Investigations and learning outcomes

Where students are being asked to undertake an investigation, the teacher should think about the learning outcomes he or she wants to achieve from the investigation. Sometimes it is not necessary for students to conduct the whole investigation from the planning stage through to the conclusion.

Depending on what the teacher wants to achieve, he or she may start or stop the investigation at different stages. For example:

• planning and evaluation of the plan
• carrying out the final plan
• collecting and analysing data (in terms of validity and interpreting its meaning)
• drawing conclusions (in terms of the validity of the investigation and the science that has been learnt from doing it).

Sometimes the teacher will use part of an investigation to enable the students to learn and practise new skills (both practical and enquiry skills); at other times, when the skills are familiar, the teacher may introduce an investigation to allow students to have an opportunity to explore and develop their understanding of a scientific concept, to see if they can offer their own explanation.

Occasionally, the teacher might suggest a number of alternative explanations, and through investigation the students derive a view of which explanation best fits the evidence they have collected.