A MODEL FOR THE ANALYSIS OF INQUIRY

Publisher Summary Inquiry has been variously described as an attitude, a state of mind, a way of learning, a process of investigation, an uncovering, and a search for the truth. Such descriptions serve to characterize phenomena only as they appear on the surface. To understand inquiry requires a look, however speculative, beneath the surface at the elements of the human condition and human functioning that play a role in the course of inquiry. This chapter presents a model to provide a theoretical framework for the analysis of the behavior of inquirers. The model evolved through 7 years of research into the inquiry process as it is manifested by intermediate-grade children. This work was done at the University of Illinois with the outside support of the U.S. Office of Education. The initial purpose was to identify the necessary and sufficient conditions for stimulating and supporting inquiry in the elementary classroom and to develop methods and materials for creating these conditions. In time, the center of focus shifted toward the nature of the inquiry process itself, particularly the major psychological dimensions related to the processes of perception, motivation, storage and retrieval, overt action, and the family of intervening functions loosely categorized as thinking or information processing.