The scientific method and scientific inquiry: tension as in teaching and learning

Scientific method has been considered by many to lie at the core of scientific inquiry. In this paper, we look closely at teacher and student discourse in a typical high school science classroom to investigate what the teaching and learning of scientific method looks like and to consider the impacts an emphasis on method has on students’ inquiry performance. Through a lens of activity theory, our analysis suggests that test-oriented scientific method did not support authentic scientific inquiry. Instead, this focus served to draw teachers’ attention away from student thinking and distract students from their ongoing, productive inquiry. By situating the case in a broader institutional and social context, we discuss how the teaching and learning of the scientific method as inquiry is supported and sustained in our current educational system. We conclude the paper with directions for further studies.