment to open up both literally and metaphorically the necessary time and spaces to try things out, to play with variations, to probe the possibilities for enhancing motivation and learning, and to take risks in entering new territory (Thomas & Oldfather, 1995). Brown and Campione (1996) recognise that participation in an extended process of shared inquiry fosters children’s ability to ask complex questions.

In science learning context, National Research council (2000, in GrandyDuschl, 2006, p156) strengthen dialogical processes of enquiry beyond conceptual learning goals and decided to added the following dialogic features to inquiry learning process:

  • Responds to criticisms from others
  • Formulates appropriate criticisms of others
  • Engages in criticism of own explanations
  • Reflects on alternative explanations and not have a unique resolution.

Dialogic process of enquiry can also cultivate learners’ scientific thinking skills. There is a symptom of the disjunction between newcomer and expert worldviews (Clancey, 1989). In particular, extensive research has documented the depth of the disjunction between science students and professional scientists (Carramazza, McCloskey, & Green, 1981; HalhounHestenes, 1985; McDermott, 1984). The gap between students' and scientists' worldviews is not localized at the level of "concepts" and "misconceptions," but extends throughout the fabric of thinking -- including perception, focus of attention, descriptions of the world, practices of interactions with the world, forms of valid knowledge, and values.

2.Traditional phases of enquiry process to progressive inquiry

Table 1: An abstract description of the present five perspectives of inquiry process

Shimoda et al (2002) / Bruce & Bishop (2002) / Schwartz et al (1999) / Llewelyn (2002) / Hakkarainen (2010)
List of phases/stages /
  • Hypothesis
  • Investigate
  • Analyse
  • Synthesise
  • Extend
  • Question and theorise.
/
  • Ask
  • Investigate
  • Create
  • Discuss
  • Reflect
/
  • The challenge
  • Generate ideas
  • Multiple perspectives
  • Research& revise
  • Test your mettle
  • Go public
  • Look ahead & Reflect back
/
  • Introducing a topic
  • Assessing prior knowledge
  • Providing exploration
  • Raising and revising questions
  • Brainstorming solutions
  • Carrying out a plan
  • Collecting data
  • Organising data
  • Communicating results
  • Comparing new knowledge to prior knowledge
  • Applying knowledge to new situation
  • Stating a new question to investigate
/
  • Share expertise
  • Creating context
  • Engaging in question –driven inquiry
  • Generating working theories
  • Critical evaluation as a component of the process
  • Searching for new information
  • Engagement in deepen inquiry
  • Distributed expertise

Focus of the innovation / This is a generic inquiry circle, names as a sequence of goals to be pursued by the learners. / This circle aims for students to learn how to learn and metacognitive skills, and stresses the need to engage children as active learners to collaborate and to understand the perspectives of others. / This circle is implemented as a technology template to guide learners through case-, problem-, project-based learning. / This circle is a constructivist inquiry cycle from a more detailed inquiry approach. / This circle represents a sustained process of advancing and building
knowledge

This section aims to compare progressive inquiry with other four traditional phases of inquiry process assummarised in Table 1: Shimoda et al (2002); Bruce and Bishop (2002); Schwartz et al. (1999), Llewelyn (2002) and Hakkarainen (1998).The idea of defining inquiry through phases that are represented as a list, cycle or spiral is not new.

The Shimoda et al (2002)’s generic inquiry cycle is shown in Figure 1. This cycle is made explicit to students and is presented as a sequence of goals to be pursued (Shimoda et al., 2002):

Figure1 provides a top-level model of the inquiry process.

1)QUESTION: The students start by formulating a research question.

2)HYPOTHESIZE: They then generate predictions and come up with alternative, competing hypotheses related to their question.

3)INVESTIGATE: Next, they design and carry out experimental investigations in which they try to determine which of their hypotheses, if any, is accurate. (In our force and motion curriculum, they do their experiments in the context of both the ThinkerTools computer simulations and the real world. The computer simulations make it easy for them to conduct and see the results of their experiments. Experimentation in the real world is more difficult and is a good vehicle for enabling students to learn about problems that occur in the design and implementation of real-world experiments.)

4)ANALYZE: After the students have completed their investigations, they analyze their data to see if there are any patterns.

5)MODEL: Next they try to summarize and explain their findings by formulating a law and a causal model that characterize their conclusions in a form that is extensible to other situations. (Students’ models typically take the form: “If A then B because ...” For example, “if there are no forces like friction acting on an object, then it will go forever at the same speed, because there is nothing to slow it down.”)

6)EVALUATE: Once the students have developed their laws and causal models, they then try to apply them to different real-world situations in order to investigate their utility and their limitations. They also examine the limits of their investigations.

Determining the limitations of their conceptual models and investigations raises new research questions, and the students begin the Inquiry Cycle again.

Bruce and Bishop (2002)’s inquiry cycle is shown in Figure 2. They argue that for students to learn how to learn, and they must ask (find problems), investigate (multiple sources/media), create (engage actively in learning), discuss (collaborate and debate), and reflect to do that.

Figure2: The inquiry cycle (Bruce & Bishop 2002)

Schwartz et al (1999)’s inquiry cycle in Figure 3 is designed to guide attempts to help students learn from case-, problem-, and project-based learning (Schwartz et al., 1999).

