the influence of core teaching conceptions on teachers' use of inquiry teaching practices

JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 44, NO. 9, PP. 1318–1347 (2007)

The Influence of Core Teaching Conceptions on Teachers’Use of Inquiry Teaching Practices

Christine Lotter,1 William S. Harwood,2 J. Jose Bonner3

1University of South Carolina, Instruction and Teacher Education,

820 South Main Street, Wardlaw 223, Columbia, SC 29208

2University of Northern Iowa, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry,

Cedar Falls, IA 50614

3Indiana University, Department of Biology, Bloomington, IN 47405

Received 23 December 2005; Accepted 22 November 2006

Abstract: This article investigates three teachers’ conceptions and use of inquiry-based instructional

strategies throughout a professional development program. The professional development program

consisted of a 2-week summer inquiry institute and research experience in university scientists’

laboratories, as well as three academic year workshops. Insights gained from an in-depth study of these

three secondary teachers resulted in a model of teacher conceptions that can be used to direct future inquiry

professional development. Teachers’ conceptions of inquiry teaching were established through intensive

case–study research that incorporated extensive classroom observations and interviews. Through their

participation in the professional development experience, the teachers gained a deeper understanding of

how to implement inquiry practices in their classrooms. The teachers gained confidence and practice with

inquiry methods through developing and presenting their institute-developed inquiry lessons, through

observing other teachers’ lessons, and participating as students in the workshop inquiry activities. Data

analysis revealed that a set of four core conceptions guided the teachers’ use of inquiry-based practices in

their classrooms. The teachers’ conceptions of science, their students, effective teaching practices, and the

purpose of education influenced the type and amount of inquiry instruction performed in the high school

classrooms. The research findings suggest that to be successful inquiry professional development must not

only teach inquiry knowledge, but it must also assess and address teachers’ core teaching conceptions.

� 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 1318–1347, 2007

Keywords: environmental science; professional development; secondary; case study research

Contract grant sponsor: Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Contract grant number: 52003732; Contract grant

sponsor: a Maris M. Proffitt & Mary Higgins Proffitt Endowment Grant; Contract grant number: 2940215.

Correspondence to: C. Lotter; E-mail: [email protected]

DOI 10.1002/tea.20191

Published online 22 March 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).

� 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Scientific inquiry has been stressed in the National Science Education Standards (NSES) as a

set of pedagogical methods that models scientific practices and encourages students to gain

content knowledge through problem solving (NRC, 2000). According to the NSES (NRC, 1996),

science inquiry:

refers to the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world and propose

explanations based on the evidence derived from their work. Inquiry also refers to the

activities of students in which they develop knowledge and understanding of scientific

ideas, as well as an understanding of how scientists study the natural world. (p. 23).

Professional development opportunities have been designed to help in-service teachers move

from more traditional instruction to strategies incorporating inquiry. Although modest gains have

been made through inquiry professional development (Bazler, 1991; Caton, Brewer, & Brown,

2000; Jeanpierre, Oberhauser, & Freeman, 2005; Loucks-Horsley, Hewson, Love, & Stiles, 2003;

Luft, 2001), traditional instruction often remains the standard in high school science classrooms.

Research into how teachers’ conceptions influence their use of inquiry instructional strategies can

only lead to improved professional development and an increase in the use of reform strategies

(American Association for the Advancement of Science [AAAS], 1993; National Research

coundil [NRC], 1996). This article investigates three teachers’ conceptions and use of inquiry-

based instructional strategies after a year-long professional development program. The

professional development program described in this article was designed on the tenets of

high-quality professional development including being long term, focused on subject matter

knowledge as well as pedagogy, based on professional development standards, and connected to

teachers’ real classroom context (Bell & Gilbert, 1996; Loucks-Horsley et al., 2003; Supovitz &

Turner, 2000).

Through this research, a number of core-teaching conceptions were found to influence the

participating teachers’ beliefs and practices. The objective of the research reported here is to

describe the nature of the participating teachers’ conceptions with respect to their views and use of

inquiry-based instructional strategies after an inquiry professional development program. Insights

gained from the in-depth study of these three secondary teachers resulted in a model of teacher

conceptions that can be used to direct future inquiry professional development.

Theoretical Framework

Influence of Teacher Beliefs on Practice

Prior research has focused on how teachers’ beliefs influence their teaching practices

(Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1994). Teacher beliefs often act as ‘‘filters’’ through which

information about students, learning, and instructional strategies flow (Hollingsworth, 1989;

Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992). Pajares found that this filtering can lead teachers to redefine, distort,

or interpret information in different ways.

Teacher beliefs are often difficult to change because they are based in part on their practical

teaching knowledge that is learned over many years of classroom experience (Lortie, 1975).

Teacher practical knowledge is defined as ‘‘the integrated set of knowledge, conceptions, beliefs,

and values teachers’ develop in the context of the teaching situation’’ (van Driel, Beijaard, &

Verloop, 2001, p. 141). Teachers’ practical knowledge helps them to develop theories that drive

the decisions they make in their classrooms. These ‘‘practical theories of teaching’’ can be explicit

INFLUENCE OF CORE TEACHING CONCEPTIONS 1319

Journal of Research in Science Teaching. DOI 10.1002/tea

or implicit, context-based, and influenced by the teachers’ students, colleagues, and school

environment (Sanders & McCutcheon, 1986). According to Sanders and McCutcheon (1986),

teachers develop and change their teaching theories through a ‘‘process of practice-centered

inquiry’’ (p. 60). This process consists of a teacher deciding whether a new teaching idea is

valuable and plausible, testing the idea out in her classroom, reflecting on the experience and its

results, and if satisfied, incorporating the idea into her conception of effective teaching (Sanders &

McCutcheon, pp. 60–61). Because this process is slow and teachers are often overworked,

Sanders and McCutcheon believe that teacher’s theories of instruction are difficult to change

(p. 65).

An understanding of teachers’ practical teaching theories and the elements that influence the

theories are essential if teachers are to value and use reform teaching strategies, such as inquiry

teaching, in their classrooms. Teachers’ practical theories often include beliefs about science,

effective teaching and learning (including their orientations toward science teaching), and the

ability of their students.

Teachers’ Views of Science

Teachers’ epistemological views of science have been shown to influence how science is

conducted and portrayed in a teacher’s classroom (Lederman, 1992). Teachers’ scientific

epistemological views are often consistent with their instructional beliefs and practice (Tsai,

2006). Hashweh (1996) divided teachers into learning and knowledge constructivists and learning

and knowledge empiricists based on their views of learning and science as determined through

questionnaires. Constructivist teachers held views of learning and science that supported reformed

teaching processes (e.g., conceptual change process), while empiricist teachers believed in the use

of one scientific method to gather facts and teacher transmission of knowledge that ignored

students’ preconceptions. Roehrig and Luft (2004) described similar findings with their study of

secondary teachers in an inquiry induction program. Duschl and Wright (1989) found that 11 of

13 high school science teachers who held a ‘‘hypothetico-deductive philosophy of logical

positivism’’ and stressed the scientific method in their classroom based their pedagogical

decisions on their need to cover the content in their given curriculum guides and their views of

student learning rather than the nature of science as a discipline (p. 491). These teachers used few

scientific processes in their classrooms and taught science as a collection of facts with little focus

on the creation and existence of scientific theories. Brickhouse (1990) investigated how three

secondary teachers’ views of nature of science translated into classroom science instruction. A

teacher that believed scientists used theories to understand observations taught her students to use

theories to explain their findings. Alternatively, a teacher who viewed science as an accumulation

of facts and theories as truths stressed students completing scientific procedures to gain the correct

answers (Brickhouse, 1990, p. 56).

Other studies have shown a weaker connection between teachers’ scientific epistemological

views and practice due to the complex social and political environment in which teachers work

(Duschl & Wright, 1989; Kang & Wallace, 2004; Lederman, 1999; Lederman & Zeidler, 1987).

Classroom contexts, teachers’ beliefs about students, the need to cover content, teachers’

classroom experience, and classroom management practices have all been identified as constraints

to teaching nature of science concepts (Abd-el-Khalick, Bell, & Lederman, 1998; Abd-el-Khalick

& Lederman, 2000; Duschl & Wright, 1989). Thus, even if a teacher is equipped with nature of

science knowledge, many factors interact to determine if that knowledge is successfully

transmitted to students.

