2. Design of an Inquiry-Based Instructional Sequence Using Interactive Simulations
Posner et al. [
2] suggested that “conceptual change” is the type of learning that occurs in situations where students already hold conceptions about the phenomena of interest, but these conceptions are not scientifically accurate. “Conceptual change”, according to these authors, occurs only when students are dissatisfied with their existing concept and are convinced that the new conception is intelligible, plausible, and fruitful.
A review of the field of conceptual change pedagogy and its effectiveness, and the wide variety of approaches and contexts that have drawn on this theoretical frame, is beyond the scope of the present paper.
Drawing on conceptual change theory [
2,
35,
36,
37] and on Vygotsky’s notion of scaffolding and the zone of proximal development (ZPD) in the practice of conceptual development [
38,
39], Geelan and Fan developed the interactive simulations instructional approach (ISIA) for scaffolding learning activities that support students’ conceptual understanding. The ISIA model is outlined in much more detail, and its theoretical and methodological underpinnings explored, in our earlier work [
1].
The ISIA includes five steps (see
Figure 1). These are:
- (1)
elicitation and clarification,
- (2)
prediction and implications,
- (3)
testing predictions using interactive simulations,
- (4)
elucidation and linking, and
- (5)
metacognitive evaluation and further testing.
Specifically, the first step of the ISIA explores alternative conceptions in order to elicit the range of preconceptions, misconceptions and scientific conceptions present within the class. This process also helps to begin the process of creating dissatisfaction on the part of students with existing misconceptions as they see the range of other ways of understanding the phenomenon of interest held by their peers and teacher. This discussion stimulates students’ motivation to actively change their existing conceptions. The second step requires students to write down their predictions for the outcomes of the interactive simulation and outline how their predictions arise from the conception that they hold.
To ensure that the new conception is intelligible, plausible, and fruitful, the third step of the ISIA supports students to test their predictions using interactive simulations. In this testing step, often there will be two (or more) concepts “competing”: a common student misconception (or a few such frameworks) and an established scientific concept. Alternative conceptions are resilient. Thus, repeated experiences and exposures may mean that more than one cycle through steps 2–4 of the sequence may be required in a single teaching sequence.
In the elucidation and linking step (Step 4), students present their findings while the teacher supports the presenting students as they seek to explain using accurate scientific language. After the students finish their presentation, they are encouraged to support their peers in adopting the correct scientific conception to explain the phenomenon of interest in their daily lives.
In the final step, students evaluate another group’s ISIA learning worksheet. In doing so, students come to realize the strengths and limitations of their learning experience, internalize the processes of inquiry-based learning, and establish a metacognitive perspective on others’ learning experiences. This step also focuses on reinforcing students’ ideas, and thus constructs a deeper conceptual understanding or re-constructs their understanding of the topic being learned. The achievement of conceptual change does end with the current topic. The learning process will lead students onward to another connected topic in that “science learning is very much a connected whole, and both knowledge and skills from one topic are relevant to other topics” [
1] (p. 265).
While the students are involved in the ISIA learning experience, scaffolds are essential to provide support to engage them in problem-solving activities. Vygotsky’s [
3] Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory suggests that learning exists in “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers” [
3] (p. 86). This highlights the effects of scaffolds (i.e., adult guidance and capable peers) on learning as occurring in the zone between what students can already do alone and unaided and what they cannot do, even with help and scaffolding. Complementarily, Quintana et al. [
38] describe scaffolds as a range of assistance that can support problem-solving and cognitive task-performing that cannot be completed by students on their own. The range of assistance could include knowledgeable teachers, capable peers, modes of language, writing, images, technology tools and other social tools. Studies have shown that scaffolds benefit both instructional teaching and students’ learning [
40,
41,
42]. Ge et al. [
43] found that scaffolds can “support students to activate schemata, organize and retrieve knowledge, monitor and evaluate, and reflect on their learning”. The effectiveness of different forms of scaffolding has been reviewed in some studies [
22,
44]. Mayer [
45] pointed out that an inquiry approach without any scaffolding or assistance does not always lead to learning. Specifically, scaffolds in this study included the ISIA, students’ teachers, their lab partners, PhET simulations, scientific language, and student worksheets. These scaffolds are of benefit to students’ learning and can be gradually removed until students can learn on their own.
