# Operational definition of Open Inquiry

“Open inquiry in bachelor’s lab courses requires students to complete an entire, authentic scientific research or design process, coached in their work by teachers.”

In the following pages, we detail this definition to paint the full picture of what we think open inquiry in bachelor students’ lab courses entails.

All materials for each of the courses has been place online in Edusources. You will find the studentmaterial, teacher guide, study guide information, assessment rubrics and so on, on this platform.

The main student learning goals of the courses were (subject related content aside):

- Empiric cycle
  - From literature research to own data and conclusions
  - Not directly graded in rubrics, but implicit part of the process
- Research skills
  - Identifying relevant sources of information (literature/stakeholders/whatever is on the internet)
  - Discriminating the reliability and relevance of the given information and its context (develop a critical attitude towards information)
  - Motivating scientific choices made
  - Designing a relevant research question and hypothesis based on the information, context, and constraints.
  - Developing an experimental design (measurement and analysis plan) that answers the research question
  - Critically assessing and reflecting on own results in light of the experimental and scientific context (how to get trustworthy results)
- Research communication
  - Presenting own research (data) in a structured and accessible manner both in written and oral formats