Conceptions about experimentation at the German youth science fair "Jugend forscht"

Scientific inquiry is increasingly addressed in science classroom practice and it remains a prominent domain of research in science education. One main goal of the German youth science fair Jugend forscht is to promote scientific thinking and inquiry methods such as experimentation. This paper is based on a qualitative study, in which 57 adolescent participants of the competition were interviewed. It depicts the development of students' conceptions about experimentation and deduces associated learning pathways from conceptual changes. Five different dimensions of learning were found in which learning processes arose. These are procedure, purpose, materials, control, and time. The detected conceptual changes of the students were traced back to (1) working very close to the real scientific path of knowledge and (2) reflecting the own project due to communication processes during the competition. As a conclusion, a stronger emphasis on open outcome experiments also at school is recommended.