Teachers' ideas and classroom practices in inquiry-based science education
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There is often a disconnect between what teachers aspire to do as educators and what actually happens in their classrooms. This challenge is particularly pronounced in inquiry-based science education, where teachers need to balance student autonomy with necessary guidance.
Our latest research, just published in the International Journal of Science Education, explores this relationship by comparing what teachers say about inquiry-based teaching with what they actually do in their classrooms. Working with six Norwegian science teachers across primary and lower-secondary levels, we combined detailed interviews with systematic video analysis of 24 lessons to understand where ideas and practices align - and where they diverge.
What we found
Our findings show that teachers' conceptualisations of inquiry-based science education only partially align with their classroom practices. While this might sound like a criticism of teachers, it is actually much more nuanced than that. We identified two alignment challenges that represent genuine instructional dilemmas:
Challenge 1: Student autonomy vs teacher-provided structure
Teachers expressed strong commitments to student independence, yet their classroom implementation was predominantly teacher-directed. However, this was not due to a lack of understanding - it reflects the very real tension between wanting students to drive their own learning and the practical constraints of classroom management, curriculum coverage, and ensuring meaningful learning outcomes.
Challenge 2: Implicit expectations vs explicit instructional strategies
A second challenge arose from teachers' assumptions about what students would learn through inquiry-based activities. Many teachers demonstrated awareness of the nature of science in interviews, but provided limited explicit instruction about scientific processes in their lessons. This suggests teachers may assume students will develop sophisticated understanding of the nature of science without explicit guidance.
Why this research matters
Understanding these challenges is crucial because our research moves us beyond simply documenting the existence of gaps between ideals and practice, toward understanding the structural causes of these gaps. Besides, our work provides concrete starting points for developing more effective professional learning approaches.
For example, rather than telling teachers they need to give students more autonomy (which they already want to do), professional development could focus on providing practical strategies for scaffolding inquiry activities that gradually release responsibility to students while maintaining clear learning objectives.
The study also highlights the importance of making implicit scientific processes explicit for learners. Without this explicit focus, students may engage in scientific practices without developing awareness of how scientific knowledge is constructed or connecting their activities to broader scientific concepts.
This work builds on our previous research, which mapped the quality of inquiry practices across Norwegian classrooms. In doing so, the paper opens new questions about how we can better support teachers in navigating these tensions in science education.
The full paper is available open access:
Karlsen, S., Kersting, M., Ødegaard, M., Olufsen, M., Suhr, M.L., & Kjærnsli, M. (2025). A comparative study of teachers' conceptualisations and enactment of inquiry-based science education. International Journal of Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2025.2547411