Prospective elementary teachers' abilities in tackling a contextualized physics problem as guided inquiry

Abstract This article presents a qualitative study, with a descriptive and interpretative nature, of the abilities of prospective elementary teachers (PETs) to solve a contextualized problem of physics through a process of guided inquiry. Specifically, an analysis was made of the PETs' abilities to (a) formulate hypotheses; (b) plan inquiry procedures aimed at testing hypotheses; and (c) draw conclusions from the inquiry (i.e., interpret experimental data to accept or reject their hypotheses, and recognize the limitations of the inquiry that they had conducted). The study participants were 17 ...