1320 LOTTER, HARWOOD, AND BONNER


Teachers’ Views of Students’ Abilities

Teachers’ beliefs about their students’ abilities to learn also act as constraints to reform-based

instruction. Feldman (2002) compared two high school physics teachers’ integration of an

inquiry-based Minds-on Physics (MOP) curriculum. Feldman found that differences in the two

teachers’ beliefs about their students’ ability to learn resulted in two very different curriculum

implementations. The teacher who believed his students were not college bound, felt that his

students needed a broad survey of science content, and therefore did not use the inquiry curriculum

materials as they were originally developed. Roehrig and Luft (2004) described how lack of

student ability and motivation were cited as the most common constraints among teachers in their

secondary induction program for not using inquiry instruction. They found that, once established,

teachers’ beliefs about their students were difficult if not impossible to change (p. 20). Wallace and

Kang (2004), in a study of six high school teachers, found that the teachers’ inquiry instruction was

constrained by their beliefs that their students were immature or incapable of completing complex

laboratories without explicit teacher guidance. Bradford and Dana (1996) presented a case study

of Amy, a third-year science teacher, whose beliefs about good teaching contradicted her actual

classroom practice due to her need to see her students succeed. Amy lowered her classroom

expectations in an effort to increase her students’ motivation and success. This action resulted in

‘‘brief, enjoyable, and easy-to-complete learning activities’’ that did not always help students gain

conceptual knowledge or inquiry skills (p. 208).

Teachers’ Views of Effective Teaching

Teachers’ views of what constitutes effective teaching and learning influence their choice of

instructional strategies. Teachers’ views of effective instruction at odds with inquiry teaching

practices may stem from what Tobin and McRobbie (1996) describe as ‘‘cultural myths.’’ These

myths, or beliefs about how schools operate and how students learn, act as constraints on teachers’

instructional choices. A belief in these ‘‘myths’’ often result in teachers believing that they need to

transmit knowledge to passive students in a format that emphasizes coverage so that students will

be better prepared for college or for standardized tests. The four myths of transmission

(Brickhouse & Bodner, 1992; Roehrig & Luft, 2004; Rop, 2003), efficiency (Keys & Kennedy,

1999; Wallace & Kang, 2004), rigor (Cornett, Yeotis, & Terwilliger, 1990; Feldman, 2002), and

preparing students for exams (Munby, Cunningham, & Lock, 2000) are well supported in the

literature as constraints to inquiry-based instructional strategies.

Alternatively, teachers’ beliefs of effective instruction can support inquiry-based teaching

strategies. Cornett et al. (1990) described a first year middle school science teacher’s belief that

student learning should involve higher level thinking. This theory was exhibited through her use of

inquiry teaching techniques in her advanced science course. Crawford (2000) described a high

school biology teacher who believed that effective science instruction involved students in the

investigation of authentic community-based problems, data analysis, student collaboration, and

student ownership, that resulted in a classroom centered around student-led inquiry projects.

Teachers’ Orientations toward Teaching Science

Teacher orientations toward teaching science, a component of pedagogical content

knowledge (Shulman, 1987), are defined as ‘‘teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about the purposes

and goals for teaching science at a particular grade level’’ (Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, 1999,

p. 97). Magnusson et al. divided teacher orientations in nine categories (e.g., process, inquiry,



discovery, didactic, etc.) that influence teachers’ instructional decisions. Friedrichsen and Dana

(2005) expanded this model to account for the complexity of secondary biology teachers’

orientations. The teaching orientations of the four teachers in their study included general

schooling goals (college preparation and life skills), affective goals (personal success), subject

matter goals (conceptual understanding of concepts), means (goals are reached through field

trips), and sources (professional development, prior jobs). Friedrichsen and Dana found that these

teachers included general schooling goals as either central or peripheral goals that influenced how

science instruction was carried out in their classrooms. For example, the teachers viewed science

process skills as a pathway to improving students’ life skills, and thus included observing, data

analysis, and other ‘‘inquiry’’ research skills in their science instruction. These research findings

illustrate that teacher beliefs can act as considerable constraints or supports to implementing

reform-based teaching methodologies.

Need for Further Study of Teacher Beliefs and Practice

Keys and Bryan (2001) stated that ‘‘little research on inquiry based instruction has been

conducted at the high school level’’ (p. 641). One exception is Crawford’s (2000) case study

outlining a high school teacher’s beliefs as well as his numerous roles in a student-directed inquiry

classroom. This study examined the inquiry practices in an upper level special topics course;

hence, studies of how inquiry methodologies are incorporated into more typical science courses

are still needed (Keys & Bryan, 2001, p. 639). More recently, studies have investigated the

influence of teacher preparation programs on preservice teachers’ beliefs and implementation of

reform teaching practices (Friedrichsen, Munford, & Orgill, 2006; McGinnis et al., 2002; Wallace,

Tsoi, Calkin, & Darley, 2003), the influence of an inquiry induction program on beginning

teachers use of inquiry (Roehrig & Luft, 2004), or high school teachers’ beliefs and practice

without a professional development intervention (Bencze, Bowen, & Alsop, 2006; Verjovsky &

Waldegg, 2005). Prior studies have shown the complexity with the interrelationship of teacher

beliefs, conceptual change through professional development, and the impact of these on teacher

practices. However, despite a range of studies, no clear model describing this relationship has

emerged. Our study provides this model through an in-depth examination of the pathway teachers

follow as they go through inquiry professional development, the impact of this on teacher beliefs,

and the resulting effect on teacher practice.

Professional Development Overview

The inquiry professional development experience included a 2-week Howard Hughes-funded

Summer Research Institute (SRI) and three academic year workshops for nine secondary science

teachers (Lotter, 2005). The main goal of the professional development was to have teachers use

inquiry-based practices in their classroom to solve recurrent student learning problems. The SRI

consisted of two sessions: a 4-hour morning inquiry workshop and an afternoon laboratory

experience in a university research laboratory. During the morning workshop the teachers

developed an inquiry-based lesson that they then taught to their peers during the second week of

the institute. This lesson was labeled as their ‘‘bottleneck’’ lesson because it was designed to

address a student learning problem in their classroom that in previous years they were unable to

solve. For example, several teachers designed lessons to help their students understand cell

division while others designed lessons to help students make long-term connections between

content. This bottleneck lesson and a second inquiry lesson developed during the academic year

workshops were both taught in the teachers’ classrooms.



The academic year workshops were held for 3 hours on Saturdays in October, March, and

June. Each of the workshops allowed the teachers’ time to share the implementation of their

bottleneck lessons, any successful inquiry lessons they had completed in their classroom, and any

difficulties they had experienced with the new methods. The workshops also gave the teachers a

chance to participate in additional inquiry-based lessons.

Summer Institute Modeled Inquiry

Throughout the institute inquiry-based practices were modeled with the teachers. The

morning workshop emphasized teacher-directed inquiry that could be performed with or without a

laboratory. On the first day of the workshop, the scientist facilitator, a molecular biologist,

presented a guided-inquiry involving three different loaves of bread made in a home bread

machine (one normal, one made with inactive yeast, and one made with the incorrect type of flour).

He asked the teachers to work together in small groups to figure out what they already knew and

what they needed to know to solve the problem of why the loaves were different (Bonner, 2004).

In addition to engaging the teachers in collaborative research, the facilitator modeled how the

problem addressed various chemistry and biology content standards. On the fourth day of the

institute the teachers participated in a guided-inquiry enzyme laboratory. This laboratory modeled

the process of creating an inquiry lab from a traditional step-by-step lab, as well as how to help

students develop their own procedures given a research question. The teachers also participated

in several activities that stressed the importance of supporting interpretations with data (e.g.,

analyzing graphs and historical pictures). Nightly institute reading assignments from the books

Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000) and How People Learn

(NRC, 1999), as well as other inquiry articles (e.g., Crawford, 2000; Driver, Asoko, Leach,

Mortimer, & Scott, 1994; Rankin, 2000; Tabak & Reiser, 1999) reinforced the institute goals.

A substantial portion of the first week of the workshop had the teachers wrestling with and

discussing the content and pedagogy involved in their student bottleneck lessons using a seven-

step plan. The seven-step plan included the following steps: (1) identify a learning bottleneck,

(2) define the basic learning tasks, (3) model these tasks to your students, (4) motivate your

students, (5) create practice opportunities for your students, (6) assess student learning, and

(7) share what you have learned with other teachers (Middendorf & Pace, 2002). Using this

seven-step process, the teachers inquired into why the topic they chose was a problem for their

students, discussed how they understood the topic themselves as experts, and how the content

could be translated into inquiry-based lessons that would motivate their students to learn.

During the second week of the summer institute, the teachers taught their inquiry-based

bottleneck lessons to their peers and received feedback from both their peers and the workshop

facilitators. The teachers used this feedback to adapt the lessons before they taught them to their

own students during the academic year.

After the whole group morning instruction during both weeks of the institute, the teachers, in

pairs or individually, went to university biology and chemistry faculty laboratories to experience a

different form of scientific inquiry. The teachers joined the current research of the university

faculty and participated in the laboratory through experimental setup, data collection and analysis,

and experiment redesign. The teachers kept detailed journals during their laboratory experience,

recording laboratory procedures, their feelings toward the experience, as well as reflecting on

connections between the laboratory and their own classroom instruction. The short time period did

not allow the teachers to develop their own research projects. Additional details of the 2-week

institute, the seven-step plan, and the teachers bottleneck lesson plans are described in Lotter,

Harwood, and Bonner (2006).



