Introduction

There is widespread agreement among scientists, policymakers, researchers, science teacher educators, and classroom teachers that students should experience inquiry in science classrooms (Lunetta et al. 2007). Inquiry provides an environment in which meaningful science learning can occur (Crawford 1997; Kubicek 2005; National Research Council [NRC] 2000, 2001) and in which students can learn about the nature of science and develop scientific ways of thinking (Bianchini and Colburn 2000). By participating in inquiry-oriented activities, students can develop the ability to critically evaluate scientific data and models (NRC 2000, 2001), overcome preexisting conceptions (NRC 2001), and come to understand what it means to do science and participate in a scientific community (NRC 2001). Students who participate in inquiry activities are often motivated to learn about science (Kubicek 2005) and develop positive attitudes towards science (Brown 2000).

Although there is still wide variation for the use of the word “inquiry” in science education (see Anderson 2002; Hofstein and Lunetta 2003; Kang and Wallace 2005; Lee and Songer 2003; Reiff et al. 2002), we will focus on the definitions presented in the National Science Education Standards ([Standards], NRC 1996). In that document, the term “inquiry” is generally defined in two different ways. First, it is a process. “Inquiry” is used to describe the many processes that professional scientists use—the nonlinear, sometimes messy, pathways that should not be confused with a formulaic scientific method. “Inquiry” is also used to describe an active learning process engaged in by students and modeled after the inquiry processes of professional scientists (Anderson 2002). In this sense, “inquiry” is content in and of itself: a process about which students should learn and in which they participate. The Standards clearly spell out, though, that inquiry is more than a process, more than something students should do. It is a vehicle for learning science content. The second definition of “inquiry” in the Standards refers to specifically designed experiences and activities that lead to knowledge and understanding of scientific ideas and content (NRC 1996).

Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC 2000), a companion volume to the Standards, elaborates on the definition of “inquiry.” It describes classroom inquiry as having five “essential features”: (a) learner engages in scientifically oriented questions; (b) learner gives priority to evidence in responding to questions; (c) learner formulates explanations from evidence; (d) learner connects explanations to scientific knowledge; and (e) learner communicates and justifies explanations (NRC 2000, p. 29). Each of these activities can vary in the degree to which it is directed by the teacher (NRC 2000, p. 29).

Although the Standards and their companion documents have described “inquiry,” teachers still seem uncertain about the term. Researchers have found that some teachers describe inquiry as discovery learning, projects (Windschitl 2002), hands-on activities (Crawford 2000; Windschitl 2002), authentic problems (Crawford 1997; Kang and Wallace 2005), or classroom discussion and debate (Carnes. 1997), while others equate “inquiry” with an increased level of student-direction: allowing students to ask their own questions, to determine which data to collect, or to design a procedure (Carnes 1997; Deters 2004; Kang and Wallace 2005). Although each of these characteristics may be a part of an inquiry experience, they do not give a full picture of the potential of inquiry in a science classroom. Inquiry is not simply hands-on science, a lab activity that verifies what has been taught, discovery learning, a formula for teaching, or a set of skills to be practiced (Crawford 2000; Huber and Moore 2001; NRC 2000, 2006; Trumbull et al. 2005). Inquiry, as described in the Standards, puts emphasis on learners working under the guidance of experienced teachers to construct understandings of scientific concepts through interactions with scientific questions and data.

Inquiry in Science Classrooms

Although there are many potential benefits to using inquiry in a science classroom, studies show that teachers face challenges in implementing inquiry (Abd-El-Khalick et al. 2004; Crawford 2000; Krajcik et al. 1998; Lee and Songer 2003). In fact, teachers and researchers have identified a number of barriers to implementing inquiry in the classroom. Some teachers worry about not having control over their classrooms during inquiry activities (Crawford 1997; Deters 2004; Keys and Kennedy 1999; Windschitl 2002, 2004). Others claim that their students are not capable of carrying out inquiry projects (Crawford 1999; Hogan and Berkowitz 2000; Keys and Bryan 2001; Wallace and Kang 2004; Windschitl 2002, 2004) or that there is not enough time to cover the mandated curriculum through inquiry experiences (Deters 2004; Hogan and Berkowitz 2000; Keys and Kennedy 1999; Wallace and Kang 2004; Westbrook 1997).

