Introduction
With the development of information technology in recent world, the request for learners has changed from the traditional acceptive learning styles to developing the “transferable capability” such as discovering, analyzing and solving problems independently. As Kuhn (2007) points out, modern education should aim at nurturing students ‘‘to use their minds well, in school and beyond’’. Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a learning strategy where students solve problems and construct new knowledge through a series of practices like professional scientists (Keselman, 2003). This approach is based on the proposition that learning is the result of constant construction and reconstruction of learners’ perceptions of phenomenon of interest (Tynjala 1998; Vygotsky 1978) through a series of independent activities. It appears that the focus of IBL is to put students instead of teachers at the center of learning process. A large number of previous studies have shown that IBL has a positive impact on teaching and learning (e.g., Avery & Meyer, 2012; Marshall & Horton, 2011; Powell-Moman & Brown-Schild, 2011; Walker, McGill, et al., 2008). Chinese government has attached greater importance to IBL. For example, IBL has been listed as one of three major learning approaches in Chinese Educational Curriculum Reform (2001), and the National Science Council (2014) of China has proposed a program to offer new-developed technology to middle-level schools to help them adopt IBL in classes. Nevertheless, there are still challenges during the transformation from traditional teaching and learning approaches to new ones in China. So the main focus of this essay is to investigate the major challenges for implementing IBL in China and to explore potential solutions.
Approach
The review started with a systematic search for relevant literature in the library database of University of Manchester. Following search terms were applied:
Inquiry based instruction, Inquiry teaching, Inquiry based teaching, Inquiry learning, Inquiry based learning, Inquiry education, IBL
AND (“children” OR “students” OR “primary school” OR “elementary school” OR “middle school” OR “secondary school”).
I selected studies that involved children from primary school to high school, since this is the implementation scope of Chinese Educational Curriculum Reform (2001). All the resources about IBL were chosen for a twenty-year period, most of them has been written in these ten years. A snowball method was used to examine valuable relevant articles that were cited in these articles in follow-up work.
Major challenges for implementing IBL in China
Problems with centralized curriculum standards for teachers
To apply IBL effectively requires teachers to guide students to explore problems in the same way as professional scientists using various skills with minimal instruction (Abd-El-Khalick et al., 2004; Chang & Mao,1999; Hofstein, Navon, Kipnis, & Mamlok-Naaman, 2005; Roehrig & Garrow, 2007), which is very different from traditional acceptive learning approach. Therefore, it is necessary for government to offer external support to help teachers better understand and implement IBL at school, especially for novice teachers. One of the major policy initiatives is to provide teachers with prescriptive curriculum and assessment standards which is made by national education department as instruction for implementing IBL in classes, such as what Australia (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2012) and England (Department for Education, 2013) has done. The centralized curriculum system has also existed in China for many years (Tang & Shao, 2013). Although teachers in China can get policy support, it is still very hard to warrant that IBL can be effectively implemented. As a case study on two Chinese chemistry teachers' experiences conducted by Gao and Wang (2014) shows, even under the same curriculum standards, different teachers can develop different teaching conceptions and strategies of IBL which lead to different learning outcomes. Studies in other countries (Loomis, Rodriguez, & Tillman, 2008; Tatto, 2006) also support the result. The problem may occur during the process of learning and understanding the prescribed curriculum standards. Shulman (1987) proposed that although the centralized curriculum standards can be a driving force for teachers to improve teaching and learning methods, they are not helpful if they lack specific knowledge, techniques and representations which correspond to the teaching context. What the two Chinese teachers reported in the case study (Gao and Wang, 2014) echoes the above viewpoint, which indicated that there were three major problems with Chinese curriculum standards on IBL: Lack of “specific directions or suggestion for using inquiry-based instruction”; Lack enough instructional time for students’ practice; Lack corresponding assessment system. To help teachers apply IBL effectively in China, the central educational department must take the responsibility of making documents including curriculum standards which contain explicit and helpful instruction for teachers to understand first.
The conflict between traditional learning approaches and IBL
It appears that there are significant differences between traditional approaches and IBL. The traditional learning approaches usually exist in a learning context which is highly structured and organized by teachers and what students need to do is follow the explicit instruction under teachers’ supervision (Beyer, 2008). While the IBL requires teachers to use guidance instead of explicit instruction, to involve scaffolding as main learning constituent which is based on students’ former interest and experience and “model the kinds of questions that students need to be asking themselves, thus forming a cognitive apprenticeship.’’ (Hmelo-Silver et al., 2007). Traditional learning approaches has been occupying a dominant position in Chinese teaching practices during past decades, which makes it more challenging to implement new learning approaches including IBL in China. As the Ministry of Education in Taiwan points out, schools at all levels in Taiwan have attached too much importance to basic subject knowledge instead of the cultivation of learning attitudes, so the focus of education should transform to competence-based curriculum and teaching, which emphasize the cultivation of students’ comprehensive qualities including knowledge, ability, skill and attitudes (the Ministry of Education, 2014; Tsai, 2011). Under the pressure of college-entrance examination policy in past years, there are a considerable number of teachers holding rigid exam-oriented conception in their mind. For example, a high school teacher claimed the reason how the traditional conception impacted the application of IBL for her, “The content required for the examination has to take priority. Inquiry was not tested in the assessments, so I do not want to spend time on it.” (Gao and Wang, 2014). There is no denying that traditional learning approaches with explicit instruction only has negative effects on learning. For instance, Kirschner et al. (2006) conclude that a lot of explicit guidance are more effective for learning at school because there are too much information including facts, concepts and theories to remember and in consideration of limitation of human working memory, the direct and specific instruction is more helpful for students to bear information efficiently. It is also apparent that IBL has many advantages which traditional ones can not offer. So, how to balance these two learning approaches in teaching and learning process under current pressure of exam-oriented teaching concept is a big challenge to implementing IBL effectively in China.
