Relation between students' reflection levels and their inquiry learning outcomes

Résumé En

In this study we aimed to identify the relation between students’ reflection levels and their inquirylearning outcomes (i.e. their formulated conclusions) after conducting a complete inquiry cycle in anonline Go-Lab Inquiry Learning Space (ILS). We expected that students exhibiting a higher reflectionlevel would be more experienced in formulating higher quality conclusions than students at a lowerreflection level. Forty-three students from the 9th grade with an average age of 15 years from twoEstonian public schools participated in this study. During the interventions students worked with achemistry-based ILS called “What does pH measure?” Students were given a pre-defined problem tobe solved by following an inquiry cycle. In each phase students had tasks to perform which led toconcrete learning outcomes. The students used specific application called Conclusion Tool to statetheir conclusions and used Reflection Tool to answer two open-ended reflective questions to reflect ontheir study process. The results suggest that students who reflect at a higher reflection level are moresuccessful in formulating higher quality inquiry outcomes such as hypotheses, observations andconclusions. Therefore it seems that reflection should be part of the learning process in order tosupport students to achieve higher quality inquiry learning outcomes.