Relationships among informal learning environments, teaching procedures and scientific reasoning ability

Informal learning experiences have risen to the forefront of science educat ion as being beneficial to students' learning. However, it is not clear in what ways such experiences may be beneficial to students; nor how informal learning experiences may interface with classroom science instruction. This study aims to acquire a better understanding of these issues by investigat ing one aspect of science learning, scientific reasoning ability, with resp ect to the students' informal learning experiences and classroom science in struction. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to investigate possi ble differences in students' scientific reasoning abilities relative to the ir informal learning environments (impoverished, enriched), classroom teach ing experiences (non-inquiry, inquiry) and the interaction of these variabl es. The results of two-way ANOVAs indicated that informal learning environm ents and classroom science teaching procedures showed significant main effe cts on students' scientific reasoning abilities. Students with enriched inf ormal learning environments had significantly higher scientific reasoning a bilities compared to those with impoverished informal learning environments . Likewise, students in inquiry-based science classrooms showed higher scie ntific reasoning abilities compared to those in non-inquiry science classro oms. There were no significant interaction effects. These results indicate the need for increased emphases on both informal learning opportunities and inquiry-based instruction in science.