Inquiring about the inquiry laboratories in Chemistry
within Arab high schools in Israel
Iyad M. Dkeidek
Advisors: Prof. Avi Hofstein and Dr. Rachel Mamlok-Naaman
Department of Science Teaching, The Weizmann Institute of Science
Learning by inquiry plays an important role during the last years and is considered to
be an important element in scientific literacy. Generally, the laboratory is integrated
into chemistry education in order to improve students' learning ability and also to vary
teaching methods. Combining inquiry experiments in the chemistry curriculum for
high-school students gives students opportunities, besides the pleasure that they feel
when dealing with materials, to develop research skills such as asking questions,
making predictions, designing experiments, collecting data, and drawing conclusions.
The inquiry laboratory enables students to learn actively. In order to realize this goal,
students have to examine their knowledge and rebuild it again during discussions with
their peers in the working group.
The inquiry-type laboratory in chemistry is rapidly spreading within Arab high
schools in Israel. During the last year about 20% of Arab high schools taught the
inquiry laboratory.
Many studies have been conducted in order to study the differences in educational
systems, if there are any, between Arab and Jewish sectors in Israel. Nearly all of
them found that generally there are gaps between the two sectors, whether in the
overall system or in the students themselves. The majority of the researchers found
gaps because of culture and social reasons, such as respect for the teacher, and feeling
shame from others (see for example Tamir & Caridin, 1993).
Many previous research studies in the Jewish sector found that inquiry laboratory
enables a better learning environment than the traditional one. The main objective of
this research is to determine whether this kind of laboratory in the Arab sector brings
about the same goals as in Jewish sector, i.e. are the learning environments similar
and does Arab students perceive and behave similarly in the inquiry laboratory
learning environment? In other words is inquiry laboratory in chemistry culture
dependent or not?
Objectives and the Research Questions:
The main goal of the study is to investigate parameters of the inquiry-type laboratory
in chemistry within Arab sector in Israel and then to compare them with Jewish sector.
This is in order to know whether this approach is a culture-dependent tactic or not.

Do Arab students who learned chemistry laboratory by inquiry perceive the
laboratory learning environment differently from those who learned it by noninquiry methods? And is there are differences between Arab and Jewish
perception of the laboratory learning environment?

Is their a difference between students' actual and preferred perception of the
laboratory learning environment among those who learned by the inquiry
laboratory method in the Arab sector and is this difference found in non-inquiry
students' perceptions?

Is there a difference between the attitudes of students who learned by the inquiry
laboratory method and those who are not Arab students? And is there are
differences between attitudes of Arab and Jewish students?

Do Arab students who learned by inquiry-type laboratories have the ability to
ask more and better (from cognitive point of view) questions than those who did
not, and is this ability is subject-dependent? And is there are differences
between Arab and Jewish students’ ability?

Is the inquiry laboratory approach in chemistry, culture dependent or not?
Methodologies:
In this research study both quantitative and qualitative methods will be used.
Quantitative methods will enable us to identify effects, whereas qualitative methods
will be helpful in understanding these effects.
Research tools: These consist of questionnaires, interviews with students, teachers,
directors, and inspectors from the Arab sector, and questionnaires based on critical
reading of modified scientific articles and practical tests based on novel inquiry-type
experiments.
References:
Tamir, P., & Caridin, H. (1993). Characteristics of the learning environment in Biology and Chemistry
classes as perceived by Jewish and Arab high school students in Israel. Research in Science and
Technological Education, 11(1), 5-14.