Teachers’ Use of Explicit Instruction When Planning Lessons to Foster Students’ Scientific Inquiry Competencies

Explicit instruction has been repeatedly found to be an effective approach to fostering students’ scientific inquiry (SI) competencies. This qualitative study investigates how teachers implement features of explicit instruction when planning a lesson that primarily aims at fostering SI competencies. To that end, N = 16 teachers were asked to plan a lesson that fosters students’ competency to plan scientific investigations and to elaborate their lesson plans in a semi-structured interview. The lesson plans and the interviews were analysed regarding the implementation of four key features of explicit instruction: (1) opportunities for students to engage in inquiry activities, (2) explications of SI concepts, (3) tasks that demand stating, elaborating, or reflecting on SI concepts, and (4) feedback on students’ ideas related to SI. A qualitative content analysis was used to capture the existence of these four features in the planned lessons as well as the overall alignment of the lessons with an explicit instructional approach. Results show that teachers often only included extensive opportunities for students to engage in various inquiry activities (e.g. planning, conducting, and analysing investigations) and frequently received feedback related to their performance of these activities. In contrast, explications of SI concepts and tasks that demand stating, elaborating, or reflecting on them were only rarely observed. In contrast, explanations and tasks that address concepts related to science content were frequently part of the lessons. Overall, explicit instruction to foster students’ SI competencies seems to be rarely used by teachers. Potential reasons, as well as implications for professional development and further research, are discussed.