The Inquiry Wheel, an Alternative to the Scientific Method. A View of the Science Education Research Literature

Figure 1. The Inquiry Wheel, Stages of Scientific Inquiry. For many years I have felt that the scientific method as presented in many textbooks was not how my colleagues in chemistry did research. Even so, when I wrote a general chemistry text I was told to put in a description of the scientific method because it was expected. Now, Reiff, Harwood, and Phillipson have developed a more satisfactory model of scientific inquiry, the inquiry wheel, based on information gathered from practicing scientists. This model is described in their paper “A Scientific Method Based upon Research Scientists’ Conceptions of Scientific Inquiry” (1) based on interview data described in “Scientists’ Conceptions of Scientific Inquiry: Voices from the Front” (2). The informants in this research were 52 science faculty members in nine science departments (anthropology, biology, chemistry, geography, geology, medical sciences, physics, applied health, and environmental affairs) at a large midwestern research university. They were interviewed using a protocol designed to probe their conceptions of scientific inquiry. The interview began with the question “what is your definition of scientific inquiry?”, wound through other related questions, then finished up with an opportunity for the scientists to revise their definitions of scientific inquiry after articulating ideas that came up during the interview. Transcripts of the recorded interviews and field notes were read, reread, and discussed as the data were collected and coded. It was apparent that concepts and descriptions from one interview often corresponded to concepts in another. Thus, categories and concepts regarding the process of scientific inquiry emerged and led to the description of the inquiry wheel illustrated in Figure 1 and discussed below. However, before we look at the inquiry wheel, I think it worth noting that the majority of the scientists interviewed (38 of 52) identified the most important aspect of an investigation as being literature based. To them a worthwhile investigation was one that crossed the boundary from the known to the unknown and a knowledge of the literature is important in identifying that boundary.