Physical sciences teachers in low-quintile South African schools avoid the use of inquiry on the grounds of inefficiency and ineffectiveness for test preparation. This avoidance is consistent with the view that the high cognitive load inquiry offers to extreme novices such as these learners may be prohibitive. Given the purported benefits of inquiry, this situation seems lamentable, but until empirical evidence is found to the contrary, the applicability of inquiry in this context appears an impractical ideal. In this study I begin the search for evidence of benefits of inquiry for the education of learners from such backgrounds, albeit within an educational setting atypical of the context. I investigate the effectiveness of a week-long inquiry holiday programme for 26 Grade 8 and 9 learners from low-quintile schools and the predictive value of their Natural Sciences marks for success in the programme. The findings show statistically significant learning gains from pre- to post-test scores and pre- to delayed post-test scores, as well as strong correlations between the learners’ Natural Sciences marks and the post-test scores. This shows that holiday inquiry programmes can be effective at promoting learning, measured by test-performance, even for learners with backgrounds of underprivilege, at least among higher achieving learners.

中文翻译：

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一项针对南非低五分位学习者8年级和9年级学生科学学习的课外探究计划的功效

南非低五分之一学校的物理科学教师避免以考试效率低下和无效为由使用查询。这种避免与这样的观点是一致的，即高认知负荷探究提供给极端的新手，例如这些学习者可能是禁止的。考虑到调查的好处，这种情况似乎可悲，但是直到找到相反的经验证据，在这种情况下调查的适用性才显得不切实际。在这项研究中，我开始从这样的背景中寻找探究对学习者教育的好处的证据，尽管这是在非典型背景下进行的。我调查了为期一周的低收入学校26名8年级和9年级学生的假期咨询计划的有效性，以及他们的自然科学对该计划成功的预测价值。研究结果表明，从测试前到测试后的分数以及从测试前到延迟的测试后的分数，统计学上都有显着的学习收益，而且学习者的自然科学成绩与测试后的分数之间也具有很强的相关性。这表明，假期询问计划可以有效地促进以考试成绩衡量的学习，即使是对于弱势群体背景的学习者，至少对于成绩较高的学习者而言。以及学习者的自然科学成绩与测验成绩之间的强相关性。这表明，假日探究计划可以有效地促进以考试成绩衡量的学习，即使对于具有弱势背景的学习者，至少对于成绩较高的学习者而言也是如此。以及学习者的自然科学成绩与测验成绩之间的强相关性。这表明，假期询问计划可以有效地促进以考试成绩衡量的学习，即使是对于弱势群体背景的学习者，至少对于成绩较高的学习者而言。