Enquiry Types


What do we mean by types of scientific enquiry?

There is so much "jargon" and technical vocabulary across all aspects of the primary curriculum that we need to embed and become experts in ourselves before we can have the confidence to teach children. The aim of this week's post is to address what is actually meant by scientific enquiry types, what are the benefits and how this supports metacognition. We need to feel enabled and have a greater handle on what these enquiries are and why it is so important to ensure that we include these in our science lessons. Researching to find a "best fit" definition that I feel makes sense has led to ...

"Scientific Enquiry describes the processes and skills pupils should be taught and use, to find out more about the world and how it works." Source ASE


From that definition, the word "taught" is the word that to me seems most prominent. We cannot assume by "telling" which enquiry we are undertaking that the children have a clear understanding of what they are being asked - using metacognitive thinking, we as practitioners need to model our knowledge and understanding,  strategize our thought processes and assess, monitor and evaluate our thought process to ensure we clearly model how we can apply scientific enquiry to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the world around us.

This blog will aim to address each of the enquiry types alongside how we can ensure that we model and engage metacognitive learning through science so that we can ensure that our children learn through reflective, evaluative learning.


What are the benefits of scientific enquiry?

As children carry out scientific enquiry they should develop a host of skills and competencies, knowledge and understanding, bringing enormous benefits to them as ‘growing’ scientists. Scientific enquiry increases children’s capacity to:

 • Problem-solve and answer questions. Rich opportunities are provided where children explore their own ideas, develop and deepen conceptual understanding.
 • Work with independence. Thinking and reasoning is nurtured alongside a host of qualities, including resilience, determination and confidence. 
• ‘Be a scientist’. A necessary toolkit of practical skills is developed and added to over time. 
• Communicate effectively. Technical and scientific vocabulary is learned, practised and used, as children communicate evidence in a variety of ways, often with different audiences in mind.

 Teachers should gain significant insight into children’s capacity to explore ideas, use skills and gather evidence (for instance) as they carry out scientific enquiry. The inclusion of clear learning outcomes and success criteria within planning for teaching and learning, allows assessments of children’s progress to be made relatively easily. What’s more, evidence of children using and applying conceptual knowledge and understanding of science as they investigate and answer questions can be checked for and considered when making teacher assessment judgements. In the English National Curriculum for Science (2013) scientific enquiry is referenced formally as ‘Working Scientifically’. 

What are the different Scientific Enquiry types?

Over the academic year, our children will carry out a range of investigations which involve different types of enquiry, these are already mapped out progressively throughout our curriculum. The enquiry types that we use at St George's are:-
  • comparative/fair testing
  • research 
  • observation over time
  • Pattern-seeking 
  • identifying, grouping and classifying
  • problem-solving
Why is important to embed these enquiries into learning?

The research that we have been reading and understanding around metacognition helps to give clarity to the importance of investigations within our science lessons.  We know that the 

"greatest impact tool for attainment" 

from the EEF research was that metacognition added at least 7 months of progression. If we can apply this to our implementation of scientific enquiry then we can, with clear planned in, modelled and implemented activities allow our children to use their own depth of understanding of lines of enquiry to develop as independent scientific learners. Allowing children to take what they know, apply which enquiry they should use and apply prior knowledge of using this task will allow them to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning and therefore develop a deeper understanding of the substantive knowledge that they have on the topic.


Next steps...

Keep an eye on posts where we will look at scientific skills that need to be taught and applied across all aspects of scientific enquiry. In addition, there will be individual posts on each aspect of scientific enquiry with progressive questions and enrichment opportunities to allow children to practise and use the different scientific enquiries across the school.

Ogden Trust video link: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chkaMLc21EI

Referenced texts/additional reading

STEM and Metacognition 

ASE




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