As a simple illustration of some important aspects of scientific inquiry let us consider Semmelweis' work on childbed fever. Ignaz Semmelweis, a physician of Hungarian birth, did this work during the years from 1844 to 1848 at the Vienna General Hospital. As a member of the medical staff of the First Maternity Division in the hospital, Semmelweis was distressed to find that a large proportion o...

Inquiry is an essential component of science. NRC (1996) argues that inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences is the central strategy for teaching science. Teachers focus inquiry predominantly on real phenomena, in classrooms, outdoors, or in laboratory settings, where students are given investigations or guided toward fashioning investigations that are demanding but ...

As student assignments and assessment evolve to keep pace with the technological developments, students have the opportunity to express their knowledge in a wider range of forms. The current study aims to examine the meaning representation in videos produced by secondary school students as part of a non-written inquiry project. The content of the video outcomes in the inquiry project, student i...

We introduce aesthetic inquiry as an important perspective to pursue in Participatory Design. Within the scope of tradition and transcendence, we pursue aesthetic inquiry by tipping the scale towards transcendence, and by staging offline loops for detached reflection through the use of imaginative artefacts. Although aesthetic inquiry resides to some extent in most Participatory Design practice...

This paper examines the integration of process inquiry and the case method in the study of IS failure. Having acknowledged the prevalence of IS failure and the need for continued inquiry in this domain the two predominant methods of enquiry, factor and process studies, are described along with the utility of both methods. The paper then examines the nature of process inquiry and notes its utili...

This article examines the “why” and “what” of curriculum inquiry from the perspective of the practical in Schwab’s (1969/1978a) paper. It critically scrutinizes the state of curriculum inquiry in China and in North America. The central argument is that curriculum inquiry is a practical undertaking centrally concerned with the practice or inner work of schooling within the societal, institutiona...

This paper develops a philosophical basis for the concept of community inquiry. Community inquiry derives from pragmatist theory as articulated by Dewey, Peirce, Addams, and others. Following Brendel, we discuss pragmatism in terms of its emphasis on the practical dimensions of inquiry, the pluralistic nature of the tools that are used to study phenomena, the participatory role of individuals w...

This study proposes a web-based collaborative inquiry learning system. This system uses the Worldwide web (WWW) as a source of knowledge exploration, and provides exploratory problems to guide students to think and explore. A concept map is used as a tool of anchoring and representing knowledge during inquiry process. In the process of learning, learners are allowed to exchange the evidence the...

Inquiry-based learning has been proposed as a natural and authentic way for students to engage with science. Inquiry-based learning environments typically require students to guide their own learning and inquiry processes as they gather data, make and test hypotheses and draw conclusions. Some students are highly self-regulated learners and are able to guide and monitor their own learning activ...

Calls for reform in university education have prompted a movement from teacherto student-centered course design, and included developments such as peer-teaching, problem and inquiry-based learning. In the sciences, inquiry-based learning has been widely promoted to increase literacy and skill development, but there has been little comparison to more traditional curricula. In this study, we demo...