Theoretical ideas for
science learning.

Inquiry-based learning

Inquiry-based learning asks students to investigate a scientific question and use evidence to explain what they find. The teacher may provide a question, a method or data, while students do the work of interpreting and defending an explanation.

Historical roots of inquiry

John Dewey. In How We Think (1910)[1], Dewey described reflective thinking as beginning with a puzzling situation. A learner proposes a possible explanation, seeks evidence that could support or challenge it, and tests the idea before accepting it. For science teaching, the question starts the work; careful reasoning and checking make it an inquiry.

Joseph Schwab. In The Teaching of Science as Enquiry (1962)[2], Schwab argued that students should learn science through inquiry. He proposed investigations with different degrees of teacher direction: the teacher might provide both question and method, provide only the question, or let students frame the investigation. He also encouraged studying scientific reports to see how evidence, methods and alternative explanations shape knowledge.

In modern science education, the National Research Council (NRC), a U.S. research and advisory body established by the National Academy of Sciences, brought expert perspectives to questions about teaching and learning. Its 2000 guide described five features of classroom inquiry, from asking investigable questions to explaining and defending conclusions with evidence[3].

Five essential features of classroom inquiry

1. Engage with a scientific question. Focus on something about the natural world that can be investigated.
2. Give priority to evidence. Gather observations or measurements, or analyse clearly identified data.
3. Form an explanation from evidence. Show how the evidence supports an answer to the question.
4. Evaluate other explanations. Compare the answer with alternatives and established scientific knowledge.
5. Communicate and justify. Explain the conclusion to others and defend the reasoning behind it.

What this means for science learning

Students learn science through inquiry when they use observations or data to build an explanation, test it against alternatives and connect it with established scientific ideas. An activity can be hands-on without asking students to reason from evidence. Give learners a question they can investigate, make time for them to explain what their evidence does and does not show, and ask how their conclusion might change with new evidence. The teacher can vary how much guidance they provide while keeping that reasoning central.

Constructivism

Constructivism describes learning as an active process: students interpret new experiences using ideas they already have, then may revise those ideas when they no longer explain what they observe. In science, a new explanation has to make sense of evidence as well as connect with what a learner previously believed.

Historical roots of constructivism

Jean Piaget. In The Origins of Intelligence in Children (1952 English edition)[4], Piaget studied how children develop ways of understanding the world through interaction with it. A schema is an organized way of making sense of experience. Assimilation uses an existing schema to interpret something new; accommodation changes a schema when it no longer accounts for what happens. For science teaching, the question is whether a student’s current idea explains an observation or needs revising.

Concept diagramHow an idea develops

What I already thinkMy existing way of understanding something.Schema

↓

What I observeA new experience gives me something to explain.

It fits my ideaUse the idea to make sense of the experience.Assimilation

It challenges my ideaChange the idea to account for the experience.Accommodation

Test my understanding againUse it with another experience.

What this means for science teaching

The National Research Council’s How People Learn (2000)[5] emphasises that students arrive with ideas about how the world works. If these ideas are not brought into the open, students may learn a new term while retaining an earlier explanation. A teacher can ask students to predict and explain a phenomenon, compare their accounts with observations and other explanations, then explain what they kept or changed and why.

Zone of Proximal Development

The zone of proximal development concerns the difference between what a learner can do independently and what they can do with guidance or collaboration. It draws attention to an emerging ability that an independent attempt alone may not reveal.

Concept diagramWhere the ZPD sits

Not yet possible

Possible with help

Can do alone

Independent performance

What the learner can do without help.

Zone of proximal development

The additional tasks possible with guidance or collaboration.

Beyond current reach

Tasks not yet manageable, even with the support available.

Historical roots and a related teaching idea

Lev Vygotsky. In “Interaction between Learning and Development,” collected in Mind in Society (1978)[6], Vygotsky described this zone through the gap between independent problem solving and problem solving with an adult or a more capable peer. He argued that assisted performance can reveal developing capacities and that learning through interaction can become independent achievement.

David Wood, Jerome Bruner and Gail Ross. In “The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving” (1976)[7], they used scaffolding to describe how a tutor handles parts of a task beyond a child’s current reach while the child works on manageable parts. Their study concerned young children solving a construction task. The ZPD is the range of tasks a learner can manage with help but not yet alone; scaffolding is the temporary support that helps them work on those tasks.

What this means for science teaching

Start by seeing what a student can explain or do alone. For a more demanding task, offer a question, a worked step or discussion with a peer, and notice what the student can then accomplish. Later, ask for an independent attempt on a comparable task. The support should respond to the learner’s actual reasoning; success with help does not by itself show independent understanding.