Teaching sciences by research in the promotion of cognitive skills: a bibliographic review

Abstract

Inquiry-Based Science Teaching (EnCI) is a teaching approach that encourages students to act as protagonists in their learning, using scientific knowledge to solve problems and make decisions. This work, developed in a qualitative approach, aims to analyze the potential of the EnCI in promoting the development of cognitive skills in students, based on a bibliographical review carried out with articles collected in five journals, from 2011 to 2020. To carry out the collection, we used the terms “teaching and investigation* and seq*” and “skills and cognitive”, resulting in 74 articles. After reading the texts, we selected only empirical works that present investigative sequences, obtaining 32 articles. The works were analyzed based on Bardin's content analysis, considering the following categories: specific areas of knowledge, target audience, stages of the investigative sequences, cognitive skills, role of the teacher, and evaluation. The analysis showed that EnCI promotes the development of various cognitive skills; however, characteristics inherent to this approach, such as assessment and teacher attitudes, can be improved to further enhance the development of these skills.