Preservice biology teachers’ readiness to teach inquiry lessons: A reflective analysis from microteaching class

It is a necessity in biology classroom to conduct inquiry in order to improve students’ scientific knowledge, scientific process, and scientific attitude. Therefore, preservice biology teachers (PBT) need to enhance their ability in teaching inquiry lesson. The aspects of guiding inquiry lesson of PBT need to be assessed to identify which areas need improvement, in order to provide suggestions and enhance the quality of their teaching. While preservice teachers demonstrate adequate skills in facilitating inquiry-based learning, the specific quality of each teaching aspect within that inquiry process remains unclear. The purpose of this research is to determine PBTs’ skill to teach inquiry lesson through individual practice in microteaching classes. This research is a qualitative descriptive study with quantitative interpretation. Nineteen (19) PBTs in the 5th semester were involved as the sample. Data were collected using observation sheets and questionnaires. This research involved two microteaching lecturers as observers. The results show that PBTs’ skill in their ability to interpret experiments’ data is not evenly possessed. This suggests that students are already capable of procedurally leading inquiry, while the majority of PBTs are unable to use their biological knowledge and skills to find patterns in interpreting experimental data. This can be a recommendation for educational institutions to make inquiry as an obligatory activity in their curriculum, and they should train PBTs in guiding inquiry through microteaching.