Inquiry Modeled in Academic Year Workshops

The teachers were invited to participate in three academic year workshops and were provided

a small stipend for attending. During the October workshop, the teachers measured the size of

golden rod insect galls to determine the influence of predation on gall sizes. This lesson illustrated

the act of developing a testable question and the act of collecting and analyzing data to answer this

question. In the March workshop, the teachers created evidence to support the speciation of a

group of squirrel monkeys. This lesson focused on the teachers using evidence to support and

communicate their conclusions. This lesson was developed from a lesson found at the (http:/ /

ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/squirrel_monkey/squirrel_monkey.html). The teachers

also evaluated these lessons as well as other lessons from the Inquiry Learning Forum

(www.ilf.edu), a Web-based library of inquiry-based instruction in science and math classrooms,

using the essential features of inquiry rubric found in the book Inquiry and the NSES (NRC, 2000,

p. 23). A lesson aligning with the essential features would have students take responsibility for

being ‘‘engaged in scientifically oriented questions,’’ ‘‘give priority to evidence in responding

to questions,’’ ‘‘formulate explanations from evidence,’’ ‘‘connect explanations to scientific

knowledge,’’ and ‘‘communicate and justify explanations’’(p. 29). The teachers determined to

what extent the lessons contained the five essential inquiry features and how the lessons could be

improved and used in their classrooms.

The June workshop included a comparative fossil inquiry lesson in which the teachers were

provided two sets of fossils and asked to determine the organisms past ecological environments

from their observations of the fossils’ characteristics (size of animal fragments, coarseness of

matrix, preservation detail, etc.). The teachers were also shown and asked to evaluate examples

of student work from a design-your-own procedure inquiry laboratory (Layman, Ochoa, &

Heikkinen, 1996). Through participation in the professional development program, the teachers

were expected to move their instruction toward more student-centered inquiry investigations that

included all five of the essential features of inquiry described in Inquiry and the NSES (2000).

Methodology

This study used an in-depth multiple case design with crosscase analysis of three teachers’

conceptions and use of inquiry science teaching after a professional development experience

(Yin, 2003). Because the case study method requires ‘‘intensive holistic description’’ of the cases,

a number of different data collection techniques, described below, were used to build an in-depth

picture of each teacher’s instruction (Merriam, 1998, p. 27).

Participants and Researchers

Participants. Nine high school teachers were recruited for the SRI program through mailings

sent to school principals throughout the state. Principals wrote letters of recommendation for

individual teachers that accompanied the teacher’s application form. The nine participants were

selected from a larger pool of applicants based on their research interests and motivation to

improve their teaching. From these nine teachers, three teachers (Jane, Steve, and Charles—all

teacher and school names have been replaced with pseudonyms) were purposefully chosen as case

study teachers based on their willingness to be observed, their school’s location within 2 hours of

the researchers’ university, and their varied experience with inquiry instruction that was

ascertained from the pre-SRI interviews. Prior to SRI, Steve explained that he had experimented



with what he called ‘‘problem-based learning’’ in his classroom and believed it was similar to

inquiry-based practices. He described problem-based learning as an open-ended problem solving

experience in which a teacher gives the students a problem situation and lets them work on their

own to solve it through library research. Jane described that she had occasionally used inquiry

methods in her classroom, but ‘‘not as much as she used to’’ when she taught at a private school

(I1, LN 314). Charles had no previous experience with inquiry before attending SRI. Each of the

three teachers’ classroom context and instructional experience is described in detail in the

following sections.

Jane. At the time of the study, Jane, a secondary science teacher with 10 years of teaching

experience, had taught at three different schools. Jane held a bachelor’s degree in Science

Education. She had attended many in-service teacher professional development programs

throughout her teaching career, but had no previous science laboratory experience outside of

university laboratory courses before attending SRI. She taught general biology for the past four

years at Banks High School, a large (3,675 students) suburban public school within 15 minutes of a

large metropolitan city. During the year, Banks High School had an ethnic distribution of 88%

Caucasian students, 7% Asian students, and 5% other. Banks was a clean, well resourced school

with only 3% of the students on free or reduced lunch.

Jane’s class met for 90 minutes on an alternating block schedule, meeting 2 days 1 week and

3 days the next week. Twenty-nine students were enrolled in Jane’s biology course (19 females and

10 males) during first semester while 24 students (13 females and 11 males) were enrolled during

second semester. Except for seven English as Second Language (ESL) students (four Hispanic,

three Asian), all the other students in Jane’s classroom were Caucasian.

Steve. Steve was an experienced teacher with 12 years of experience with certification in all

science subjects except physics. Steve’s science content knowledge was strong with an

undergraduate degree in Animal Science and a Master’s degree in Environmental Science. Prior to

his work as an educator, Steve gained applied scientific knowledge through his work as a

technician in a veterinary diagnostic lab, a field agent for a soil testing company, and a quality

control worker for the meat industry.

Steve taught at a rural school, Evettsville High School, located approximately 20 minutes

from a large metropolitan city. During the year the school enrolled 978 students, with 96%

Caucasian students and 21% on a free or reduced lunch program. Steve’s Advanced

Environmental Science course, the case study classroom, consisted of 13 participating juniors

and seniors (six males and seven females) during first semester who had previously taken biology

and chemistry at the school. Except for the graduation of one female senior after first semester, the

makeup of the class remained stable throughout the school year. All 13 students were Caucasian,

mirroring the ethnic makeup of the school. This class met for 90 minutes on an alternating block

schedule. Although the course was given the title of an ‘‘advanced’’ course, Steve described these

students as average, nonscience-oriented students looking to fulfill their last science requirement

for graduation.

Charles. Charles, who had 5 years of teaching experience, taught Chemistry and Biology at

Maine High School. Charles obtained a Bachelors of Science in Biology with a minor in

Chemistry and then returned to school after graduation to gain additional education credits. He

was working on a Master’s in Secondary Education during the year. Besides science laboratory

classes in college, he had no previous laboratory experience before SRI.



Maine High School was a rural high school with a student body of 714 located within

40 minutes of a large metropolitan city. During the academic year, 97% of the students in the

school were Caucasian with 16% on a free or reduced lunch program. During first trimester, the

case study General Biology classroom consisted of 20 males and 4 females. The class met 5 days a

week for 68 minutes. Four males from first trimester finished up the second part of Biology during

third trimester. Including the four males from first trimester, Charles’ class consisted of 16 males

and 7 females during the third trimester. Charles second trimester did not include a biology class

and was not observed.

Researchers

The professional development providers included a professor of molecular biology, a science

education professor, and science education graduate student from a large research university. The

professor of molecular biology had taught genetics, cell biology, and the introductory laboratory

course for 23 years. He had participated in the faculty enhancement program on which the

professional development was based (Middendorf & Pace, 2002) and created the professional

development program. The science education professor had a Ph.D. in chemistry and 15 years

experience in chemistry education, with 6 years in a College of Education at the time the SRI

began. This individual served as the official project evaluator as well as science education

consultant on the program. The education graduate student had taught high school biology and

chemistry for 5 years before returning to graduate school to obtain a Ph.D. in science education

2 years earlier. This study was part of this researcher’s dissertation project.

Data Collection Techniques

Classroom observation. For the three case study teachers, classroom observations were

arranged to coincide with classroom delivery of the teachers’ inquiry-based lessons. In addition,

the first author observed a range of lesson types to gain a conception of each teacher’s typical

teaching style and whether inquiry instruction differed from this typical style. During the

classroom lessons, the researcher acted as a nonparticipant observer, and all observations were

videotaped and audio taped. Each teacher was observed at least 18 times during the academic year

(22 Jane, 20 Steve, 18 Charles). At least two observations were conducted each month from

October through May. Data from the classroom observations included researcher field notes and

transcripts from select video and audio tapes taken during classroom observations. Field notes

focused on recording aspects of the classroom activity that were not captured on the videotape.

Interview

The three teachers were interviewed before and after the summer institute and after the three

academic year workshops. A semistructured interview protocol was used with modifications made

as the interviews progressed (Merriam, 1998). The pre-SRI, post-SRI, and postacademic year

interviews contained similar questions that were used to gauge the teacher’s general conceptions

of inquiry and the influence of the professional development on their use of this pedagogy in their

classrooms (see Appendix). The interviews that took place in December and April focused on

understanding the choices the teachers made while teaching individual inquiry lessons. Informal



interviews also took place after classroom observations as new questions and data emerged

throughout the study.

Data Analysis

Due to the qualitative character of the data collected for this study, data analysis took place

throughout the year-long data collection period in addition to a more intense analysis at the end of

the study (Carspecken, 1996). This study can be defined as an interpretive study, which Tobin

(2000) describes as a study ‘‘that endeavor[s] to understand a community in terms of the actions

and interactions of the participants, from their own perspectives’’ (p. 487). The analysis of the data

from this study helped the researchers understand inquiry teaching from the perspective of the

participating teachers.