Crawford suggests that “one possible reason that inquiry-based instruction remains a vision in the reforms, but an enigma in the classroom may lie in the fact that teachers have few operational models” (Crawford 1997, p. 16). Most science teachers did not experience inquiry in their own educational programs, so they are unsure of what inquiry looks like and what their role(s) might be in helping students develop scientific understandings through an inquiry process (Abd-El-Khalick et al. 2004; Crawford 2000; Trumbull et al. 2005). Examples may help teachers understand and use documents such as the Standards to enact inquiry-oriented methods in their classrooms (Crawford et al. 2005).

Recent literature suggests that descriptions of actual inquiry in everyday classrooms would benefit both preservice and inservice teachers (Abd-El-Khalick et al. 2004; Anderson 2002; Crawford 1997, 2000; Flick 1997; Keys and Bryan 2001; Keys and Kennedy 1999; Lee and Songer 2003) because teachers often base decisions about what to do in their classrooms on the experiences of other teachers rather than on more theoretical information (Anderson 2002; Krajcik et al. 1994; Luft 2001). But where do teachers find examples of inquiry teaching practices, and how inquiry-oriented are the examples that the teachers find? It seems logical that teachers could learn about “inquiry” teaching from colleagues, textbooks, professional development activities, practitioners’ journals (Smylie 1989), or the Internet (Settlage et al. 2004). It is less likely that inservice teachers would access educational research journals for examples of inquiry practices (Hagger et al. 2008).

The goal of the research described in this article was to examine the nature of inquiry practices presented in a print medium that is easily accessible to high school science teachers. We chose to examine articles from The Science Teacher, published by the US National Science Teachers Association. The main purpose of this journal is “to allow individuals to share ideas with thousands of other people who teach science” (National Science Teachers Association [NSTA] 2007). It is directed towards practicing secondary teachers and often includes descriptions of “effective inquiry activities that are original and creative” (NSTA 2007) written by science teacher educators, scientists, or secondary teachers. As such, we believed that the articles would give a view of inquiry from two different perspectives: (1) “inquiry” as portrayed to secondary teachers by science teacher educators or scientists and (2) “inquiry” as practiced in secondary classrooms from the perspective of the teachers.

Our analysis is intended to inform an understanding of how inquiry is being practiced in everyday science classrooms. Specifically, we were interested in examining which of the essential features of inquiry are more salient for teachers and researchers who publish in The Science Teacher and how those features are reported to be practiced in science classrooms. As science teacher educators understand which of the essential features of inquiry are currently being used in classrooms and how those features are being used, they can design experiences to help teachers enhance their abilities to implement the features that are not as prevalent or to modify their implementation of other features.

We chose to examine feature articles that describe student activities. Our analysis is guided by the assumption that the articles report what is actually happening in science classrooms. It is limited by the fact that articles in The Science Teacher are abstractions of the detailed interactions and activities that occur in a classroom and do not often, for example, describe the specific role of the teacher. According to Driver (1995), interactions between students and more knowledgeable teachers are necessary to promote learning of accepted scientific concepts during an inquiry experience; simply having students complete an activity, no matter how well designed, is not sufficient. Effective teachers play critical roles in the inquiry process by, for example, appropriately scaffolding ideas and activities, asking questions to help students verbalize their ideas about concepts, and contrasting students’ ideas with those of the scientific community (Lunetta et al. 2007). These roles are not explicitly described in most articles in The Science Teacher.

Given the importance of teacher–student interactions in the inquiry learning process, it would be preferable to observe both teachers and students in multiple classrooms and activities in order to gain a more accurate picture of how inquiry is being implemented in secondary science classrooms across the US. This, however, would be a very difficult and time-consuming task. Examining the articles printed in The Science Teacher—even with their limitations—allows us to examine, from a second-order perspective, how inquiry is being implemented in a variety of different circumstances and in a variety of different locations.

In analyzing the articles, we addressed the following questions: (a) Which of the essential features of inquiry have been used in high school science classrooms over the 10-year period following the publication of the Standards? and (b) What is the degree of student-directedness of the essential features of inquiry over the 10-year period following the publication of the Standards?

Methods

Because the US National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996) are “at the center of current discussion of US science education improvement” (Anderson 2002, p. 1), they were a sensible choice to guide our analysis. We used the table of “essential features of classroom inquiry and their variations” (NRC 2000, p. 29) from the Standards companion publication Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards to analyze the inquiry content of articles in the practitioners’ journal The Science Teacher. Our specific modifications to and use of the Standards table will be described in the sections that follow.

We approached the analysis from the belief that inquiry is valuable in science classrooms and can be used to teach content; however, it is only one of many types of activities that can and should be used. Our analysis was in no way intended as a judgment of the value or quality of the articles. Many useful, engaging, and interesting classroom activities are described in The Science Teacher. We analyzed only to determine which features of inquiry were present in the articles.

