Elementary Science Teachers’ Understanding of Inquiry-Based Teaching and Self-Evaluation of their Practices: A Case Study from Thailand

This research explores Thai elementary science teachers’ understanding of inquiry-based teaching based on self-evaluation, and focusing on the frequency of their use of inquiry-based strategies in a class. We developed 18 open-ended questions on teaching scenarios based on the essential features of inquiry teaching to assess 38 Thai elementary science teachers’ understanding of inquiry-based teaching. The 14 items of the Inquiry Strategies Scale (IS) were used to measure the frequency of using inquiry-based teaching strategies in a lesson delivered by each of the study participants. The results reveal that these Thai science teachers lack knowledge and have some fundamental misunderstandings about inquiry-based science teaching. Interestingly, the frequency with which they used inquiry-based strategies in science teaching was almost the same as non-inquiry-based strategies and was not related to their knowledge. Specific scaffolding is needed to help the teachers gain a better understanding of inquiry-based science teaching.