For each teacher, field notes and observation and interview transcripts were analyzed for

instructional themes using a constant comparative method, and data were reduced into general

descriptive categories (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Using the constant comparative method, the

researchers searched through the data for recurring themes or events that could be used as

categories to further reduce the findings. An initial set of categories were developed for the

interviews and teacher observations. Categories continued to be developed until all the diversity in

the data were accounted for in these categories. The categories were then compared across time

periods, and relationships between categories and overarching themes were developed (Bogdan &

Biklen, 1998, p. 65; Tobin, 2000). After categories were developed for each individual teacher, the

categories were compared across the case study teachers to identify common themes. Themes

were represented through a set of core conceptions and inquiry assertions. These themes revealed

how the teachers integrated inquiry into their classrooms and how their core conceptions

influenced their instruction. These core conceptions and assertions were then reassessed and

verified through further data collection and analysis (Tobin, 2000, p. 494).

Validity

Carspecken identifies validity claims as ‘‘claims that the data or field records produced are

true to what occurred, claims that the analysis performed on the data was conducted correctly, and

claims that the conceptual basis of the analytic techniques used is sound’’ (1996, p. 57).

Carspecken recommends the use of multiple recording devices (audio and videotape of classroom

practice), flexible and prolonged observation of teachers’ behavior, thick description of classroom

events in field notes, peer debriefing, and member checks (p. 88). For this study, the researchers

used each of these techniques. For example, the year-long observations within each of the

classrooms allowed the participants time to adjust to the researcher’s presence in their classrooms.

As part of member checks, the participating teachers were given summaries of the interpretations

and assertions that were made from the different data sources (Tobin, 2000). The teachers were

asked to review the researchers’ interpretations and provide feedback on their accuracy.

Participant feedback on these documents was included in the final version of this article. For peer

debriefing, one of the authors (C.L.) shared a portion of the interview transcripts, classroom

transcripts, and initial findings with a colleague and asked that colleague to evaluate the soundness

of the analysis. This individual, trained in qualitative research through a Ph.D. program in

educational leadership, helped identify research biases and gaps in the initial data analysis

(Carspecken, 1996). At the end of data analysis the peer debriefer agreed with our findings and

inquiry themes. Due to the multiple data sources used in this study and the larger dissertation



project that it was a part of, categories and themes were further validated through triangulation

with interviews, observations, survey responses, and teacher artifacts (Merriam, 1998).

Research Questions

This study answered the following research questions:

1. What were the teachers’ conceptions of science, their students, effective teaching, and

the purpose of education?

2. What were the teachers’ conceptions of inquiry and how did they change over the

professional development period?

3. How did the teachers’ conceptions translate into inquiry instructional practices?

Results

Through the analysis of the teachers’ data, four core conceptions (science, the purpose

of education, students, and effective teaching) were found to influence the teachers’ use of

inquiry-based teaching methods in their classrooms (Figure 1). These four conceptions were

categories that continuously emerged during the qualitative analysis of the interview and

observation data. Each of these four conceptions will be discussed below with their influence on

the teachers’ views and use of inquiry instruction being put forward in the form of assertions in a

separate section.

Core Conceptions

Conceptions of Science. The three teachers’ views of science ranged from objective views of

science as a set body of knowledge to be memorized to views more supportive of inquiry with an

emphasis on science process skills (e.g., questioning, data collection and analysis) and real-world

science research.

Jane and Steve held conceptions of science that were more supportive of inquiry-based

teaching than Charles’ conceptions. Jane and Steve stressed the importance of questions and

curiosity in science. Steve said that ‘‘science lends itself to thinking of things in different ways’’

(I4, LN 460), which to him included being inquisitive and wanting to understand the connections

between phenomena in order to solve life’s problems (14¼ Interview 4, LN 460¼ line 460 in this

interview transcript). Jane’s focus on questioning was observed throughout the year in her

classroom through her use of whole class discussions organized around teacher questions.

For Jane and Steve, science was also viewed as an active process of student data collection and

analysis. However, Steve tied student data collection to real-world problems while Jane restricted

her students’ data collection to simulated classroom activities. Steve saw the most significant

science lessons in his class as those in which students were actively involved in field investigations

where students ‘‘can actually handle some things and it gives them something to do . . . a way of

looking at things or a way of being right there when it happens rather than say, okay, all science is, it

all happens in the lab, it all happens in a can’’ (I3, LN 18). In his class, this field work consisted of

visiting a local wetland site on three different occasions to make observations and collect soil and

water samples.



Steve also stressed the complexity and messiness of real science with his students and held

this in high regard compared to the typical preplanned science lessons that were observed in Jane’s

and Charles’ classrooms. Steve described his ideal teaching style as ‘‘any lesson where you have a

number of different avenues that you travel in order to get to the same point’’ (I4, LN 421). He

challenged his students to design experiments, manipulate variables, and think through alternative

solutions to real-world environmental problems. Science was also a major part of Steve’s life

outside of school. He lived on a farm where he raised and bred reindeer, cattle, sheep, and other

animals. He often brought his outside life experiences into his classroom through teaching

examples—sharing how he solved his animals’ health and reproductive issues as well as sharing

his experiences with science through his Master’s thesis project and his other professional work

experiences.

Simulated paper-and-pencil activities took the place of traditional laboratories or field

investigations in Jane’s classroom. Jane had her students participate in only one wet laboratory

throughout the entire year in which she focused on her students gaining a basic understanding of

Figure 1. The model shows the influence (up and down arrows) of the teachers’ core conceptions on their

inquiry teaching practice as they experienced an inquiry-based professional development program. The

teachers’ core conceptions acted as filters through which they processed the professional development

experience, resulting in different levels of inquiry teaching in their classrooms.



how to design a science experiment with control variables. However, Jane did have her students

participate in many activities in which students were collecting and analyzing data (e.g., counting

beans, measuring each other’s height, paper-and-pencil simulations of predator–prey interac-

tions). These activities were seen as an efficient way to get through the curriculum and get students

to think about the science content.

Charles conceived of science as a body of knowledge that students needed to acquire. Charles

had his students define vocabulary terms on 3� 5 note cards for every chapter as well as having his

students take detailed PowerPoint notes defining and explaining science concepts. Charles did

very few activities in which students had to collect and analyze data, even with his workshop

developed lessons. He stated, ‘‘That’s something that I haven’t really done particularly well,

I don’t think, is really incorporated a more lab aspect where I give them data and you interpret

it here’’ (I4, LN 685). When science activities were conducted in Charles class, science was

presented as a very structured process in which he spent substantial amounts of time giving

detailed step-by-step directions to his students on how to carry out the lesson correctly. Detailed

procedures were often necessary to ensure students’ safety, but even paper-and-pencil activities

often involved step-by-step procedures or a structured format that students had to follow to ensure

their success. Due to his emphasis on procedures and content, science was presented as objective

and static rather than a creative dynamic process.

Although less emphasized in her classroom than Charles, Jane also held an objective

conception of scientific knowledge. Jane spent time each class helping her students make sense of

the many biological terms they found in their books and assignments. Jane often asked her students

to define words ‘‘in English’’ or in their own words instead of using biology terms. Students were

also required to keep notebooks throughout the year in which they recorded this body of

knowledge. Thus, Jane’s focus was on helping students gain an understanding of the overarching

concepts in biology, such as homeostasis or the structure and function of cells, which often

required students to have a working knowledge of many biology terms.

Purpose of Education

All three teachers believed that the overarching purpose of education was to prepare their

students for life outside the classroom. However, each of the teachers viewed successful life

preparation differently.

Jane believed that teaching should involve instilling in students a good work ethic. In the

November interview she stated, ‘‘Another thing I’ve always told the kids is that I really don’t [care]

if you know every little part of a cell, I said, but what I care is that you did the work because that’s

what life is about, its about learning how to work hard and that’s really the point here. I don’t take it

personally that you don’t know biology—it’s not the point of why I’m here’’ (I3, LN 229). This

‘‘work for what you get’’ attitude translated into Jane interpreting student success as student

participation and involvement in fun activities. In opposition, she described student failure as

students not trying, caring, or putting forth effort during lessons. Learning biology content took a

subordinate position to instilling this work ethic.

Jane believed that an outcome of this emphasis on work would be that it would get her

students to think—her second purpose of education. She described activities that ‘‘work’’ in

her classroom as those in which students were all participating and thinking. According to

Jane, thinking was seen in contrast to memorizing content and was required for true learning to

occur. Inquiry teaching methods were seen as just one possible instructional strategy (i.e., whole

class discussions, writing assignments) to use in her classroom to help students think about

biology.



Following from his conception of science, Charles believed that teaching his students science

content knowledge was his main purpose as an instructor of biology. However, he also believed

that learning this content would provide his students with thinking skills and opportunities to

succeed in the outside world. When discussing the outcome of his carbon and nitrogen cycle

inquiry lesson, he stated that ‘‘as a biology teacher my big goal was obviously to get those lessons

covered, but the bigger picture might be the whole using your noggin and you can figure things out

if you just really put your mind to it’’ (I4, LN 556). He believed that high school education was a

stepping stone for future life opportunities (i.e., college, jobs).