Data Source

In order to develop a picture of how secondary science teachers are using “inquiry” in their classrooms, we examined the feature articles from The Science Teacher over the 10-year period (1998–2007) following the dissemination of the Standards. Our analysis began with 1998, as earlier articles would have been submitted either prior to dissemination of the 1996 Standards or at the very beginning of their use in classroom instruction.

Admittedly, this project only examines the views of the teachers who chose to submit articles to be printed in The Science Teacher and not the views of all practicing secondary teachers. We also recognize that our “convenience sample” is probably composed of pioneer teachers rather than the mainstream and is, therefore, only a starting point for the discussion of how inquiry is practiced in classrooms. It is important to note, however, that The Science Teacher reaches the desks of mainstream teachers and provides examples of activities they may use in their classrooms.

Analysis Tool

We chose to use the “Essential Features of Classroom Inquiry and Their Variations” table (Standards table) from Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC 2000, p. 29) as a rubric for judging the inquiry content of the articles in The Science Teacher for two reasons: (1) the table is familiar to many people and has often been used in discussions of inquiry and (b) the table emphasizes the different variations of inquiry, ranging from inquiry that is more student-directed to inquiry that is more teacher-guided.

During a pilot study in which the shorter Idea Bank articles from 2005 to 2006 were analyzed, the presence of different variations of the essential features of inquiry was recorded as numbers (1 2, 3, or 4) that correspond to the columns in the Standards table. A ranking closer to 1 indicated that an activity was more student-directed, and a ranking closer to 4 indicated that the activity was more teacher-directed. An “X” ranking was used if an essential feature of inquiry was displayed in an article but it was unclear which variation of inquiry was being used (i.e., students use evidence but it is unclear whether the students gathered the evidence or the teacher provided it for the students). The absence of a particular feature of inquiry was indicated by a minus sign, “−”. For example, a given article might be ranked (4, 2, X, −, −) for features 1 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively.

Because of their short length, the Idea Bank articles were fairly vague and difficult to categorize; however, based on our experiences in the pilot study, we were able to make several modifications to the Standards table in order to create a more useful tool for analysis of the feature articles in The Science Teacher. The final version of the rubric that we used for our analysis can be found in Table 1, Modified Standards Table. Our modifications or clarifications to the table will be discussed in the sections that follow.

Table 1 Modified Standards table
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Feature 1: Learner Engages in Scientifically Oriented Questions

We adjusted the cell descriptions to include the term “scientifically oriented questions” in order to emphasize the fact that, in a science inquiry environment, students should be answering scientifically oriented questions, not just any question. In order for an article to be ranked as exhibiting this essential feature, we determined that the scientifically oriented question should precede and drive the activity. In the case that an activity was an analogy for a scientific process, the question could be appropriate for the analogy and, hence, might not technically be scientifically oriented.

Feature 2: Learner Gives Priority to Evidence in Responding to Questions

We removed the words “in responding to questions” from the descriptions of this feature in order to separate it from the first feature. We defined evidence as either data or information that originates from a variety of sources; it could be collected during a laboratory experiment or it could be gleaned from books or from the Internet, for example.

In the original version of the Standards table, Feature 2 includes two different activities: collecting and analyzing evidence. We chose to subdivide this feature to allow for clear reporting of articles that indicated only one—but not the other—of these two related, but distinct, activities. For example, it is possible to collect evidence without analyzing it. Our modified Standards table includes two sub-features: feature 2a, learner gives priority to evidence, and feature 2b, learner analyzes evidence. Cell descriptions were modified to separate evidence collection from evidence analysis (Table 1).

Feature 3: Learner Formulates Explanations from Evidence

We determined that “formulating explanations” involves more than simply answering a question on a lab report; it is using evidence to explain a scientific phenomenon. In other words, an explanation is an answer to a “why?” or a “how?” question. We modified several cell descriptions under this feature to make them more consistent with others in the table as to whether they were student- or teacher-directed (Table 1).

Feature 4: Learner Connects Explanations to Scientific Knowledge

We left most of the variation descriptions for this feature as they appeared in the original table. We only changed the description in the second column to reflect that students are the ones making the connections between their evidence/explanations and established scientific knowledge. If the teacher provided the connections between the activity and established scientific knowledge, we ranked the article as a “3” for this feature (learner given possible connections). We left the word “connections” in this last description plural to acknowledge the fact that not every inquiry activity will have only one connection to scientific knowledge.