Figure 3: the template of STAR.Legacy software cell (Schwartz et al., 1999)

Llewelyn (2002) takes a more detailed inquiry approach to illustrate the following sequence within his model of a constructivist inquiry cycle:

(1) introducing a topic;

(2) assessing prior knowledge;

(3) providing exploration;

(4) raising and revising questions;

(5) brainstorming solutions;

(6) carrying out a plan;

(7) collecting data;

(8) organizing data, finding relationships, and drawing conclusions;

(9) communicating results;

(10) comparing new knowledge to prior knowledge;

(11) applying knowledge to new situations; and

(12) stating a new question to investigate.

Different from the previous four perspectives,Hakkarainen (1998) claims a sustained process of advancing and building knowledge as progressive inquiry in Figure 4. He takes a broader view of inquiry learning, in order to foster research-like process of inquiry in education (Bereiter, 2002).He argues that learners should be guided to engage in processes of inquiry in which they are approaching problems investigating at deepening levels of explanation. Although Hakkarainen proposes that the agent of progressive inquiry is not an individual, but a knowledge building community (Bereiter, 2002; Paavola et al., 2002, ScardamiliaBereiter, 1999), the progressive inquiry model cannot clarify the dialogic dynamics within a group of learners. Hence this paper continues reviewing workdialogic nature of enquiry and the variety of staged accounts of shared enquiry process.

Figure 4: Progressive inquiry learning process (HakkarainenMuukkonen 1998)

3.Dialogic nature of enquiry and a variety of coding schema

Most scientific enquiries, whether professional or by students are collaborative (Driver et al. 2000), so to support children being reflective to their collaboration, we need to orchestrate/stage the dialogic process of enquiry at a micro level, e.g. communicative actions/moves; stages. Wells’ (2001) framework for dialogic inquiry (Figure 5) can be regarded as a way to stage and orchestrate the process of dialogic inquiry. It divides the process of inquiry into three stages, outlines the aims and activities of each stage, the types of dialogue that could achieve the aims. Well’s model pays attention to the sequencing of activities in terms of scientific epistemology (research, interpret, present).

Figure 5: Well’s framework for dialogic enquiry

Furthermore, Table 2 examines three coding schemas to scaffold collaborative learning, e.g. argumentation and socio-construction of knowledge.

Table 2: An abstract description of the present three schema of collaborative learning

Weinberger & Fischer multidimensional framework (2006) / Core, M. and J. Allen (1997) dialogue coding scheme / Wegerif et al. (2007)
Focus of the innovation / argumentative knowledge construction: / multiple labels in multiple layers to be applied to an utterance / Dialogic process and thinking skills
Coding scheme structure /
  • the participation dimension,
  • quantity of participation
  • Heterogeneity of participation
  • the epistemic dimension,
  • the argument dimension, and
  • sequence of argumentation
  • construction of argumentation
  • the dimension of social modes of co-construction
  • Externalisation
  • Elicitation
  • Quick consensus
  • Integration-oriented consensus
  • Conflict-orientated consensus
/
  • Forward communicative functions:
  • Representatives,
  • Directives;
  • Commissive
  • Backward communicative functions:
  • Agreement,
  • Understanding,
  • Answer;
  • Information Relation
  • Utterance features:
  • Information level;
  • Communicative Status;
  • syntactic features
/
  • Critical Reasoning
  • Creative Reasoning & Dialogic Engagement
  • Moderation

Weinberger & Fischer (2006)propose to foster specific process dimensions of argumentative knowledge construction in CSCL.

(1) The participation of the learners on CSCL discourse was described in terms of quantity and heterogeneity of participation. These sub-categories of the participation dimension could be objectively measured and may thus pose reliable indicators for learning processes in CSCL environments.

(2) Regarding the epistemic dimension of CSCL discourse, the following questions are of relevance. Do learners work on the task? How do they work on the task? And how do learners apply concepts to solve the task?

(3) They have also investigated how learners build single arguments and sequences of arguments with respect to how they warrant and/or qualify their claims, and with regard to how learners build sequences of arguments, counterarguments and replies.

(4) Finally, they distinguished five sub-categories on the social dimension with increasing degrees of transactivity ranging from externalization to conflict-oriented consensus building (Weinberger & Fischer, 2006).

Core and Allen (1997)propose an annotation scheme for communicative acts in dialogue.

(1) The forward communicative functions consist of a taxonomy in similar style as the actions of traditional speech act theory.

(2) The backward communicative functions indicates the types of responses to the previous utterances, such as accepting a proposal, confirming understanding or answering a question.

(3) The utterance features represent an utterance’s form and contents, such as information level: task, task management, communication management.

Wegerif et al (2009) propose a multi-dimensional and multi-level coding framework.

(1) They considered the settings of communication: pedagogical setting and group dynamics dimension is aimed at understanding the conditions and ways in which students are participating in their learning task, e.g, the group size and nature of the task.

(2) Building upon other coding schemes of argumentation, critical reasoning is focused on the argumentative dimension,

(3) Creative reasoning and dialogical engagement dimension seeks to highlight the quality of student interaction, perspective taking and mutual engagement through the discourse

(4) Moderation dimension describes the impact of interventions made during the online discussion aimed at moderating and facilitating the quality of the discourse

However, we should be cautious to adopt the coding schemes to scaffold. Kollar, Fischer and Slotta (2005) argue that students bring an ‘internal’ collaboration script with them to learning events, based upon their previous experience of collaborative interactions, and their understanding of effective argumentation processes.Dillenbourg and Jermann (2007) claim that scripts aim to enhance the possibility that productive interactions will occur. However, contextual factors mean that learning effects are not guaranteed. The key design issue is ‘which interactions need to be scaffolded in order to reach the educational objectives?’ (p276).

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