Abstract

The purpose of this review is to summarise an array of tools both for science teachers and particularly for science teacher educators to reconsider student-led cognitive outcomes that are initiated and maintained within the in-class science inquiry activities. For this purpose, first, the essential characteristics of the inquiry-based teaching are described and Bloomian taxonomies in assessing the student-led outcomes and student-led intellectual contributions to the classroom discourse is interrogated. Based on the multifaceted and social-interactive characteristics of the inquiry-based teaching, four assessment tools are displayed, justified and exemplified for the pedagogical purposes of the science teaching and learning. The assessment tools are gathered from six different groups of scholars’ research efforts. As a whole, the tools are able to assess the quantitative-qualitative student-led outcomes, the students’ capacities of operating inquiry skills and practices, the students’ abilities to attain evidence-based reasoning and the students’ capabilities to generate varying degrees of argumentation. Concrete and fictional instances and potential in-class uses of the offered tools are clarified for the science educators and science teachers.

Key words: Inquiry-based teaching, cognitive outcomes, intellectual contributions