Scientific Inquiry With the Steps to Inquiry Framework Fosters Creativity in an Early Primary Classroom
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Student-centred science inquiry, and creative approaches to science, are both recommended in curricula for early years and primary education. In student-centred science inquiry, children learn to design simple investigations to address their own science questions. Creative approaches to science education involve supporting children in self-motivated imaginative activity, which generates knowledge that is of value to the child. Based on the literature, a conceptual framework of seven synergies between the two was developed by Cremin et al. (2015) categorized as Play and Exploration, Student Motivation and Affect, Questioning and Curiosity, Problem-Solving and Agency, Dialogue and Collaboration, Reflection and Reasoning, and Teacher Scaffolding and Involvement. This qualitative study used this conceptual framework as a lens to examine the science activities of children in a grade-one classroom with the Teacher Scaffolding and Involvement aspect engaged via the Steps to Inquiry posters created by Youth Science Canada (n.d.). Results suggest that guidance with the Steps to Inquiry posters resulted in increases in the following categories: Student Motivation and Affect; Problem-solving and Agency; Dialogue and Collaboration; and Reflection and Reasoning. Although the categories of Play and Exploration and Questioning and Curiosity also showed increases, there were limitations on what the children explored and the subject matter for their questioning and curiosity. The results imply that although the Steps to Inquiry posters did reduce “free rein” regarding subject matter, they did maintain the seven synergies between student-centered science inquiry and creative approaches to science. Implications are that the Steps to Inquiry posters are a valuable resource for supporting these pedagogical approaches that are recommended world-wide.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.010 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.012 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.009 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".