The Use of Guided Inquiry to Support Student Progress and Engagement in High School Chemistry

As part of the current UK GCSE science curriculum, pupils need to use their understanding of science to answer questions about a series of core experiments. Problem-solving and applying knowledge to new situations is fundamental in enabling students to progress in science; however, many learners struggle to develop these skills. This can lead to inhibited student progress and decreased engagement in science. In response to this, the effect of guided inquiry on student progress and engagement was investigated. Two mixed gender classes of UK high school science students were asked to design and perform an experiment based on one of the core GCSE chemistry experiments─determining the concentration of an acid. By using guided inquiry, all learners showed good progress and a high degree of engagement when researching and designing their method. When using their approach to perform their experiment and process their results, all pupils were able to perform the method they proposed accurately and precisely. Students used their processes of analyzing their results to determine the correct concentration of the acid to two decimal places. This guided inquiry titration lab showed evidence of supporting student learning and provided an opportunity for pupils to use their ideas to solve problems. Student feedback showed that most pupils taking part in this activity (87%) felt this helped their engagement in the course. This activity describes the implementation of guided inquiry to enable students with minimal background knowledge on a topic to take control of their learning, design and execute an experiment and use their results to determine the concentration of an acid, teaching themselves along the way in an effective, engaging manner. This shows that guided inquiry can be used as an effective tool to support progress in a GCSE core practical, and aid engagement in science.