ABSTRACT
Calls for incorporating inquiry into science curricula have been issued for well over 30 years (DeBoer, 1991) and many benefits have been associated over time with students’ participation in active, inquiry-based activities (Minner, Levy, & Century, 2004). Unfortunately, however, research consistently shows that, although there are pockets of innovation (e.g., Hofstein, Nahum, & Shore, 2001; Tamir, Stavy, & Ratner, 1998), science curricula at all educational levels may not sufficiently incorporate features of authentic scientific inquiry (e.g., Basey, Men-delow, & Ramos, 2000; Chinn & Malhotra, 2002). The result is that students may develop inadequate or incorrect conceptions about science, and about their roles as learners in science, with the potential to undermine their meaningful engagement in scientific activity and development of scientific literacy (Carey & Smith, 1993; Haury, 1993). Indeed, Chinn and Malhotra (2002) cautioned that simple, nonauthentic inquiry tasks prevalent in much instruction “may not only fail to help students learn to reason scientifically; they may also foster a nonscientific epistemology in which scientific reasoning is viewed as simple, certain, algorithmic, and focused at a surface level of observation” (p. 190).