Steve felt that his role as an educator was to provide his students with diverse experiences that

would help prepare them for life outside the classroom. His use of teaching methods that focused

on student discussion over teacher lecture allowed students to voice their questions about the

content and how it related to their lives. He also believed that his role was to prepare his students to

be good citizens, which included helping them to apply the knowledge they learned in the

classroom to real life situations. He often told his students that ‘‘science is outside [the school]

walls, it’s not inside,’’ stressing that if what they learned in the classroom was not applicable to the

world outside then it was not worth learning (I4, LN 684). For example, his wetland unit, which

incorporated field trips to the wetland site and student manipulation of their wetland models,

emphasized student application of knowledge.

Conception of Students

The teachers’ conceptions of their students varied on a continuum from a view of students as

passive learners needing teacher-provided information to a view of students as evolving problem

solvers who needed practice and training with this skill.

Charles conceived of his students as lacking the biology content knowledge needed to solve

problems without the teacher first providing them with this information. He often described his

students as having an understanding deficit that he would have to fill himself. He said, ‘‘ one thing

that I find with labs and activities, kids don’t get them unless you explain what it is they’re suppose

to be seeing’’ (I1, LN 43). He stated in interviews that his students would need more teacher-

directed instruction when trying to cover difficult topics using inquiry teaching methods because

he believed his students would ‘‘not have a clue’’ without his guidance (I2, LN 279).

Jane conceived of her freshman biology students as concrete learners that needed teacher

motivation to learn biology content. This conception did not imply that students could not learn,

but that teacher effort was necessary to gain the interest of many of her students. Teacher effort

consisted of the teacher developing fun activities that would give students the biology content

without them realizing they were getting it.

Jane felt that inquiry teaching methods were one way to gain students’ interest in learning

biology. This was especially true if the inquiry lesson got the students asking and answering their

own questions. In addition to creating fun activities, Jane believed that her students needed teacher

guidance and structure within a lesson to succeed. Even if she was able to gain their initial

attention, Jane discussed how ‘‘I find that I still have to do a lot of pulling, like come on guys let’s

go or when I’m walking around and asking the questions it’s like they still want to find the easiest

way to get there with the least amount of thinking’’ (I3, LN 536).

Before SRI, Steve viewed students as a product of their educational experiences that trained

them to be passive learners with few problem-solving skills. After experiencing the emphasis on

student learning bottlenecks during SRI, Steve no longer viewed his passive students as problems,

but instead he looked for ways in which to address the reasons for his students’ apathy or lack of

ability. He stated, ‘‘. . . some of the things I guess misperceived as student apathy or lack of ability



are probably going to be things that, bottlenecks that I can approach’’ (I2, LN 20). He now believed

that there had to be some ‘‘way to attack it . . . to encourage those same kids to be inquisitive—

change the perspective a little more’’ (I2, LN 39). Because he believed that students’ passivity was

a consequence of school training, he also believed that students could be untrained with time and

effort. Steve described how at the end of the year he was able to break his students out of their ‘‘one

right answer’’ mentality through his use of open-ended discussions of environmental issues.

Conception of Effective Teaching

Each of the three teachers’ previous conceptions came together to mold their conceptions of

effective teaching. Jane supported her belief that teaching should instill in students a work ethic

and require them to think through concepts through her use of a questioning pedagogy in many of

her lessons. Twenty-two of the 23 observations done in Jane’s classroom involved some portion of

class time spent on teacher-directed questioning of her students about biology content.

Jane also believed that effective teaching involved building strong relationships with her

students. She often put herself in the role of mother, a role she was comfortable with having five

children of her own. She described herself as trying to ‘‘mommy’’ the kids that get behind or feel

like they cannot succeed in her class. She explained that she does not ‘‘coddle them, but at the same

time I try to check on them and encourage them’’ (I3, LN 210). She saw getting to know her

students as people as a way for her to develop lessons that they might find interesting. She felt that

it was important for teachers to understand their students’ interests, their skill level, and their

general apathy toward learning in order to be an effective teacher.

Charles described effective lessons as those in which the teacher discussed or lectured on a

topic and then gave students the opportunity to apply what they had just been taught. Describing

why he used lecture for almost every science unit, Charles stated:

I view the teacher as sometimes the best resource of knowledge and if you try to rely on

other methods for that other than giving them the information they need, then they don’t

usually get it. What I like to do is have my class set up so it’s the lecture format where

I provide the information and then I give them other activities to stimulate that further

(I3, LN 259).

According to Charles, student application of knowledge was important to provide more

meaning to the content.

Steve used a seminar format to structure his teaching in his environmental course. This format

allowed him to emphasize student discussion in both a whole class and small group organization.

Discussions were often started with a teacher-provided divergent question about which students

discussed in small groups and then reported their group findings to the entire class. Stevevalued his

students’ thinking processes more than he did the actual solution of the problems he proposed in

class. Through discussions and questioning, he pushed students to come up with their own ideas

and accepted these as long as they were justified through some form of practical reasoning. Fifteen

of the 20 observations included some form of whole or small group discussion. Classes without

discussion were either field trip days to the local wetland or days in which students were taking

essay tests or doing computer research to answer questions provided during a previous class

session.

Steve organized his case study class around themes instead of distinct concepts or book

chapters. The entire first semester addressed the theme of wetlands, with the students involved in a

wetland restoration project. As part of this project, students visited a local wetland site that had



both natural wetlands and an area in which the original wetlands had been destroyed and

transformed into large fish ponds. Throughout the semester the students learned about the

properties of wetlands, water, soil, and hydric plants, through visits to the wetland site, classroom

discussions, and the building of their own wetland models in the classroom. Students in groups of

three to five created their wetland models in large rectangular plastic tubs—adding rocks, soil,

water, and plants in different proportions based on their own design. The wetland models were

incorporated into the course to allow students to test and consider variables (addition of pollutants,

changing soil and water levels) that might influence wetland environments.

Views and Practices Related to Inquiry

Using a series of inquiry assertions, this section describes how the teachers’ four core

conceptions and the professional development experience influenced their views of inquiry and

use of inquiry-based instructional practices in their classrooms during the academic year.

Assertion 1: The Teachers Viewed Inquiry as a Thinking Process and This View Was

More Clearly Articulated after the Professional Development Experience

Jane

In the pre-SRI interview, Jane defined inquiry as a teaching method in which the teacher gives

the students a problem and the students have to solve the problem themselves. She gave an

example of a ‘‘Design Your Own’’ enzyme laboratory found in her Glencoe Biology textbook that

she had done a few years earlier in which students were asked to determine how the concentration

of an enzyme influenced the rate of a reaction given a list of possible materials.

Her view of inquiry changed little after the 2-week SRI; however, she did believe that she did

more ‘‘inquiry activities’’ in her classroom than she previously thought. Both after the institute and

at the end of the academic year, Jane linked inquiry and thinking together defining inquiry as ‘‘the

kids have to think . . . and so they’re not just sitting there doing nothing . . . so there are a lot of ways

to get them to do that . . . have them work together, have them communicate, have them actually

turn on a brain cell and use it all by themselves’’ (I2, LN 207). She stated that SRI helped her

realize that inquiry did not have to take up a lot of time, and that she could integrate short inquires

that would help increase her students’ thinking abilities.

Charles

Although Charles also associated inquiry with student thinking, he saw inquiry as a structured

problem-solving process that required students to think through teacher-provided questions. Due

to his inexperience with the teaching method before attending SRI, Charles was uncertain of what

inquiry teaching entailed but guessed during the initial interview that an effective inquiry lesson

would be to give his students a list of questions and have them research and share their findings

with the rest of class. He also stated that it was ‘‘a more student-centered approach where you,

maybe as a teacher, you kind of get the ball rolling with something and then let the students kind of

guide it where it goes’’ (I1, LN 111). After SRI, Charles described inquiry teaching as a more

structured problem-solving process that required students to think through teacher-provided

questions. He stated that he would:



. . .define it now as here’s a problem, what are we going to do about it? And then go through

questions and then delve into each piece of those things and say . . . let’s find out what it is

(I2, LN 258).

Even after SRI, Charles’ view of inquiry was still very teacher-directed and structured.

He allowed his students to investigate problems, but the problems were teacher selected and

the inquiry process was highly teacher controlled to allow for coverage of a given subject area. At

the end of the academic year, Charles again emphasized the thinking process that students should

be involved in during inquiry activities stating that inquiry was ‘‘a thought process, I think it makes

them use some of their previous knowledge to think out the problem that is at hand’’ (I5, LN 147).

Charles’ view of inquiry at the end of the academic year was similar to Jane’s view of inquiry as a

thinking process. Inquiry was seen more as a learning process than an instructional technique.

Steve

Steve believed that humans were naturally questioning and inquisitive beings, and that this

innate way of learning should be used to help students gain information in the classroom. He

described that ‘‘I think there is a natural way to train children and I think that that probably is what

inquiry is, because we’re supposed to be questioning’’ (I5, 140). Steve believed that learning

would only occur if students had time to ‘‘mentally massage an idea’’ on their own (I3, LN 336).

