Abstract
Inquiry or inquiry-based education has been a buzzword not only on conferences, but also in journal papers. Despite this educational approach is not new, authors' interest in this topic has been growing especially after 2005.
Only within science education, a search on the Web of Science gave more than 8500 results. Over 4500 contained evaluation of its effectiveness.
In this study, the authors focused on meta-analyses which studied the effect of inquiry-based education. The results show a considerable lack of papers reporting the effect of inquiry-based education on K-12 students.
Despite expectations, many studies report the biggest effect of inquiry-based education on students' academic achievement, although in science process skills and attitudes the reported effect-sizes also show a large effect. One study compared actual elements such as heuristics, scaffolds, explanations etc. with respect to learning activities, performance success and learning outcomes.
Similarly to another study, the role of a teacher's explanations, guidance and other forms of direct scaffolding seems inevitable.