Feature 5: Learner Communicates and Justifies Explanations

In the scientific community, communication occurs with a larger group of peers. We determined that, in order for an article to meet our criteria for this feature, the communication therein must be with a larger group (peers, a group of other teachers, public, etc.).

We modified the cell descriptions of this feature to be more consistent with the other cell descriptions in the table related to whether the activity was student- or teacher-directed (Table 1). We also added the words “justify” or “justification” to the cell descriptions in order to emphasize that “communicating” is more than displaying collected evidence: it is explaining and justifying collected evidence.

Identifying Features of Inquiry in The Science Teacher Articles

Because some articles published in The Science Teacher describe information or activities that could not possibly be considered examples of classroom inquiry (i.e., professional development programs, advice about classroom management, background information for a teacher about specific content, etc.), we limited our analysis to articles that described student activities. We established criteria by which to include and exclude articles from our analysis (Tables 2, 3). After applying the criteria, we included 248 feature articles (approximately one-third of the total) in our final analysis.

Table 2 Criteria for inclusion in analysis
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Table 3 Criteria for exclusion from analysis
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We used the modified Standards table (Table 1) to identify the features of inquiry exhibited in each article. We ranked the articles for explicit display of the different features of inquiry. In doing so, we realized that some activities, when done in the classroom, might exhibit features of inquiry that were not explicitly mentioned in the articles. We could only consider those features that were explicitly described. If multiple activities were mentioned in the same article, rankings were assigned that were consistent with the features of inquiry exhibited by the majority of the activities described in the article. We analyzed the articles separately and then met to resolve any disagreements. In most cases, our disagreements were not about whether a certain feature of inquiry was exhibited in an article but about which variation of that feature of inquiry was exhibited. Conflicts were easily resolved through reference to the original articles and to the rubric.

Data Analysis

The rankings (1 2, 3, 4, X, or −) for each essential feature of inquiry in each article were recorded in a spreadsheet. For each of the years from 1998 to 2007, we calculated the percentage of articles that displayed each essential feature of inquiry. Individual articles were also classified according to the number of essential features of inquiry they exhibited.

Results and Discussion

General Results—Full vs. Partial Inquiry

Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (2000) makes a distinction between full and partial inquiry. In full inquiry, all of the essential features of inquiry are present, whereas in partial inquiry, only some of the essential features are present. According to the NRC (2000), “teaching approaches and instructional materials that make full use of inquiry include all five of these essential features” (p. 28). Each of the features, however, can vary in its degree of teacher- or student-directedness. While it may be appropriate in some cases for students to develop their own question to research, for example, in other cases, it may be appropriate for a teacher to provide a question to research. Although we were interested in the degree of student- or teacher-directedness of the features, our main task in this study was to identify which of the essential features of inquiry were explicitly illustrated in the articles we analyzed. In reporting our results, we wish to reiterate that inquiry is only one of the many appropriate and worthwhile pedagogies used in the science classroom.

While only three of the 248 articles we analyzed addressed all of the essential features of inquiry, there were many examples of partial inquiry. Overall, 84% of the feature articles we analyzed explicitly described at least one essential feature of inquiry (Fig. 1), ranging from a high of 100% in 1998 to a low of 67% in 2006. For all of the articles we analyzed, there was an average of 2.15 essential features of inquiry per article, and the average number of features changed very little over the 10 years we analyzed (Fig. 2). The highest average number of features per article (2.81) occurred in 1998, and the lowest average number of features (1.42) occurred in 2006.

Fig. 1
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Percent of analyzed articles by number of inquiry features, 1998–2007

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Fig. 2
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Average number of essential features found in analyzed articles, 1998–2007

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General Results—Prominent Essential Features

While an aggregate view of the number of features of inquiry is interesting, it is helpful to examine how often the individual features of inquiry were explicitly described in the articles and whether the features tended to be teacher- or student-directed. For the current discussion, we refer to the features of inquiry by shortened names: “question,” “evidence,” “analysis,” “explain,” “connect,” and “communicate.”

There was a definite pattern of which features were found in the articles (Fig. 3). Two of the features—evidence and analysis—were significantly more prominent in the articles than were the other features of inquiry. These two features were found in 82% and 62% of the analyzed articles, respectively. The remaining features of inquiry were individually present in less than 25% of the articles.