Inquiry-based teaching approaches were seen as a natural way to get students to think through

ideas on their own.

Connections across Conceptions and Inquiry: Assertion 2: The Teachers’ Stable Core

Conceptions Influenced How They Translated the Professional Development’s

Model of Inquiry into Classroom Inquiry Teaching Practice

The three teachers each incorporated different aspects of the inquiry teaching methods

presented during SRI. The teachers’ core conceptions, which remained relatively unchanged

throughout the professional development period, help explain why certain aspects were

implemented and others not included in the teachers’ instructional repertoire.

Jane

After SRI, Jane spoke about wanting to incorporate more inquiry and more ‘‘wet

laboratories’’ into her classroom teaching repertoire. Despite her enthusiasm, Jane’s overall

teaching style as well as her four core conceptions changed little over the professional

development experience. Her stable and often incommensurate conceptions allowed her to view

many instructional strategies as worthwhile to her students’ learning in her classroom. For

example, because Jane conceived of science as both a questioning process and a body of

knowledge to be transmitted to students, she spent class time with students engaged in discussions

of biology terms as well as involved in interactive hands-on activities. Thus, many different

classroom instructional techniques, both more didactic and inquiry-based, aligned with her views

of effective instruction, resulting in her seeing no reason to change or question her instructional

style.

Jane’s enthusiasm after SRI did result in her incorporating ‘‘a few little things’’ (I4, LN 520)

into her teaching repertoire. She believed that SRI helped her gain practice with inquiry teaching

methods. She taught many of the inquiry lessons observed during the summer institute in her



classroom. She taught these lessons almost exactly as they were presented during SRI, making

only small adjustments for time or student abilities. Jane did not incorporate any of the inquiry

lessons introduced to the teachers during the academic year workshops. She did not believe that

these lessons would fit into her classroom curriculum or that they would motivate her students to

learn biology. Jane did not see these workshop lessons as models to develop her own inquiry

lessons, but as complete lessons that would either work or not work as taught during SRI given her

views of her students’ abilities and her curriculum requirements.

She also taught the bottleneck lessons she developed during SRI in her classroom. In her first

lesson, Jane wanted to help her students overcome the bottleneck of not understanding cell

membrane structure and function. Jane set up a demonstration of two deshelled eggs to show the

influence of solute concentration on osmosis and led her students through a discussion of their

observations of the eggs, which were soaked in sugar water and distilled water. She changed this

lesson from the one she presented during the second week of SRI from a student laboratory

exercise (i.e., student groups conducting their own experiments with the eggs) to this teacher-led

demonstration that she enacted in her classroom due to time constraints. During the academic year,

she designed a second bottleneck lesson using a Socratic seminar teaching method to get her

students to discuss and debate the problems associated with human population growth. Both of

these lessons emphasized student thinking through discussions of observations (eggs in different

solutions) or reading materials (article on human population growth) leaving out many of the

essential features defining inquiry teaching in the Inquiry and NSES book (NRC, 2000).

Charles

Although Charles’ conception of inquiry remained stable over the professional development

period, he increased his comfort and ability to teach inquiry lessons throughout the academic year.

Charles believed that the SRI experience gave him an additional pedagogical tool that he could use

in his classroom to help his students learn. He stated, ‘‘I think what I’ve gained from that [SRI] is

that there are other ways you can go about solving those bottlenecks other than just pulling your

hair and trying to reinvent the wheel when you don’t need to’’ (I5, LN 7). Charles was enthusiastic

about incorporating inquiry into his classroom after the SRI summer experience. He translated this

enthusiasm into the creation of six ‘‘inquiry’’ lessons that followed a similar format. In each of

these lessons he first presented his students with a question, such as ‘‘How do we get rain?’’(O14),

and then he broke his students into small groups to discuss and come up with their own solution to

the question. After several minutes of small group discussion, he brought the student groups

together for a whole class discussion during which time he recorded the students’ ideas on the

blackboard. He would then ‘‘put the ideas into some sequence or order’’ and end the lesson by

having his students summarize their understanding of the question in a journal paragraph (I5, LN

157). His inquiry activities had students use their own previous knowledge of a topic rather than

outside resources to answer teacher-provided questions. The emphasis was on having students

think through the content rather than having the teacher just present the content for students to

memorize in the form of PowerPoint notes as he had done in previous years. The structure inherent

in Charles inquiry lessons allowed him to cover the content required in his school curriculum while

at the same time allowing his students to think through the content with small group discussions.

Both of these instructional practices (i.e., content coverage and student thinking) were outlined as

part of Charles’ conception of effective teaching.

Charles was also inspired to create an inquiry laboratory unit that modeled the experience he

had in the research scientist’s laboratory during SRI. During SRI, he went from having only a

slight understanding of the biology laboratory content to feeling as if he was a contributing



member of the laboratory at the end of the 2 weeks. The dissection project, his second SRI

bottleneck lesson, was an 8-day unit in which cooperative groups of students spend one day

completing internet research on the body system (e.g., reproductive, circulatory, respiratory) that

they had been assigned for the organism that they were to dissect the following day. For example,

one group of four students used a class laptop computer to research and write two pages of notes

on the digestive system of the earthworm before investigating this system in the organism the

next day in class. After dissecting an earthworm, crayfish, perch, and frog the students had to

write a summary paper describing the evolutionary changes observed in all the organisms,

connecting their knowledge of evolution to their newly gained knowledge of anatomy. This unit

was unusual in that Charles did not lecture to his students but instead allowed them to gain

the information about the animal systems through their own research. At the end of the year

when he implemented his dissection unit, he was at ease enough with inquiry-based techniques

to reach outside his pedagogical comfort zone and provide his students with a challenging

inquiry unit.

Charles’ use of inquiry developed from very teacher-structured student discussions to a

multiday more student-directed inquiry unit at the end of the academic year in which he released

some of his control over content delivery. Although inquiry was just another tool for Charles to use

in his classroom to help his students learn content, he gained in his expertise with this method

through his willingness to experiment and learn from his mistakes.

Steve

After SRI, Steve stated that he was going to try to incorporate inquiry-based teaching into his

classroom more than he had in previous years, making it ‘‘a theme for the year’’ (I2, LN 329)

instead of just incorporating individual inquiry lessons into his ordinary curriculum. His

incorporation of inquiry-based teaching methods mainly took the form of teacher-led discussions

of open-ended questions in which students investigated what they knew and what information they

still needed to know to answer the questions, a process modeled throughout the first week of SRI.

The students often researched answers to these questions through internet searches or through

small group discussions. Findings were most often communicated during whole class discussions

or through written essays at the end of the units. The wetland visits and models gave his students

the opportunity to manipulate data and experiment with different variables. For example, the

students were given the chance to change variables in their models, such as the water level or type

of vegetation, and observe the effects.

To solve his student learning bottleneck, he focused on building connections between content

through class discussions and student projects. Because he picked such a broad bottleneck (i.e.,

students making connections between ecological concepts) he was able to use it in all his courses.

He did not develop a second student bottleneck, as was asked of all the SRI teachers during the

academic year workshops. Instead, he continued to address this same learning bottleneck

throughout the school year stating that ‘‘we kept talking about it; they got tired of hearing about

it—how to see those connections’’ (I5, LN 66). Steve believed that spending an entire semester

learning about and finding connections between the parts of a wetland (water, soil, plants) helped

his students gain a greater understanding of wetland ecology.

As with Jane, Steve taught inquiry activities he saw modeled during SRI in his courses. He

used the gall activity and squirrel monkey activity that were introduced during the academic

workshops in his biology courses. However, Steve incorporated both SRI modeled inquiry lessons

as well as developing his own original inquiry lessons. He incorporated inquiry as a thinking and

problem-solving process into his classroom through his thematic units.



Assertion 3: The Teachers’ Core Conceptions Influenced Whether They Viewed Difficulties

with Using Inquiry as Concerns That Could be Addressed or Barriers That Stopped

Them from Using Certain Components of Inquiry

The three teachers’ core conceptions influenced their enactment of the components of

inquiry-based teaching that are stressed in science education reform documents (AAAS, 1993;

NRC, 1996). Both Jane and Charles emphasized teacher-directed inquiries and student discussion

over other inquiry processes. Steve held core teaching conceptions more aligned with inquiry

teaching and the current reform visions in science education, and thus his teaching practice more

closely modeled this vision.

Jane

Throughout interviews, when asked about effective teaching, Jane most often described

inquiry-based activities that she had used in the past that were more student-directed (e.g., students

designing and carrying out multiday experiments). However, this ideal conception was different

from her current practice in which she used more teacher-directed inquiry lessons. Jane’s

conceptions of science, her students’ abilities, and effective teaching help explain this

discrepancy.

