Views of children's nature of scientific inquiry and its development in a summer science camp

In this study, effectiveness of a summer science camp project on introducing Nature of Scientific Inquiry was investigated. The project was supported by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. The science camp program aimed at teaching children aspects of scientific inquiry throughout student inquiries in nature and making these aspects explicit during and after their inquiry by sharing and discussing their process of scientific inquiry. The summer science camp was conducted in Bolu on June, 23-30 2013. The participants were 24 6 th and 7 th grade students. The children worked in groups of four guided by a science advisor and conducted four different guided-inquiries about nearby plants, animals, soil, and water. In each inquiry session, each group decided a research question with their science advisor, collected data by going to nature or by bring up samples to the camp. Then, they answered their research question by analyzing their data. Each group presented their inquiry. One of the science advisor clarified aspects of the NOSI at the end of each presentation. In addition, she summarized and clarified the same aspects at the end of each inquiry session. Children's ideas about scientific inquiry were explored by the Views of Scientific Inquiry- Secondary(VOSI-S) questionnaire developed by Schwartz (2008). The questionnaire is composed of five open-ended questions and is intended to measure the following six aspects of the NOSI: a) scientific questions guide investigations, b) multiple methods of scientific investigation, c) multiple purposes of scientific investigation, d) justification of scientific knowledge, e) distinctions between data and evidence, f) community of practice. VOSI-S questionnaire was applied three times: pre-test, post-test, and retention-test after two months. To support the questionnaire, six children were interviewed on their questionnaire. In order to sustain reliability of coding process, two researchers coded two questionnaires. Then, they coded five questionnaires independently coding and reliabilitiy was 87% in the pre-test and 97% in the post-test. Thus, the researcher completed the coding. Results of the study showed that the science camp program was the most effective in developing children's ideas about multiple methods of scientific inquiry. Based on their research questions in inquiry sessions, they made observations and/or did experiments. Discussing their experiences with these methods would be the reason for this improvement. Another aspect that was improved in the science camp was the aspect of questions guide scientific inquiries. During inquiry sessions, they designed their own research questions and designed their inquiries according to their research questions. This experiences could have supported this development. Development in the children's ideas about multiple methods of research was better retained at the retention test than that of questions guide scientific investigations. The science camp program can also be considered as successful; but not retained in the aspect of difference between data and evidence. In this aspect, there was an improvement in the children's ideas from pre-test to post- test, but it decreased in the retention test. The science camp program was least effective in developing the children's ideas about other three aspects; multiple purposes of scientific investigations, justification of scientific knowledge, and community of practice. It is recommended that the camp program should be developed to better support these three aspects. It is also suggested that some of questions in the VOSI questionnaire should be developed in such a way that they can better reveal these aspects. Keywords: Scientific Inquiry, Nature of Scientific Inquiry (NOSI), VOSI,Science Camp, Guided Inquiry