Abstract:

Inquiry-based learning reflects students' involvement in acquiring new experience that enables them to change their previous concepts and offer students possibilities to direct classes. It creates the prevailing atmosphere of curiosity and questioning and formats links between cognitive and research processes. Despite the many advantages of inquiry-based learning, recent research has shown that it is relatively rarely included in the daily teaching practice. Among them, we can point out the inconsistency and generality of defining the concept of inquiry-based learning and the lack of guidelines for its integration into teaching, insufficiently developed competence of teachers to organize such teaching, and the extensive nature of curricula. Moreover, assessment, which is usually content-oriented, puts added pressure on teachers to cover the curriculum; thus, this is a hindering factor in implementing inquiry-based learning. This paper presents the research results whose aim was to identify the challenges of implementing inquiry-based teaching in primary grade science. The survey was conducted on a sample of 365 teachers in Croatia. The results show that teachers do not see obstacles to inquiry-based teaching in students` behavior, their working habits, motivation, or discipline but emphasize the material conditions necessary for the design of inquiry-based teaching, the time it takes for its implementation, and insufficient experience in its organization. A negative correlation was found between teachers' beliefs about barriers to implementing inquiry-based teaching and the frequency of their experience of inquiry-based learning in formal education. Also, a negative correlation was found between teachers' attitudes about barriers to implementing inquiry-based learning and the frequency of its application in primary science classes. The challenges and barriers mentioned above teachers need to overcome so that inquiry learning becomes an integral part of their educational practice. It is necessary to create an appropriate receptive atmosphere among teachers, parents, students, and the whole school community towards inquiry-based learning, develop a positive attitude and understanding of that approach by recognizing its multiple benefits, and creating quality teachers` professional development for its successful implementation.

Keywords:

Advantages and disadvantages, challenges, inquiry-based learning, primary grade science, teachers’ beliefs.