Children’s scientific question asking – an initial scoping of academic literature

The Primary Science National Curriculum for
England requires children to be able to ask and
investigate scientific questions. As questioning is
a foundational habit of mind of scientists, we set
out to scope the academic literature that
addresses the nature of children’s scientific
question-asking and to identify routines for
teaching and learning exemplified within them,
as the basis for a 2-year research and
development project (QuSmart). A six-stage
method was developed to involve researchers,
professional development leaders and teachers in
order to select four principle papers for the
project. This paper describes this method and
presents a review of these principle papers,
drawing out key points that relate to the study
aims. This initial scoping of academic literature
illustrates that there is a lack of contemporary
academic research published in this field and that
few routines for children to learn how to ask and
build scientific questions are identified.