Jane’s focus on having her students learn science vocabulary and her view of science as

objective knowledge influenced her use of inquiry instruction. She described how her own lack of

confidence in her own scientific knowledge influenced her choice of classroom activities. She

described how ‘‘there have been times when I have not done things because I read it and go, I have

no clue what that is’’ (I3, LN 280). Her need to possess the science knowledge contained in her

lessons before presenting them to her students goes against a pure inquiry stance in which the

students and teacher are solving unknown problems together. However, lacking an understanding

of the content contained in a lesson may limit the teacher’s ability to visualize and plan for the

eventual outcomes of the lesson, making teaching the lesson seem like an impossible task.

Jane’s belief that her students would not succeed without her guidance limited her use of

inquiry, especially in reference to more student-directed investigations. Jane described how it was

difficult for her to maintain the high energy level required of her during an inquiry lesson that

required her to ‘‘be right on top of everything that’s going on and try to even be inside their head to

do a really good job at it.’’ Despite these conceptions, Jane held a strong belief that all students

could learn if given the proper encouragement and willingness to work. She struggled between

wanting to give students freedom, to ‘‘let them struggle through’’ an inquiry lesson, and her need to

provide them with guidance in order for them to gain the necessary knowledge.

Jane described the most effective lessons that she used in her class as those that she could use

to cover a large amount of biology content. In describing the benefits of a paper-and-pencil genetic

inheritance lesson using ‘‘dragon’’ genes, she said that ‘‘the reason I like it is because you use it for

almost the entire unit, going through in here with these [genetic inheritance] patterns and meiosis

and the whole thing’’ (I3, LN 43). Student-directed inquiry lessons, that she believed were the best

examples of science, were no longer used in her classroom due to her having to prepare her

students for a department-wide semester exam that dictated what content she needed to cover with

her students over the semester and her views of her students’ abilities and effective teaching.

Charles

Although Charles successfully incorporated one type of teacher-directed inquiry

(i.e., students in groups discussing teacher questions), he held beliefs about his teaching that



were obstacles to using more student-centered inquiry in his classroom. Charles’ belief that he

needed to transmit content to his students, found in both his views of effective teaching and his

purpose of education, resulted in his use of only one inquiry lesson, the dissection unit that had his

students involved in collecting and analyzing anatomical information in cooperative groups.

Charles’ lack of confidence in his students’ abilities also influenced the amount of classroom

control he was willing to transfer to them. Because his developed inquiry lessons required students

to discuss their ideas with each other in small groups, Charles struggled with finding a balance

between his need to control his classroom and let his students discuss. With this first inquiry lesson,

Charles was uncertain as to how he could control his students’ behavior during their small group

discussions. With the implementation of each subsequent lesson and the first author’s suggestions

on how to improve his classroom management after initial classroom observations, Charles

learned to vary the time students were allowed to discuss in groups and raised his expectations for

his students at the end of these discussions. Although Charles increased his competence in

managing inquiry lessons, his inquiry instruction was limited to a very teacher-directed student

discussion format that aligned with his core teaching conceptions.

Steve

Unlike Jane and Charles, who held beliefs that acted as barriers to implementing certain forms

of inquiry, Steve viewed concerns about inquiry teaching as problems he could solve rather than

barriers. When asked if there was anything he still didn’t understand about inquiry teaching, Steve

stated:

I think probably there will be days that you get in the middle of something and go I don’t

know exactly how this works, but its well inquiry teaching—I guess [that] would lead to

inquiry learning—inquiry learning would come from inquiry teaching. And you got to

inquire how to ask those questions and get the most from it, so you’re learning, it’s the

same curve. You’re also experimenting too, oops, that didn’t work (I5, LN 235).

Steve was able to inquire into the success of his own teaching methods, viewing both success

and failure as part of his learning process.

Steve’s teaching concerns also pushed him toward more reform-based teaching methods.

Steve’s strong content knowledge often placed him in situations where he felt he had difficulties

relaying basic background information to his students. However, this concern often moved him

towards more student-centered instruction, such as the use of discussion, and away from lecture

and vocabulary assignments. Steve was proud of his efforts to push his students to new limits

despite their initial discomfort with his discussion-based inquiry teaching style. Therefore, inquiry

teaching was seen as a challenge not an impossibility.

Discussion

Summary of Cases

As illustrated in Figure 1, all three teachers increased their use of inquiry in their classroom

after the professional development experience. However, many of Jane’s and Charles’ core

conceptions acted as anchors (down arrows) holding down or constraining their use of inquiry-

based teaching (horizontal bars) in their classrooms. Jane’s instruction centered around teacher-

guided inquiry methods that focused on students answering teacher-developed questions through



interactive paper-and-pencil-based activities. She incorporated several of the inquiry lessons

taught during SRI, but only if she believed the lessons would transfer directly to her classroom.

Transfer was based on her belief that the lessons would be of interest to her students and inspire

them to think. Her conception of inquiry as a thinking process allowed her to value this

instructional method. Due to this general definition, many of her instructional strategies fit into

this definition, including her questioning pedagogy in which she had her students involved in

teacher-led discussions. Overall, her conceptions (up arrows cancelling out with equal and

opposite down arrows in other categories) led to few instructional changes in her pedagogy and the

implementation of only teacher-guided inquiry lessons.

Charles’ focus on transmitting factual content knowledge in a very structured format limited

the amount and type of inquiry that he used in his classroom. He made only limited changes to his

instruction due to his belief that his students could not inquire on their own without receiving

content knowledge from the teacher first. All but one inquiry lesson (i.e., dissection unit) that

Charles created for his classroom had students wrestling with a teacher-provided question in

discussion groups. He focused his lessons on inquiry as a thinking process instead of a process of

data collection and analysis. However, he did move from this discussion-based inquiry to a

multiday laboratory-based inquiry lesson at the end of the year that was out of his pedagogical

comfort zone. He made cautious but positive improvements to his teaching with the addition of his

inquiry lessons.

Steve’s conceptions elevated (up arrows in Figure 1) his instruction to include more inquiry

practices. Steve’s conception of science as a process of going out into the field and collecting real-

world data to discuss in his seminar-based classroom, his thematic problem-based instructional

style, and his belief that his students could learn to be capable problem solvers allowed him to use

inquiry instruction in his classroom on a daily basis. His purpose for education was also supportive

of an inquiry classroom. He believed that his purpose as an educator was to prepare his students for

everyday life and not just have them memorize science content for standardized tests. This belief

led to a focus on big connections in environmental science that could be addressed through

inquiry-based teaching methods. He gave his students the academic freedom to ask their own

questions and investigate these through research. He also allowed himself the instructional leeway

to experiment with new teaching methods. He treated student apathy, the need to cover the content

standards, and other instructional issues as obstacles he could overcome through changing his

instruction instead of barriers to using inquiry.

Influence of the Professional Development Program

All three teachers came away from the SRI experience with an increased enthusiasm to

incorporate inquiry-based practices into their classrooms and all three teacher added inquiry

lessons to their instruction. However, the teachers’ enactment of inquiry varied with their core

conceptions. One similarity across the teachers was that their participation in SRI strengthened

their view of inquiry as a thinking process. Even though the academic year workshops focused

more on the five essential features of inquiry-based teaching (NRC, 2000) and the teachers

participated in data collection and analysis during the summer and academic year workshop

activities, the teachers held onto this ‘‘inquiry as thinking’’ view. The summer workshop had the

teachers wrestle with a student learning problem in their classroom (e.g., understanding

transcription, making connections between genetics concepts) throughout the first week of the

institute. The teachers followed a seven-step process (see Methodology section) that involved

them discussing in pairs how they think about their content as experts and how they can translate

their knowledge into practice opportunities that incorporate inquiry methodologies. This process



involved thinking through how they teach and asked them to challenge their common teaching

practices. The emphasis on this process influenced all nine participating teachers’ conceptions of

inquiry as seen through their incorporation of some of the seven steps (modeling, practice) into

their definitions of inquiry teaching during the postworkshop interviews (Lotter et al., 2006).

Through observations of the three teachers’ instruction in this study, the institute’s focus on

thinking through content problems was further incorporated into the teachers’ enactment of

inquiry in their classrooms. This general view of inquiry led to many teaching practices being

classified as inquiry (e.g., student discussion) and a de-emphasis of many science process

skills (e.g., experimentation, critical reflection, data analysis) described in reform documents

(AAAS, 1993; NRC, 1996).

Alternatively, because the teachers’ core conceptions were not changed through their

participation in SRI (except Steve’s view of his students), this view of inquiry as thinking may have

been the easiest way for the teachers to implement inquiry-based teaching practices without major

changes to their teaching style.

In-service teachers’ experiences with science both in laboratory and real-world settings have

been shown to influence their use of inquiry in the classroom (Friedrichson & Dana, 2005;

Laplante, 1997; Smith, 2005; Varelas, House, & Wenzel, 2005). Both Laplante (1997) and Smith

(2005) describe how teachers’ views of and experiences with science influence both the way

they present science in their classrooms and the way they think students should learn science.

