Prospective elementary teachers’ abilities in tackling acontextualized physics problem as guided inquiry

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative study, with a descriptive and interpretative nature, of the abilities of prospec-tive elementary teachers (PETs) to solve a contextualized problem of physics through a process of guided inquiry.Specifically, an analysis was made of the PETs’ abilities to (a) formulate hypotheses; (b) plan inquiry proceduresaimed at testing hypotheses; and (c) draw conclusions from the inquiry (i.e., interpret experimental data to acceptor reject their hypotheses, and recognize the limitations of the inquiry that they had conducted). The studyparticipants were 17 PETs who were receiving training in science teaching. They were organized into small groupsto solve the physics problem proposed to them. The study’s data were extracted from the inquiry reports that thegroups prepared by following a script with open-ended questions. The results revealed the PETs’ strengths andweaknesses in addressing the different scientific practices that had been required in the process, as well as showingthat they all had achieved some improvement in their inquiry abilities after completing the activity. A discussionof the results is given with a view to improving the training of PETs in inquiry-based science learning.