Effects of inquiry-based teaching on attitudes, self-efficacy, and science reasoning abilities of students in introductory biology courses at a rural, open-enrollment community college

Abstract

Publications such as Beyond Bio 101, BIO 2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists and College Pathways to the Science Education Standards/ advocate science education reform in higher education institutions, including the use of student-centered pedagogies. While many studies about the effectiveness of such pedagogies have been conducted at universities and four-year colleges, few have been conducted at the community college level, where many students, including many would-be educators, choose to take their introductory science courses. This study investigated whether the same techniques used in universities to increase student attitudes, self-efficacy and science reasoning can also be effective at a small, rural community college. This study used pre and post-tests of student attitudes, self-efficacy and scientific reasoning to determine if inquiry-based learning positively affected each of these parameters. In wholly traditional classes, students' attitudes decreased, self-self-efficacy increased and scientific reasoning was unchanged. In classes with traditional lecture and inquiry labs, attitudes increased, self-efficacy increased and scientific reasoning was unchanged. Finally in a course designed with inquiry lecture and lab components, attitude did not change, self-efficacy increased, and scientific reasoning increased. This provides evidence that inquiry-based teaching can have a positive effect on community college students. It also provides evidence that using three different measures, allows for a more complete picture of the effects of inquiry-based teaching.