Fig. 3
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Essential features found in analyzed articles, 1998–2007

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Each of the essential features is an important component of an inquiry activity. That the features of explain, connect, and communicate are not as prominent in these articles as are evidence and analysis may suggest that teachers view inquiry more as a process to be learned about and physically experienced than as a vehicle for teaching specific scientific content since the less-represented features of explaining, connecting, and justifying results are essential for developing scientific understandings. Similar results have been seen in a study with inservice science teachers (Kang et al. 2008), in which teachers’ definitions of “inquiry” focused more on data collection and explanation than on connecting data to scientific ideas or communicating the results of investigations. However, the implications of the results of the current study are not clear. Is the emphasis on collecting and analyzing data an indication of what teachers think inquiry is? Of what teachers believe they can do with inquiry in their classrooms? Of how teachers learned their subject matter (and, thus, how they teach)? Of how they believe students most efficiently learn content? Again, each of these is a matter for future research. From the perspective of science teacher education, it appears that most inservice teachers who publish in The Science Teacher provide opportunities for students to collect and analyze evidence. Additional professional development experiences or examples may be needed to help teachers develop an understanding of inquiry that also includes the question, explain, connect, and communicate features.

Student Directedness of Individual Features

Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC 2000) describes variations of each of the essential features that differ in their degree of student-directedness. In order to examine the student-directedness of the features in the articles we analyzed, we classified each feature that was ranked as either a “1” or a “2” (towards the left side of the modified Standards table) as being student-directed and a feature that was ranked as either a “3” or a “4” (towards the right side of the modified Standards table) as being teacher-directed (Table 4; Fig. 4). Certain features—like gathering evidence and explaining data—tended to be more student-directed while others—like providing a scientific question or connecting activity results to existing scientific theories—tended to be more teacher-directed. We will discuss the implications of the directedness of each feature in the following sections.

Table 4 Degree of student-directedness of essential features of inquiry in analyzed articles, 1998–2007
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Fig. 4
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Percent of analyzed articles that were student-directed and teacher-directed, by type of essential feature of inquiry, 1998–2007

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Features of Inquiry—Specific Results

Because the presence or absence of each of the essential features could potentially affect what students take away from an inquiry experience, we will discuss the features individually below. For each feature, we provide the results of our analysis and possible reasons for the patterns in the data (Figs. 3, 4; Tables 4, 5). We will also briefly address the implications of the results for science education and for science teacher education.

Table 5 Percent of analyzed articles with specific features of inquiry, by year
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Question

Over the 10 years, 16% of the articles explicitly described a scientific question that drove a classroom activity. This represents a range from no articles with this feature in 2000 through 28% of the articles describing this feature in 2002 (Table 5). The question feature was usually teacher-directed (Table 4).

The percentage of articles with scientifically oriented questions is low. We see several potential reasons for this result, one of which is related to a decision we made during our analysis and the other of which is related to teachers’ understanding of the importance of questions as part of the inquiry process. During our analysis, we made a conscious decision to rank an article as exhibiting the question feature only if there was a scientific question which drove the activity. We did not rank activities that were driven by goals, problems, or challenges as exhibiting the question feature, even though there were many such articles. For example, a teacher might ask his or her students to create a microclimate map of the schoolyard or to determine the number of paper clips that can be added to a paper boat before the boat sinks. Such activities might require data collection and analysis and could be connected to specific scientific concepts; however, we did not categorize articles as meeting the criteria for the question feature if the initial activity prompt was not phrased as a question. This distinction was made because nowhere in the Standards (1996) or its companion, Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (2000), is there a suggestion that anything other than a question should drive an inquiry. However, as not all professional scientific studies start with a question, it may be that not all classroom inquiry needs to start with a question in order to be effective. It is reasonable to assume that the results of an inquiry activity that begins with a scientific question would be similar to those of an inquiry activity that begins with a scientific challenge, but this must be confirmed through future research.

Although it is possible that the low number of scientific questions found in this study is due to the method of analysis, there are other possibilities. In previous studies, researchers have found that even when teachers were asked to describe an ideal inquiry lesson, they did not tend to include scientific questions. They were, however, able to recognize a question as an important part of inquiry when examining specific teaching scenarios (Kang et al. 2008). The results of the previous study, along with those of the current study, suggest that while teachers are able to identify appropriate scientific questions, they have difficulty designing those questions. If this is true, preservice and inservice teachers may need practice identifying, choosing, revising and—eventually—creating inquiry questions. Once they have experienced this progression for themselves, they can model it for their students.

