Capturing Urban Middle School Students' Voices on the Use of Science Inquiry in their Classrooms

The present study seeks to explore middle school students’ perception of the kind of science instruction going on in their classrooms and its relevance to their daily lives outside the classroom. Data were collected using a five point Likert type survey instrument that was administered to 262 middle school (Grades 6, 7& 8) students in six middle schools in Southern California. This instrument consisted of demographic information and thirty six statements organized in clusters to elicit responses on a number of statements about students’ 1) their emotional disposition toward science, 2) perception of and understanding of the usefulness of science, and 3) emotional disposition towards science inquiry and their perceptions of their teacher’s use of inquiry-based instruction in their classrooms. Results revealed that generally, students’ percentage responses were low for all the three research questions even though they were high for specific survey statements for the three clusters of survey statements. Suggestions were made for future research on the topic.