Smith (2005), through a case study of two elementary teachers, found that the teachers’ early out-

of-school science experiences influenced their current science teaching. She found a connection

between a transmission teaching perspective and limited experience with science outside of

school, and conversely, a connection with constructivist teaching and multiple early science

experiences (e.g., museum visits, reading science books). She concluded that teachers ‘‘personal

life histories’’ have a strong influence on their view of science and how it should be taught in the

classroom (p. 25). Our study extends this finding, showing that high school teachers’ current

experiences with science outside of school exert an influence on how they teach inquiry. Steve’s

past science work experience as well as his daily involvement in raising and breeding farm animals

influenced his view of science as a problem-solving process that he wanted to share with his

students in his classroom through inquiry units. Both Jane and Charles had little experience with

science in their lives outside of reading science articles and their in-class instruction.

Laplante, who studied two first-year French immersion teachers, stated that the teachers in his

study ‘‘attribute to their students an epistemological status as knowers in science congruent to the

one they give themselves’’ (p. 290). He found that the teachers’ epistemologies were translated

onto their students as their own. In his study, the elementary teachers he studied viewed ‘‘school

science’’ separate from real science and focused on the delivery of science content with students

given little opportunity to construct their own scientific knowledge (p. 290). We found similar

results with Charles and Jane’s limited conceptions of their students own abilities to learn science

as well as their focus on science as a body of knowledge. Laplante stresses that teachers can only

model scientific processes that they themselves value and have personal experience with in their

own lives. For example, Charles was inspired to incorporate his inquiry dissection unit due to his

experience in the scientists’ laboratory during SRI.

These studies and our own stress the complexity of factors that influence science instruction

and the importance of providing teachers with long-term science experiences while they are

teaching. However, teacher participation in short-term science experiences divorced from

teachers’ everyday community and context, such as the SRI teachers’ participation in scientists’

laboratories for 2 weeks, may be insufficient change agents. Long-term science experiences

during the academic year that allow teachers to view science as an important part of their life are



needed. These experiences should also provide opportunities for the teachers to reflect on how the

science they are doing can be translated to student inquiry experiences. Teacher reflection during

these science experiences should also focus on evaluating how the science they do in their

classroom portrays the nature of science to students and whether this view is compatible with

current views of science as empirical, tentative, subjective, culturally and socially influenced, and

creative (AAAS, 1993; Lederman, 1992; Lederman & Abd-El-Khalick, 1998; NRC, 1996).

Implications for Professional Development

A strong literature base supports a model using a limited number of core conceptions to

describe the key factors influencing teacher practice. Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about

science (Cronin-Jones, 1991; Keys & Bryan, 2001; Lederman, 1999; Varelas et al., 2005), the

learning process (Thompson & Zeuli, 1999; Tsai, 2002), their students (Feldman, 2002; Nespor,

1987; Wallace & Kang, 2004), and effective instruction (Hashweh, 1996; Wallace & Kang, 2004)

all influence the choices teachers make in their classrooms. Hewson, Kerby, and Walter (1993)

found that teachers’ conceptions could be described by a limited number of unique themes and that

teachers often held contradictory themes (pp. 21–22). They stated that ‘‘teachers’ modes of

instruction are not skills that are independent of context or content. Rather, their choices are

related to their understanding of other essential components of the classroom’’ (p. 22). Hewson

and his colleagues have also shown how teacher beliefs of science instruction, science knowledge,

and science learning influence teachers’ use of conceptual change strategies (Hewson & Hewson,

1987, 1988; Lemberger, Hewson, & Park, 1999). Our research presented in this article supports

their findings, showing how a small number of core conceptions interact together to influence

inquiry instruction, another reform-based instructional strategy.

Our study specifically shows how these teachers’ four core conceptions meshed with their

experience in an inquiry-based professional development program resulting in varied

implementation of inquiry in their classrooms. The teachers’ conceptions of science, their

students, effective teaching practices, and the purpose of education were found to influence the

type and amount of inquiry instruction performed in their high school classrooms. The four core

conceptions indicated in our model can provide positive and negative influences on the teachers’

decisions regarding the use of inquiry-based practices. Inquiry teaching was limited, for example,

when a teacher believed that his or her students were incapable of solving problems on their own or

when they viewed science as a body of knowledge that they needed to transmit to students in a

limited amount of time. Inquiry teaching was enhanced, however, when teachers viewed science

as a process of solving problems using various methodologies or when students were given the

freedom to explore their own questions and discover content for themselves with teacher

guidance.

All three teachers’ core conceptions remained relatively stable throughout the professional

development period, leading to few substantial changes in their instruction. Only when the

teachers’ conceptions aligned with the professional development goals or the teachers were

dissatisfied with their current instruction were changes made to their practice. For example, Steve

believed that students naturally learn through questioning and problem-solving processes making

the use of inquiry to teach students science an easy transition. Charles, on the other hand, believed

that his students learned best if he explained the science content to them. Inquiry thus took the

shape of structured student group work followed by teacher translation of the content. However,

Charles did change his instructional style from PowerPoint lectures and application activities to

include this structured form of inquiry. He wanted to increase his students thinking through using



inquiry, but was limited by his beliefs about student learning and his need to cover the content

efficiently. Jane held core beliefs that did not require her to question her instruction leading to

the addition of inquiry lessons, but few overall pedagogical changes. This research suggests

that to be successful inquiry professional development must not only teach inquiry

knowledge (e.g., questioning skills, data collection techniques), but it must also assess and

directly address teachers’ core conceptions. We suggest that teachers participating in

professional development will benefit from a discussion of their views regarding core

conceptions in relation to the pedagogical techniques being taught during the workshop.

Teachers should be made aware of how their conceptions interfere or enhance the pedagogy

being illustrated at the workshop.

Avenues of addressing teacher beliefs during professional development include the use of

daily reflection journals that allow teachers to think about how inquiry teaching fits into their

current belief systems. The teachers could be asked to include in these writings, their thoughts on

how their beliefs of science, their students, effective teaching, and the purpose of education

support or impede inquiry-based instruction. Whole group discussion of these writings during the

workshop may also be necessary for change. Preworkshop interviews could include questions on

each of these issues that could be analyzed and shared with the teachers during the workshop

discussion periods.

Future research studies should investigate whether changes in teachers’ core conceptions

toward more reform-based instructional strategies actually result in increased use of these

strategies in their classrooms given the many external constraints (testing, content standards,

school culture) influencing teachers’ instructional choices. Longitudinal studies of beginning

teachers investigating the formation and stability of these core conceptions over time might also

add to the effectiveness of inquiry professional development programs.

Appendix

Pre-SRI Interview Protocol

1. Please describe your teaching experience

a. Number of years taught

b. Number of schools taught at

c. Subjects and years each taught

2. What is your education background (undergraduate and graduate degrees)?

3. Please describe your science content background.

a. Previous work experience

b. Previous laboratory experiences

c. Previous research experiences (in and out of college)

4. How do you think people learn science? [How do you know when someone has learned

something?]

5. What do you think are your greatest strengths and weaknesses as an instructor?

6. What is the most rewarding aspect of teaching to you? [What motivates you to teach?]

7. What is the most frustrating aspect of teaching to you?

8. Describe an effective teaching lesson in your classroom and why you think it is effective.

9. How would you define inquiry science teaching?

10. Do you teach using the inquiry method?



Of yes, describe in your own words what a typical inquiry lesson looks like in your classroom.

Include the following parts in your description:

a. What are you doing? [What is your role as the teacher?]

b. What are your students doing?

c. How are books and resources used?

d. How is science content taught?

If no, is there a particular reason why you do not use this method?

11. Do you think that inquiry teaching is a good way to teach science content? Why or why

not.

12. Are there times or situations where inquiry teaching is not a useful method? Tell me about

these.

13. What constraints do you feel you have to using inquiry teaching?

Post-SRI Interview Protocol

1. What do you think you learned from the workshop that will be the most beneficial to your

teaching?

2. How will you incorporate your bottleneck plan into your teaching? [If it will not be

incorporated, why not?]

3. Describe your research laboratory experience. [What questions did you investigate? What

laboratory methods did you learn?]

What, if anything, will you take from your research experience back to your classroom?

4. In what way has the workshop changed the way you think about your teaching?

5. Are there issues that you would have liked discussed or discussed more during the workshop?

6. Did the workshop meet your expectations? [Why/why not]

7. Describe an effective teaching lesson and why you think it is effective. [Can be one already

taught or one not yet taught]

8. How would you define inquiry science teaching?

9. Do you now believe you teach using the inquiry method?

If yes, describe in your own words what a typical inquiry lesson looks like in your classroom.

Include the following parts in your description:

a. What are you doing? [What is your role as the teacher?] What are your students doing?

How are books and resources used? How is science content taught?

If no, is there a particular reason why you do not use this method? What do you think an

inquiry lesson would look like if you did teach it?

10. Do you think that inquiry teaching is a good way to teach science content? Why or why not.

11. Are there times or situations where inquiry teaching is not a useful method? Tell me about

these.

12. What constraints do you feel you have to using inquiry teaching?



The authors thank the case study teachers for their time and commitment to student

learning.

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