Inquiry on the Periphery: Researching Student Agency in Science

• In Event: Student Understanding in Science

Abstract

This paper is concerned with student agency in science education. The purpose of the paper is to argue for the operationalisation of agency as a form of discursive practice, and to present results from a study of student agency in a year-seven classroom in Melbourne filmed for an entire unit of work, which was conducted as an instrumental case. It was found that the participating students’ action was orientated towards following instructions at the expense of valuing their own action directed towards inquiry. The results suggest that science students inquire whether the official focus is on student inquiry or not and that pedagogies focused upon student inquiry would promote opportunities for students to position themselves as agentic in school science.

Author

• Jennifer Lynne Arnold, The Australian Catholic University