Unit I – Nature of inquiry and research

Inquiry-based learning

Meaning of inquiry

• Learning is your way of obtaining knowledge about your surroundings.

• Inquiry is a learning process that motivates you to obtain knowledge or information

about people, things, places, or events by means of investigating or asking questions.

• Required to collect data, meaning, facts, and information about the object of your
inquiry, and examine such data carefully.

• Execute thinking strategies that range from lower-order to higher-order thinking skills.

• Inquiry is an active learning process.

• You need to probe, investigate, or ask questions to find answers or solutions.

• Inquiry is a problem-solving technique.

• Like scientist, think logically or systematically in seeking evidence to support their

conclusions.

• Imagine, speculate, interpret, criticize, and create something out of what you
discovered.

• Inquiry elevates your thinking power.

• Inquisitive thinking allows you to shift from one level of thought to another.

Solving a problem is a cooperative learning

Governing principles

Foundations of Inquiry

• John Dewey's theory of connected experiences for exploratory and reflective thinking;

• Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of proximal development (ZPD); and

• Jerome Bruner's theory on learner’s varied world perceptions.

Inquiry, as a way of thinking of learning, concerns itself with these elements:

• Changing knowledge;

• Creativity;
 • Subjectivity;

• Socio-cultural factors;

• Sensory experiences; and

• Higher-order thinking

Inquiry Methods

• fieldwork

• case study

• investigation

• individual group project

• research work

• others…

Benefits of inquiry-based learning

1. Elevates interpretative thinking through graphic skills

2. Improves students learning abilities

3. Widens learner’s vocabulary

4. Facilities problem-solving acts

5. Increases social awareness and cultural knowledge

6. Encourages cooperative learning

7. Provides mastery of procedural knowledge

8. Encourages higher-order thinking strategies

9. Hastens conceptual understanding

Unit II – Nature of research

RESEARCH IN CONTEXT

• Research is a process of executing various mental acts for discovering and examining facts and
information to prove the accuracy or truthfulness of your claims or conclusions about the topic
of your research.
 • Research requires you to inquire or investigate about your chosen research topic by asking
questions that will make you engage yourself on top-level thinking strategies of interpreting,
analyzing, synthesizing, criticizing appreciating, or creating to enable you to discover truths
about the many things you tend to wonder about the topic of your research work. (Litchman
2013)

• Research is analogous to inquiry, in that, both involve investigation of something through

questioning. However, the meaning of research is more complicated than inquiry because it
does not center mainly on raising questions about the topic, but also on carrying out a particular
order of research stages. Each stage of the research process is not an individual task because the
knowledge you obtain through each stage comes not only from yourself but other people as
well. Thus similarly to inquiry, research involves cooperative learning.

• Central to research is your way of discovering new knowledge, applying knowledge in various
ways as well as seeing relationships of ideas, events, and situations. Research then puts you in a
context where a problem exists. You have to collect facts or information, study such data, and
come up with a solution to the problem based on the results of your analysis. It is a process
requiring you to work logically or systematically and collaboratively with others.

Characteristics of Research

1. Accuracy. It must give correct or accurate date, which the footnotes, notes, and bibliographical
entries should honestly and appropriately documented or acknowledged.

2. Objectiveness. It must deal with facts, not with mere opinions arising from assumptions,
generalizations, or conclusions.

3. Timeliness. It must work on a topic that is fresh, new, and interesting to the present society.

4. Relevance. Its topic must be instrumental in improving society or in solving problems affecting the
lives of people in a community.

5. Clarity. It must succeed in expressing its central point or discoveries by using simple, direct, concise,
and correct language.

6. Systematic. It must take place in an organized or orderly manner

PURPOSES of Research

1. To learn how to work independently

2. To learn how to work scientifically or systematically

3. To have an in-depth knowledge of something

4. To elevate your mental abilities by letting you think in higher-order thinking strategies (HOTS) of
inferring, evaluating, synthesizing, appreciating, applying, and creating.
5. To improve your reading and writing skills

6. To be familiar with the basic tools of research and the various techniques of gathering data and
of presenting research findings

7. To free yourself, to a certain extent, from the domination or strong influence of a single
textbook or of the professor’s lone viewpoint or spoon feeding

Types of Research

1. Based on Application of Research Method

Is the research applied to theoretical or practical issues? If it deals with concepts, Principles, or
abstract things, it is pure research. This type of research aims to increase your knowledge about
something. However, if your intension is to apply your chosen research to social problems or issues,
finding ways to make positive changes in society, you call your research, applied research.

2. Based on Purpose of the Research

  Descriptive Research- This type of research aims at defining or giving a verbal portrayal
or picture of a person, thing, event, group, situation, etc. This is liable to repeated research because its
topic relates itself only to a certain period or a limited number of years. Based on the results of your
descriptive studies about a subject, you develop the inclination of conducting further studies such
topics.

Correlational Research- A correlational research shows relationships or connectedness

of two factors, circumstances or agents called variables that affect the research. It is only concerned in
indicating the existence of a relationship not the causes and ways of the development of such
relationship.

Explanatory Research- An explanatory research’s purpose is to find out how reasonable

or possible it is to conduct a research study on a certain topic. Here, you will discover ideas on topics
that could trigger your interest in conducting research studies.

Action Research- This type of research studies an ongoing practice of a school,

organization, community, or institutions for the purpose of obtaining results that will bring
improvements in the system.

3. Based on Types of Data Needed

Qualitative Research - requires non-numerical data, which means that the research uses words
rather than numbers to express the results, the inquiry or the investigations about people’s thought,
beliefs, feelings, views, and lifestyles regarding the object of the study. These opinionated answers from
people are not measurable; so, verbal language is the right way to express your findings in a qualitative
research.
 Quantitative research - involves measurement of data, thus, it represents research findings
referring to the number or frequency of something in numerical forms (i.e., using percentages, fractions,
numbers).

Approaches to Research

• scientific or positive approach - in which you discover and measure information as well as
observe and control variables in an impersonal manner. It allows control of variables.

• naturalistic approach – in contrast to the scientific approach that uses numbers to express data,
the naturalistic approach uses words. This research approach directs you to deal with qualitative
data that speak of how people behave toward their surroundings.

• triangulation approach - Triangulation approach gives you the opportunity to view every angle
of the research from different perspective. (Blake 2012; Silverman 2013)