A Comparative Study of Inquiry, STEAM, and STEAM-Based Guided Inquiry (GI-STEAM)

This quasi-experimental study investigates the comparative effectiveness of inquiry-based learning, STEAM, and Guided Inquiry-STEAM (GI-STEAM) in fostering elementary students’ creative thinking skills and scientific attitudes. A total of 115 students from public elementary schools in Semarang Regency, Central Java, Indonesia, were given a creative thinking test with five open-ended items and a questionnaire about their scientific attitudes, which comprises 15 statements. Data were analyzed using the Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) to determine the impact of each instructional approach. The results revealed statistically significant differences across the three groups (p < 0.05), with students exposed to GI-STEAM demonstrating superior creative thinking and stronger scientific attitudes compared to those in the inquiry-only and STEAM groups. These findings suggest that integrating guided inquiry into the STEAM framework provides structured opportunities for exploration, problem-solving, and reflection that are not equally emphasized in conventional inquiry or STEAM models. Thus, GI-STEAM adoption in elementary classrooms has great potential to encourage creativity, foster scientific attitudes, and equip students with evidence-based reasoning and innovative thinking skills needed to tackle complex problems.