Vol. 12, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2001

Advocates of inquiry-based science are convinced that this approach produces greater student achievement in science, and possibly in other areas of the curriculum, when compared with the textbook approach to science. To date, however, they’ve lacked the hard evidence needed to back up these beliefs.

Such evidence is now beginning to emerge. One convincing source may be found in a four-year summary report written by the Valle Imperial Project in Science (VIPS), a National Science Foundation-funded Local Systemic Initiative in Imperial County, California.* Students enrolled in the program have been shown to perform much better than nonparticipating peers on the Science Section of the Stanford Achievement Test. VIPS students also have far higher pass rates on district writing tests than do non-VIPS students.Overview

Imperial County is in southeast California, along the U.S.–Mexico border. Most residents live in poverty; the mean per capita income in the county in 1997 was $16,322. The unemployment rate in 1998 was 34%. Of the 22,500 K–6 students in the Imperial Valley, 81% are Hispanic, 11% Caucasian, 5% African American, and 1% each Asian and Native American.

VIPS began as a partnership between the 14 Imperial County school districts and San Diego State University, Imperial Valley Campus. It had been preceded by a three-year pilot effort by the El Centro Elementary School District that had established three pilot schools and a materials center, and developed a cadre of lead teachers. The inquiry-based science program that developed out of this pilot effort was based on the five elements that the National Science Resources Center (NSRC) cites as essential to effective science education reform: high-quality curricula, sustained professional development, materials support, community and administrative support, and assessment.

VIPS uses a mix of hands-on, research-based elementary science curricula, including the NSRC’s Science and Technology for Children®. Students in grades 1 through 6 are exposed to four units per year; kindergarten students study three units. Professional development is the core of the VIPS program: All teachers get a minimum of 100 hours of professional development training, as well as in-room support from resource teachers. The teachers meet in grade-level groups to discuss and reflect on their teaching practices. Schools share a materials support center.Assessing student achievement

In 1999, the Board of Trustees of the El Centro School District asked staff about the effectiveness of the kit-based approach to teaching science. The trustees were also interested in learning whether student achievement in other areas of the curriculum was affected by the hands-on approach to teaching science. No data were available to respond to the trustees’ questions.

Rising to the occasion, district staff developed a plan to collect the needed data during the district’s "testing season" in spring 1999. The plan centered on analyzing fourth- and sixth-graders’ performance on the Science Section of the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), 9th edition, Form T. This test had been adopted by the California State Board of Education in 1997 for use statewide to measure achievement in basic academic skills. The Science Section of the SAT is constructed to mirror the inquiry-centered approach to science; it emphasizes unifying theory and concepts. Because cumulative records are stored electronically in the district, the staff had access to students’ test scores from past years.

Student notebooks are a key part of the VIPS science program, so staff also wanted to determine whether students’ progress in writing was affected by their participation in the hands-on science program. For this purpose, staff used the Sixth-Grade District Writing Proficiency results from spring 1999.Results

Scores of fourth- and sixth-grade students who had taken the Science Section of the SAT were analyzed. Scores from students who had participated in VIPS continuously for the past four years were separated from those of students who had not. Scores were further disaggregated on the basis of the number of years students had been in the program.

The cumulative national percentile rankings (NPRs) of the 630 fourth-graders whose scores were analyzed was 36; and the cumulative NPR of 638 sixth-graders was 40. The NPRs for fourth- and sixth-graders who had participated in the program were 43 and 49, respectively; the NPRs for nonparticipants in these two grades were 25 and 31, respectively. Additional analysis showed a strong positive relationship between a higher NPR and the number of years of participation in the program. For example, the NPR of sixth-graders who had participated in the program for one year was 32; for those who had participated for three years, it was 50. Rankings of fourth-graders ranged from 32 after one year of participation to 53 after four years.

Writing scores of sixth-graders who participated in the VIPS were significantly higher than scores of nonparticipants. The cumulative pass rate on the Sixth Grade District Writing Proficiency Test was 64% in spring 1999. For students who had participated in VIPS, the pass rate was 82%; for nonparticipants it was just half that high—41%. When data were broken down by the number of years of VIPS participation, results showed that the longer the student participated, the higher the likelihood that he or she would pass the writing proficiency test. Pass rates ranged from 23% for students who had participated one year to 89% for those who had been in VIPS for four years.Next steps

Mike Klentschy, superintendent of the El Centro School District and the guiding force behind VIPS, reports that parents, teachers, students, and the community are all tremendously encouraged by the VIPS program. The data indicate a clear association between the number of years of participation in inquiry science and strong scores in science as well as improvements in writing. The study will be replicated over the next several years, and new cohorts of students will be examined; more longitudinal data on current students will also be collected. Staff hope that these studies will help them refine their program and contribute to the growing body of evidence documenting the effectiveness of inquiry-based science in the elementary grades.

*This article is drawn from a report entitled "Valle Imperial Project in Science (VIPS): Four-Year Comparison of Student Achievement Data, 1995–1999," by Michael Klentschy, Leslie Garrison, and Olga Maia Amaral, of the El Centro School District.