Exploring the Effectiveness of a Scientific Inquiry Creative Workshop in Promoting Senior and Vocational High School Students’ Scientific Inquiry Self-efficacy

Author: Ying-Yan Lu (Office of Institutional Research & Planning, Kaohsiung Medical University), Huann-Shyang Lin (Center for General Education, National Sun Yat-sen University), Fou-Lai Lin (Department of Mathematics, National Taiwan Normal University) , Zuway-R Hong (Center for General Education, Kaohsiung Medical University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 67, No. 4
Date：December 2022
Pages：177-219
DOI：https://doi.org/10.6209/JORIES.202212_67(4).0006

Abstract：
Background and Purpose
The Ministry of Education in Taiwan officially launched the 12-year National Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines in 2019. The core purpose of the 12-year national education curriculum is to cultivate people-oriented lifelong learners. Specifically, learning is no longer limited by subject knowledge and skills; instead, it should cultivate student competency to solve problems, conduct inquiries, analyze data, and critically examine findings to solve problems and achieve self-growth (Ministry of Education, 2021). To cultivate student scientific inquiry literacy, this study hosted a 1-day scientific inquiry creative workshop (SICW) in northern, central, and southern Taiwan on October 17 and 18, 2020. The main purposes of this study were to improve student scientific inquiry self-efficacy through the SICW, to determine the differential performance of students with different backgrounds, and to explore the key factors related to student scientific inquiry self-efficacy.
Literature Review
The PISA 2015 results revealed no significant differences in the scientific self-efficacy of 15-year-old male and female students in Taiwan (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2015). However, clear gender differences were noted in the choice of higher education academic fields between male and female students (Lin & Tsai, 2018). Accordingly, gender influences student scientific inquiry self-efficacy. In addition, Chang (2013) reported that the uneven distribution of educational resources between the north and the south of Taiwan also exerts a considerable effect on student learning motivation and learning self-efficacy. Therefore, to understand the scientific inquiry self-efficacy of students with different background variables after participating in the SICW, we proposed the following research hypothesis (H1): Significant regional, gender, and motivation differences exist in student scientific inquiry self-efficacy after participating in the SICW.
Studies on scientific self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997; Trujillo & Tanner, 2014) have reported that students’ beliefs about their ability to succeed in science activities significantly affect their willingness to engage in science-related activities. In addition, Kupermintz (2002) observed that students’ scientific inquiry self-efficacy was significantly correlated with their interest in science learning and academic performance in middle school, high school, and university. Accordingly, to understand the factors affecting student scientific inquiry self-efficacy after participating in the SICW, we proposed the following research hypothesis (H2): Significant correlations exist between gender, learning motivation, and scientific inquiry self-efficacy variables.
In Taiwan, Hong et al. (2020) found that students’ high learning motivation exerted a significant mediating effect on the relationships between learning interest and scientific inquiry self-efficacy. Furthermore, Hong and Lin (2013) indicated that the scientific self-efficacy scores of senior and vocational high school male students were significantly higher than those of female students, especially for male students with a high level of interest in scientific activities. This thus implies that gender would have a mediating effect on student scientific inquiry self-efficacy. Accordingly, we proposed the following hypothesis (H3): Learning motivations and gender have a significant mediating effect on the relationship between science participation and curiosity as a predictor of scientific inquiry ability and scientific performance.
Methods
The SICW was a 1-day workshop divided into two parts. The first part involved a Scientific Inquiry Ability Training course, and the second part involved a Scientific Inquiry Creative Practice course, consisting of science writing, science video production, and science comics drawing. The SICW was held in northern, central, and southern Taiwan, with a total of 480 senior and vocational high school students participating in it. All participating students completed a structured scientific inquiry self-efficacy questionnaire after the 1-day SICW. Regarding the data analysis process, this study first used multivariate analysis of variance to analyze the effects of region, gender, and learning motivation differences on student scientific inquiry self-efficacy. Subsequently, the Pearson product–moment correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling were used to explore the relationships between the variables related to student scientific inquiry self-efficacy.
Results
1. Students with different backgrounds exhibited significant differences in scientific inquiry self-efficacy after participating in the SICW.
(1) Students from southern Taiwan presented significantly higher scores on scientific inquiry self-efficacy than did those from central Taiwan.
(2) Male students exhibited significantly higher scientific inquiry self-efficacy than did female students.
(3) Actively engaged students had higher scientific inquiry self-efficacy than did their passively engaged counterparts.
2. The students’ total scientific inquiry self-efficacy score had a significant and positive correlation with their inquiry ability and scientific performance.
3. The students’ scientific engagement, scientific interest, and curiosity scores had significant predictive power on their inquiry ability and scientific performance.
4. The student gender and learning motivation exerted a mediating effect on their scientific inquiry self-efficacy.
Discussion and Suggestions
According to the theory proposed by Clark and Mayer (2016), when meaningful learning images are used in the learning process, students’ positive emotions toward learning and learning motivation are improved. The present study observed that combining the Scientific Inquiry Ability Training course with the Scientific Inquiry Creative Practice course in the SICW exerted a significant effect on secondary school students. The SICW also combined multiple strategies, such as cross-disciplinary scientific innovation themes, professional innovative teaching, and multimedia teaching, which could effectively improve learning motivation and scientific inquiry self-efficacy (Park et al., 2014).
This study has two essential findings: First, students’ scientific engagement and scientific interest and curiosity can significantly predict their inquiry ability and scientific performance. This study combined scientific inquiry theory with three different creative practice courses (science writing, science video production, and science comics drawing) to cultivate student scientific inquiry self-efficacy in a 1-day workshop (Falk & Dierking, 2010). The study findings demonstrate the educational value of the SICW and reveal the differences and relationships among participants’ scientific inquiry self-efficacy variables. Second, this study verified the mediating effect of gender and learning motivation on students’ inquiry ability and scientific performance. Accordingly, teachers should consider how to integrate the cross-domain STEAM curriculum design with effective teaching methods to eliminate gender differences and help those who have low learning motivation to improve their learning interest; this may influence their inquiry ability and scientific performance. In conclusion, the present study explored the effectiveness of an SICW in promoting senior and vocational high school students’ scientific inquiry self-efficacy. The study findings are expected to stimulate further discussion on informal science education and provide more beneficial empirical evidence to strengthen the development of student scientific inquiry self-efficacy.

Keywords：science inquiry creative workshop, scientific inquiry self-efficacy, senior and vocational high school students, structural equation modeling, Taiwan

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