Potential solutions
Further improvement on centralized curriculum reform
It has been more than 15 years since IBL was proposed in Chinese Educational Curriculum Reform (2001). However, as the previous case study shows (Gao and Wang, 2014), there are still teachers who find it hard to carry out the reform. According to their complaint, some improvement can be made on the reform. First, there should be instructions which are explicit enough for teachers to understand and implement a new learning approach. This requirement is also reflected in theory of curriculum, instruction, and assessment alignment (Porter, 1994; Porter, 1989). In fact, there are other countries which has already taken the step as examples for China. For instance, in the Framework for K-12 Science Education in America, eight practices of IBL are specifically proposed for science and engineering teaching (National Research Council, 2011). Second, corresponding assessment system should be established at the same time as a stimulus for those teachers under pressure of traditional exam-oriented educational conception towards new curriculum. Desimone (2002) also argues that a coherent system where standards and assessment consistently work together is necessary for successful school and curriculum reform.
Enhancing teacher's collective support
There are many ways for teachers to get collective support at school. One of them is to build teacher learning communities where teachers from the same school or even the same grade can share teaching experiences and strategies with each other and yield better teaching approaches together (Garet, Porter, Desimone, Birman, & Yoon, 2001; Hargreaves, 1994; Little, 1982). A number of studies (Hung & Yeh, 2013; Kaasila & Lauriala, 2010; Lambson, 2010) have demonstrated the positive effects of teacher learning communities. However, having teacher learning communities can not warrant the successful implementation of new curriculum unless teachers in the same community can share positive attitudes to the new curriculum and there are sufficient instructional support to help them understand and adopt the new curriculum such as specific curriculum standards which have been mentioned above (Craig, 2013; Hargreaves, Moore, & Manning, 2001; Tytler et al., 2011).
Improving teacher education on IBL
Previous study (Wang et al., 2015) shows that teachers with longer training period achieved better implementation effect. However, what helps with the implementation effect of IBL is not only how long the training session last, but its quality. The key to achieving higher training quality is the methods adopted by teacher educators and the training should run through the whole teaching process including pre-service and in-service period. For instance, it is proposed by Levy et al. (2013) that there are several ways which are helpful for teacher education including “practice-oriented educational psychology or foundations courses”, “field supervisors through observational feedback” and “professional development workshops”. These ways can help teacher gain and develop better understanding of the in-depth meaning of IBL as well as constantly improve conceptualization under their specific teaching context.
Coping with the conflict between traditional learning approaches and IBL
Both traditional learning approaches which are based on direct instruction and IBL have their own advantages. However, traditional learning approaches still occupy a dominant position in current China under the long-term influence of exam-oriented educational conception as the Ministry of Education in Taiwan have pointed out (2014). Under such condition, it appears that mixed learning methods which combine traditional approaches and IBL are more compatible. In fact, recent literature also demonstrates a trend towards the potential advantages of mixed methods over pure traditional approaches or independent inquiry learning. For example, Klahr (2009) claims that even for those learning activities which require less guidance, direct instruction can still play a basic role within the learning structure. Similarly, Kuhn (2007) asserts that mixed methods have a huge function for learning effect if only different approaches can be well balanced and distributed according to different learning context. As for students, it may be a big challenge for some of them to transform from traditional learning methods to IBL. As a previous research (Levy et al., 2013) shows, learners at the first stage of IBL generally have difficulties in keeping up with the pace without proper scaffolding instruction. In terms of this issue, students’ exploratory curiosity should be given priority by teachers (Ching, 2018). Thomas, Crow and Frankin (2011) list some teaching strategies to cultivate students’ exploratory curiosity including leaving students free choices of inquiry topics which are linked to curriculum content, clarifying the aim and process of inquiry tasks to students and developing assessment system in line with students’ levels and needs.
Conclusion
The current situation in terms of implementing IBL in China is not very optimistic because of the long-term existence of exam-orientation system, but it appears that some measures have been taken to promote the transformation. Previous studies indicate that IBL have a positive effect on students’ learning motivation and interest (Wang et al., 2015) as well as critical thinking (Ernst & Monroe, 2014). In addition, the rapid technical development offers great opportunities to combine IBL with modern techniques. It has been indicated that web-based IBL can develop inquiry skills including identifying problems, collecting data and conducting experiments (Mäeots, Pedaste, & Sarapuu, 2008). To seize the historical development opportunities, China should further improve the curriculum reform and develop positive collective support for teachers at school. For those teachers and students who have difficulties in adapting to new learning approaches, additional help should be given to resolve the conflict between traditional and new learning conceptions.