The case against inquiry-based learning

Writing recently in The Irish Times, William Reville, emeritus professor of biochemistry at University College Cork, stated that newer teaching methods employed in the UK and Ireland are ‘sharply inferior to the older teaching methods they supplanted’. His article highlighted a 30% difference between educational scores in China, where whole-class teaching is employed, and those locally, where child-centred methods are used. 

Going with the flow

Reville referred to the 2006 article (pdf) by Paul Kirschner, John Sweller, and Richard Clark. The authors characterise minimal guidance approaches such as inquiry-based learning with two key features:

1. The assumption that students constructing solutions to authentic problems in information-rich settings results in an effective learning experience.
2. The assumption that knowledge is best acquired in adopting the methods employed by that discipline. 

This is appealing to educators as it is characterised by active and engaged students. Crippen and Brooks summarised this neatly:

‘People often become fully engaged in a task or activity. That is, people often work under conditions where all available working memory energy is applied to the task at hand. This condition has been studied and is called flow ...’

But what is it good for? Michael Seery takes a critical look at inquiry-based learning.