Another possibility is that teachers do not see the question as an essential component of an inquiry activity, which would be unfortunate. A variety of learning benefits have been attributed to the use of high-level questions, including more accurate understanding, longer retention, and clarity (King 1995). Additionally, the scientific question sets up the goals of an inquiry activity—goals that are critical to such metacognitive skills as persistence, strategies used for learning, and self-efficacy (Pintrich 2000).

In this study, most of the scientific questions were generated by teachers. Previous research indicates that teachers have a difficult time allowing students to generate questions (Crawford 1997) and have concerns that students may not know enough to ask appropriate questions (Hogan and Berkowitz 2000). Other studies identify the difficulties students have in generating profitable questions (Krajcik et al. 1998; NRC 2006; Singer et al. 2000); however, the ability to craft an investigation-worthy question is a skill that can be explicitly developed as part of an inquiry activity so students can examine the world around them and develop an understanding of the nature of science. Pre and inservice teachers may need explicit examples of and experiences with helping students develop this skill.

Evidence

By far, the most often found feature of inquiry was that of evidence. Over the 10-year period, 82% of the articles involved data or evidence either gathered by the students or provided by the teacher. In three of the years, over 90% of the feature articles we analyzed exhibited this feature (Table 5). The evidence feature in analyzed articles was usually student-directed (Table 4). In fact, the decision of what constituted evidence was very often up to the students. This aligns with studies that indicate that teachers often define inquiry as students deciding what to gather as evidence and then gathering it (Abd-El-Khalick et al. 2004; Anderson 2002; Chinn and Malhotra 2002; Deters 2004).

It appears that teachers see the process of gathering evidence or data as an integral part of science learning and, as such, teacher professional development may not need to focus on this aspect of inquiry teaching. Evidence plays a critical role in scientific investigations, where explanations and claims are based on evidence. In the classroom, evidence can provide the foundation on which students’ ideas about scientific concepts are built. Research on conceptual change and growth shows the importance of evidence in helping students build, reconstruct, or replace conceptions (Chinn and Brewer 1993, 1998, 2001; Dole and Sinatra 1998).

Analysis

Evidence or data was analyzed in 64% of the articles. This feature was seen in a range from 42% of the articles in 2006 through a high of 77% in 2005 (Table 5), although the low percentage of articles with the analysis feature in 2006 seems to be an anomaly. In the articles we analyzed, teachers did not always allow their students to grapple with data or to determine how to analyze it. Instead, teachers often told their students exactly how to analyze data (Table 4).

We expected evidence gathering and analysis to go hand-in-hand; however, we had to separate the two features because analysis of evidence was only explicitly described in less than two-thirds of the articles. This means that, in a substantial number of reported activities, evidence was gathered but not analyzed. According to the descriptions published in The Science Teacher, students are not having the opportunity to grapple with data, to mathematically or graphically manipulate it, or to find patterns in it. This may have a relationship with the low percentage of American teenage students in the levels 300 and 350 (where students are capable of analyzing data) in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics results (United States Department of Education 2008).

It is possible that teachers avoid student-directed data analysis because they do not believe that their students have the requisite skills. However, Chinn and Brewer (2001) indicate that it is important that students have experiences analyzing data, especially anomalous data. One of the broad goals of science education is to have students think critically about what they learn (AAAS 1993), and there are distinct benefits in having students analyze data. For example, analysis can lead to understanding the nature of empirical data use in science. Extensive research shows that students do not typically understand the complexities and ambiguities of using data (NRC 2006). They often have naïve mental models of relationships such as cause and effect, struggling, especially, with multivariable situations (Kuhn et al. 2000). Skills leading to critical thinking can be taught through determining cause, recognizing and critiquing assumptions, relating means and ends, justifying conclusions, determining likelihood and certainty, and creating analogies (Halpern 1998); all of these can be part of data analysis. Again, given the low occurrence of analysis compared with evidence, it is possible that teachers need concrete examples of their roles in promoting students’ analysis of data in order to be able to facilitate this feature.

Explain

The explain feature was found in only 24% of the articles, representing a range from 8% in 2006 to 44% in 1998 (Table 5). In thinking about the low percentage of articles that contained this feature, it may be useful to remember that, in our analysis, we ranked an article as exhibiting the explain feature only if students were required to explain their data (describe how or why their data were what they were) rather than simply to report their data.

In the articles with this feature, more explanations were student-directed than teacher directed (Table 4). It is possible that the explain features were even more prevalently student-directed than we have reported here; however, the amount of direction given to students to help them explain their data was often unclear. Fifty-six percent of the explain features were not ratable based on what was written. The details about the explanation phase of activities were, in many cases, not provided in the articles; therefore, our conclusions about the directedness of this feature should be interpreted with caution.

