Model‐Based Inquiry: Designing for Opportunities to Learn

ABSTRACT Students' opportunity to learn (OTL) is a central theme in recent discussions of educational equity. Building on prior research, we argue that students' effective participation in scientific practices serves as a key indicator for measuring OTL and that model‐based inquiry (MBI) offers an instructional framework to support such participation in K‐12 science classrooms. However, most studies exploring students' experiences with scientific practices rely heavily on qualitative methods, and the lack of robust measures for students' OTL constrains efforts to address educational equity issues. Accordingly, we employed a quasi‐experimental design using the next generation science classrooms questionnaire to examine students' opportunities to engage in scientific practices across MBI and non‐MBI units. The questionnaire captures students' participation across four strands: understanding scientific explanations, generating scientific evidence, reflecting on scientific knowledge, and participating productively in science. The research question is: “To what extent do MBI units offer students an OTL across four strands of science proficiency?” Results indicate that MBI significantly enhances students' OTL, particularly in generating scientific evidence and reflecting on scientific knowledge. These findings demonstrate MBI's potential in promoting students' participation in scientific practices and offer both a framework for equity‐focused curriculum design and an empirical approach for measuring OTL.