Principal Factors Impacting the Effectiveness of Rural Middle School Teachers’ Practices in Inquiry-learning courses: Investigation and Countermeasures

This study surveyed a random sample of 178 middle school teachers and 212 middle school students, mainly from Chongqing and Yunnan. The survey results revealed the following principal factors impacting the effectiveness of rural middle school teachers’ practices in inquiry-learning courses: a) they do not actively engage in teaching inquiry-learning courses, and their teaching competence is below the bar; b) some teachers are against the idea of offering inquiry-learning courses; c) topics involve few social hot spots and are rarely selected by students. In order to enhance the teaching effectiveness of rural middle school inquiry-learning courses, several strategies could be applied at the same time, including establishing new teaching philosophies, promoting school-based educational research, improving teachers’ teaching techniques regarding inquiry-learning courses, ensuring that the topics selected are related to what students care about, using the correct teaching methods, as well as establishing a school-level microcosmic mechanism to guarantee that inquiry-learning courses are offered on a regular basis.