Less than a quarter of the activities in the articles we examined required students to make an explanation of their results or data. There are several reasons why the explain feature may not be as prevalent as other features. First, forming an explanation based on evidence can be time-consuming, and teachers often cite a limited amount of time as a constraint when asked about implementing inquiry activities (Bybee 2000; Crawford 2000). Not requiring explanations for results may also be tied to the original question guiding the inquiry. If a question was not used, or if it was crafted in a way that did not require an explanation, there would be little opportunity for students to explain. For example, asking students which substance will turn a particular solution red would not necessarily require any explanation. In an ideal inquiry scenario, carefully framed questions, whether generated by the teacher or students, can provide the foundation for other features of inquiry, such as analysis and explanation of data. They can also help students focus on why something happens instead of just on what happens.

Because explanations can connect results from different activities and connect results to accepted scientific ideas, having students develop explanations for their results could lead to improved learning. Self-explaining is a strategy used to promote deeper processing of information, and there is evidence that students are able to make inferences across the gaps in their knowledge and even to repair their mental models of concepts when they make their own explanations (Chi 2000). Studies of collaborative learning have provided evidence that the students who question and then explain concepts to each other improve their learning (Brown and Palinscar 1989) because explaining requires a student to “clarify or reorganize material in new ways, recognize and fill in gaps in understanding, recognize and resolve inconsistencies, develop new perspectives, and construct more elaborate conceptualizations” (Webb et al. 1995, p. 406).

In addition to helping students develop their understandings of scientific concepts, explanations can also reveal students’ mental representations of concepts and their understanding of relationships among variables. Explaining phenomena requires using underlying relationships such as cause and effect or the additive nature of multiple variables (Kuhn et al. 2000). The explanation feature of inquiry could provide a teacher with valuable information for planning instruction to address these understandings.

Connect

The results of students’ investigations were explicitly connected to bigger scientific concepts in 19% of the articles (Table 5). Once again 2006 contained the fewest articles with this feature (4%) while 1998 contained the most articles with this feature (34%). Most of the connect features were teacher directed (Table 4). We found very few explicit references to students connecting their findings or explanations with other scientific findings or with what is scientifically accepted. Usually, the teacher told the students what the connections were or what they should be.

The connect feature is critical for helping students learn science content through inquiry; however, it was present in less than 20% of the articles. Perhaps the low use of this feature is related to the teachers’ content knowledge or their pedagogical content knowledge (Crawford 2000). If a teacher had shallow knowledge of a domain, it would be very difficult for that teacher to help students connect their findings to those of experts or to address the connections between student data and accepted scientific knowledge.

Students come to the science classroom with existing understandings, explanations, and models of phenomena. Often these are naïve understandings, misconceptions, or incomplete models (Driver et al. 1996; Scott et al. 2007; Vosniadou and Brewer 1992). One of the strategies suggested for addressing these preexisting understandings is to present anomalous data or to make obvious the discrepancies between a student’s mental model and an expert’s (Chinn and Brewer 1993). Using the connect feature of inquiry allows a comparison between the student’s understanding and that of experts. When students do not have the opportunity to connect an explanation with a scientifically accepted principle, they may leave with a naïve or incomplete mental model intact.

Requiring students to make connections between their findings or explanations and what is scientifically accepted could have other benefits. One of the differences between novices and experts is that experts have mental organizational frameworks for principles and concepts that allow them to chunk information for efficient recall (Glaser and Chi 1988). Students can begin to build their own conceptual frameworks as they connect the results of their own experiments to accepted scientific principles.

Although, in some cases examined in this study, teachers connected the results of classroom activities to larger scientific concepts, there were many cases in which these connections were not explicitly made. Additionally, in the majority of the articles that were ranked as meeting the criteria for this category, this feature was more teacher-directed than student-directed. These results indicate that professional development experiences that provide examples of and practice with facilitating students’ attempts at connecting the results of activities to larger scientific frameworks may be useful.

Communicate

In 11% of the analyzed articles, students communicated and justified their explanations. In the few articles with the communicate feature, most were teacher directed, meaning that the teacher gave specific guidelines for the communication and justification of data (Table 4). Caution about the interpretation of this result is needed, however, as there was not enough information to rate the directedness of 69.2% of the communicate features (Table 5).

