The two last years of the project are dedicated to the development of an isntructional model for online inquiry competences (Aroni1), and to the intervention study analysing the potential benefits of the model (Aroni2).
Development of an instructional model for online inquiry competences (ARONI1)
The development of the instructional model for teaching online inquiry competences will be based on the various pedagogical approaches the expertise of which the different research teams of the consortium possess: Information Search Process (ISP) model, and Guided Inquiry (GI) framework (UTA team); Online research and comprehension, and Learning through argumentation (JYU team); Trialogical approach to learning (HU team).
Further, the development of the model will be strongly informed by empirical research results gained during the first two project years. These research results will concern students’ main strengths and deficiencies during the argumentative online inquiry process, their everyday information and media practices as well as students’ ways to approach online inquiry tasks and explorative searching. Further, research knowledge on the prevailing pedagogical practices, both the best and problematic ones, that teachers currently use to promote students’ learning of knowledge work practices, as well as results on what kind of knowledge work competences students currently report to learn will inform the pedagogical development work.
The instructional model will be developed in constant collaboration with teachers. A series of seminars will be organized in which both the collaborating teachers and international experts will be invited. In the seminars both the pedagogical approaches and research results will be presented and ways to utilize them in the development of the instructional model will be discussed.
Intervention study (ARONI2)
In the intervention study the effectiveness of the developed instructional model for online inquiry competences (ARONI1) will be tested by employing a quasi-experimental research design. The students in the experimental group will engage in lessons organised by using the developed instructional model. The level of the students’ online inquiry competences will be measured with the pretest before the experiment and again with a posttest after the experiment. A counterbalanced design will be used to control the effect of the task topic. The comparison group will participate in the same curriculum-based course and take the same pre- and post-tests as the experimental group, but they will engage in regular teaching.
Nine teachers from nine upper secondary schools in Finland, three schools for each research team, will be recruited in the project. Each teacher will integrate the teaching experiment into the same curriculum-based course. Each of these teachers will teach two groups, one experimental group and one control group. Altogether, 480 upper secondary school students will participate in the study. In addition to the pre- and post-test measurements, the lessons in which the developed instructional model is used will be observed and evaluated. Further, students will fill in questionnaires, and teachers will be interviewed after the experiment. Students’ strategies in explorative searching are investigated through the analysis of stored search logs and students’ post-interviews.