Improvement of students' inquiry skills and self-assessment in biology through directed inquiry activities

Primary school students need to acquire inquiry skills through teacher directed activities. We designed a series of inquiry activities, and we assessed their impact on the development of inquiry skills. The research was conducted with 416 students from Slovakia who participated in a quasi-experiment. Students in the experimental group conducted inquiry activities aimed at developing selected inquiry skills. Students in the control group received a traditional biology lesson with practical activities based on a 'cookbook' approach. We found that students in the experimental group significantly improved their inquiry skills. The research included self-assessment cards for students in the experimental group to assess their level of acquired inquiry skills. We found that students assessed inquiry skills better after the intervention using self-assessment cards. The research showed that systematic implementation inquiry activities improved students' inquiry skills.