‘She asked very much’ – primary school students’ views about scientific inquiry

This article presents an in-depth analysis of the Swedish data from the international VASI-E (Views about Scientific Inquiry – Elementary) study. The purpose is to contribute to further knowledge on what younger students know about scientific inquiry (SI). Data were collected by using the VASI-E instrument and were administered to 110 students in the 3rd grade. Furthermore, 24 students were interviewed in order to obtain a deepened qualitative understanding of the students’ views about SI. As already shown in the international VASI-E study, the majority of the students did not have an adequate understanding of SI. Many students seem to embrace a view of SI as following a unique ‘scientific method’, sometimes described as ‘doing experiments’, often in combination with the posing of hypotheses. Furthermore, several students seemed to be unaware of the central role of posing questions as the first step of conducting SI. According to several students, a scientist is a person who should know answers rather than pose questions. A possible reason for this obscured view of SI is the focus on conducting scientific investigations rather than on understanding the different aspects of SI in their teaching. Methodological aspects of the VASI-E instrument are also discussed.