As mentioned previously, evidence indicates that the learning benefits that come from communicating the results of a scientific investigation lie in the justification of data to and with a group of peers, rather than the simple reporting of that data. Many of the articles we examined described presentations in which students shared their data; however, there was little evidence that they were justifying their results and explanations with evidence.

Justification and argumentation play key roles in the advancement of scientific knowledge, and they can also play an important part in the development of students’ understandings of scientific concepts. Research suggests that students benefit from participation in scientific argumentation (see Andriessen 2006, for an overview). Communicating their findings and grappling with diverse explanations from others provides students with an opportunity for cognitive elaboration, which is critical if information is to be meaningfully organized and stored in long-term memory (Anderson and Reder 1979).

The communicate feature provides an opportunity for students to examine their own mental models and restructure their knowledge into more scientifically accurate models (Chi 2000; Glaser and Chi 1988). Both peer and teacher feedback are important in this process. As Bransford et al. (2000) point out, “In order for learners to gain insight into their learning and their understanding, frequent feedback is critical: students need to monitor their learning and actively evaluate their strategies and their current levels of understanding” (p. 78).

Conclusions and Implications

Although there were some limitations to this study, the results provide a new starting point for discussion of inquiry teaching practices. We recognize that the authors of the articles in The Science Teacher were not required to explicitly identify features of inquiry, that they faced space limitations, that they might have found it difficult to convey the intricacies of inquiry teaching in print, and that their written descriptions may not include all of the details of how activities are implemented in classrooms. However, by analyzing 10 years’ worth of articles across different science disciplines, we attempted to mitigate some of these limitations in order to provide an overall picture of how inquiry is implemented in day-to-day classroom practices. One of the merits of the current study is its realistic picture of science classroom practices, as the activities we analyzed were from actual classrooms and are teacher-accessible. Additionally, because the articles’ authors voluntarily submitted their examples, it can be assumed that they (and the journal editors) considered the classroom practices as worthwhile and even exemplary.

If the analyzed articles are representative of activities used in high school science classrooms, we can describe the average student inquiry experience as emphasizing certain essential features of inquiry over others. In the articles we analyzed, students often gathered evidence and participated in teacher-guided analysis of that evidence, but seldom were they asked to grapple with scientifically oriented questions, create evidence-based explanations, connect explanations to accepted scientific concepts, or justify the results of their investigations to a larger group of peers. These results may indicate, as has been seen in previous studies (Carnes 1997; Kang et al. 2008; Wallace and Kang 2004; Westbrook 1997), that practicing teachers view inquiry more as a process about which students should learn and in which students should participate than as a vehicle for learning science content as teachers’ reports focus more on the hands-on aspects of inquiry than on the sense-making aspects.

Inquiry teaching is difficult, and teachers need examples of its successful implementation and rich descriptions of teachers’ roles in the inquiry process (Crawford 1997, 2000; Haney et al. 1996; Keys and Bryan 2001; Windschitl 2002) as well as opportunities to practice its implementation. The results of the current study suggest that teachers need opportunities to develop guiding questions that require the use of additional features of inquiry as well as opportunities to facilitate students’ analysis of data, development of evidence-based explanations, and attempts to connect the results of their investigations to accepted scientific principles. If inquiry is to be used as one of many strategies to benefit student understanding of science, teachers need to know enough about the essential features to choose which features to use to accomplish particular learning goals. Strong, complete, and realistic examples of each of the features—and the variations of those features—should be used in training both preservice and inservice teachers.

Because “inquiry” is defined in many different ways, we suggest that those responsible for professional development use established tools, such as the Standards rubric upon which we based the current analysis, to help teachers analyze, design, and revise inquiry lessons. Participating in such activities can help teachers develop an understanding of the role of each of the essential features for teaching science content—particularly those features that were underrepresented in the current study: question, explain, connect, and communicate.

In this study, we focused on the inquiry content of articles from the practitioner journal The Science Teacher. This publication is only one source of science activities; and although it is unknown how much the editorial perspective of the journal currently affects the explicit display of features of inquiry, we propose that The Science Teacher, as well as similar publications, could play an enhanced role in educating teachers about inquiry practices. For example, teacher-accessible journals could encourage submissions that make explicit connections to the essential features and/or that specifically describe teachers’ roles in guiding the inquiry process—especially their roles in facilitating the underrepresented explain, connect, and communicate features. Researchers, from both science education and cognitive sciences, could provide additional teacher-friendly information on how and why inquiry can foster student learning of science content. The current and potential influence of these publications on inquiry teaching practices should be examined further.