In summary, the current study is based on conceptual change theory [
2,
35,
36,
37], the ZPD and scaffolding theory in the practice of conceptual development [
38,
39]. The following perspectives, which contribute to the current study, are articulated to underpin the interactive simulations instructional approach (ISIA) for students’ conceptual development:
- (1)
Learning is constructed, rather than received; but commonalities exist between individuals [
2,
13].
- (2)
Personal and social planes are equally important to the process of learning [
3].
- (3)
Existing ideas greatly influence students’ subsequent learning [
2,
3].
- (4)
Conceptual change may take considerable time and have frequent reversals, involving experiencing formalized instruction and informal daily activities [
37].
- (5)
Conceptual change may take place through exchanging, modifying, and enriching the understanding of others [
36,
46].
- (6)
In the ZPD, scaffolds from knowledgeable figures, language, technology tools, cognitive tools and activities are influential in supporting conceptual change [
3,
38,
39], and
- (7)
Conceptual change may be achieved when it meets the students’ zone of proximal development (ZPD) and the four conditions of conceptual change.
3. Methods
3.1. Purpose and General Method of the Study
This study used a controlled comparison educational trial to gather evidence on the effectiveness of simulation-supported inquiry-based instruction for enhancing students’ conceptual understanding, inquiry process skills, and confidence in learning. More specifically, this study aimed to explore the following questions:
- (1)
What effect does simulation-supported inquiry-based instruction have on enhancing learners’ conceptual understanding, inquiry process skills and confidence in learning (compared with conventional instruction)?
- (2)
Do the effects of simulation-supported inquiry-based instruction differ between male and female students?
- (3)
Do the effects of simulation-supported inquiry-based instruction on students at different levels of academic achievement differ?
Data analysis consisted of an examination of the performances of the students on the pre-test and post-test of conceptual understanding, inquiry process skills and confidence in learning. Students’ conceptual understanding, inquiry process skills and confidence in learning were the dependent variables while treatment (experimental versus control), sex (male, female) and academic level (high, medium, low) were the independent variables.
Data were analyzed based on 2-tailed t-tests (p ≤ 0.05 for significance) because directionality of any statistical differences was not known before the analysis. ANOVA and ANCOVA were used to further explore the research questions.
3.2. Participants
117 Grade 10 Chinese students and two physics teachers participated in the current study. The sample comprised four classes with a mean age of 16.51 (SD = 0.87). The four classes were randomly assigned (as whole pre-existing classes rather than as individuals) to either an experimental group (
n = 55, two classes) or a control group (
n = 62, two classes). The experimental group students used the ISIA as part of their regular physics lessons. The control group students used conventional instruction to learn the same topics as ISIA students. Each teacher taught both an experimental and a control class to minimize teacher-related differences in outcomes.
Table 1 shows that there were no significant differences in achievement between the four classes at pre-test, on any of the three dimensions tested (conceptual understanding, inquiry skills and confident).
The participating teachers attended two-day teacher training workshops about the inquiry-based instructional sequence using interactive simulations. Topics included
- (1)
PhET simulation introduction;
- (2)
Exploring and practicing with PhET simulations;
- (3)
Discussion about how teachers could use the simulations to facilitate students’ learning;
- (4)
Introducing physics conceptual understanding and conceptual change and discussing students’ alternative conceptions;
- (5)
Introducing the Force Concept Inventory test that would be used to assess students’ conceptual understanding of force and motion;
- (6)
Inquiry skills survey introduction and discussion;
- (7)
Introduction to inquiry-based instruction,
- (8)
Guidelines for conceptual change instructional approach;
- (9)
Discussion of details of the lesson plan and student worksheets; and
- (10)
A summary of the educational research schedule.
Before the first lesson, the conceptual knowledge test, inquiry process skills survey and confidence survey in combination were used as a pre-test for all students. After the eight (8) week intervention the post-test panel was administered using instruments that were parallel to those administered at pre-test. Students who were absent for either the pre-test or post-test, who did not finish their answers or whose test paper was not completed were excluded from the data analysis. All data collected were de-identified for confidentiality purposes, and research ethics clearance was granted by the University of Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee.
