The first thing I needed to before I could start searching was decide on the one question I would like to find out more about. The question I decided to choose was “What skills need to be taught for students to succeed when inquiring?” I felt this question would provide useful information that I could implement in my own classroom to further develop my students inquiry skills.
After deciding on my question, I developed a number of key words that could be useful during my search process. The mindmap below shows the key search terms that I found.
Using these key terms, I then created a list of search terms, including using Boolean operators, and used these to complete a number of searches.
Google Search Results
Using the Boolean operators helped to narrow my searches and to find articles and pages that were more likely to be relevant and useful. Through this process, I modified my research question based on the information that I was finding. I changed my research question to “What skills do students develop during inquiry?” rather than focusing on what skills need to be taught.
Google Scholar Search Results
After my Google search, I then searched the same terms on Google Scholar. Below are the results that it returned.
Whilst Google Scholar provided me with academic papers, it was still difficult to find papers related specifically to the skills students develop through engaging in inquiry learning.
A+ Education
I then continued my search for high quality articles related to my question and used A+ Education. The table below shows my results from this search.
These search terms on this site provided higher quality articles than I found on Google and Google Scholar and included useful information that related to my research question.
Inquiry Learning Journey 