3.3. Comparability of the Experimental and Control Groups
One-way between-group ANOVAs of students’ pre-test scores on the scientific concept test, inquiry process skill survey and confidence survey were conducted to see whether the classes were comparable. Given that they were (see
Table 1), two classes were randomly chosen to be the experimental groups, and the remaining two became the control groups. This study is quasi-experimental in that it used pre-existing school classes rather than random assignment of students to the experimental and control conditions.
An examination of the skewness and kurtosis of the data revealed they were normally distributed (zskewness-conceptual understanding = 1.52, zkurtosis-conceptual understanding = 0.01, zskewness-inquiry process skills = 1.94, zkurtosis-inquiry process skills = 0.69, zskewness-confidence = 2.38, zkurtosis-confidence = 0.55). Homogeneity of variance was assessed using Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances and the result was not significant (p-conceptual understanding = 0.47, p-inquiry process skills = 0.65, p-confidence = 0.11). Given the sample size, the normal distribution of the data and the non-significance of the homogeneity of variance, follow-up ANOVAs were used to analyze the data.
3.4. Learning Activities
Both experimental groups and control groups studied a module on “Newton’s Laws of Motion”, a compulsory topic in the new physics curriculum for senior secondary school. Students in the experimental group had a 60-min inquiry-based instruction lesson once per week for eight weeks while students in the control group had a teaching sequence using the teachers’ usual approach to teaching this topic—which we describe as “conventional” instruction—on the same topic once per week for eight weeks.
Before each lesson, all participating teachers were requested to complete an ISIA lesson plan form. The teachers needed to integrate each topic and content into the ISIA. The lesson plan stated the five ISIA steps. It asked the teachers to fill in teaching objectives, student activities, and the teacher’s role. The participating teachers were requested to complete it after each lesson.
Table 2 shows an example of a completed ISIA lesson plan by a participating teacher regarding Newton’s Second Law. This table is a summarized and simplified example of the classroom observations that were completed by the researcher to ensure that teachers in the control classrooms taught the physics concepts as they usually would, using their “traditional” approaches to physics teaching, and that the teachers in the experimental classrooms accurately implemented the ISIA as intended. This is one of the measures taken to enhance the trustworthiness of the comparison undertaken in this study.
Students in the control group received conventional instruction, which used an experimental demonstration teaching method that is popular in Chinese classes. Teachers demonstrated experiments or “cookbook” experiments in front of the classroom. Meanwhile, students are requested to observe the teacher’s experiments. Before each experiment, the students are requested to read the lectures and textbooks. After demonstrating the experiments, the teacher provides relevant lectures with explanations to support students’ conceptual understanding. Courses ended with summative evaluations such as exercises, seatwork, and a quick quiz. During each lesson, classroom observations for teachers and students were conducted to ensure that the teachers in the experimental group correctly followed the inquiry-based instruction procedure and teachers in the control group taught using the “conventional” method.
3.5. PhET Interactive Simulations
This study was concerned with pedagogy and simulations that engage students in an inquiry process to help them acquire conceptual understanding and improve their inquiry skills. The simulations selected were provided by the Physics Education Technology (PhET) project. This project is a library of free online applications designed by the Interactive Simulations Project at Colorado University. There is a growing list of more than 90 physics simulations and the project has expanded to offer simulations for other subjects such as biology, chemistry, earth science and math. The central goal of PhET simulations is to support the implementation of inquiry learning. The design principles are based on research on how students learn [
12]. PhET simulations have been used in a series of studies [
47]. Chinese-translated versions of the physics simulations were used in the current study.
Studies have shown that PhET simulations can challenge, improve, correct, and reinforce conceptual understanding through self-driven exploration [
48,
49]. Students gained more knowledge when using the PhET simulation than when learning with real laboratory equipment [
50]. Sokolowski et al. [
24] also praised the application of the PhET simulations. They found that utilizing simulations enhanced the teaching of limits and helped students become immersed in the virtual model of the physical world and the inquiry processes. Therefore, the current study integrated PhET simulations into inquiry-based learning.