When students are conducting their research project as part of their studies, they can be better prepared for the societal and professional challenges of the future. This study contributes to the research of the inquirer identity by elaborating a model for the assessment of student-inquirer identity skills in light of the development of a master thesis in an education-related field in an online university. The model presents student-inquirer identity as a dynamic multiplicity of ten skills related to the five phases of the practice of inquiry (search and focus, understand and explore, design and implement, interpret/evaluate and reflect, write and present). Based on the model, a questionnaire that measures students’ inquiry skills during the development of the master thesis was constructed. The questionnaire is comprised of ten sub-scales with 42 Likert-type items in total. 154 students of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya responded to the questionnaire. Findings revealed that, overall, online students develop inquiry skills to a moderate extent while conducting their master thesis.

1. The Student-Inquirer Identity
During the Master Thesis in
an Online University
Angelos Konstantinidis
email: angelntini@uoc.edu
Twitter: @angelntini
Blog: http://angelos.ict4all.gr/
Antoni Badia
email: tbadia@uoc.edu
Twitter: @tbadia_edu
EDEN 2020 Virtual Conference, 21-24 June 2020
Human and artificial intelligence for the society of the future
Inspiring digital education for the next STE(A)M student generationWith the support of a doctoral grant from the UOC

2. Contents
Problem context
Study aims
Construction of the model
Construction of the questionnaire
Sample
Results
Conclusions

3. Why focus on the student-inquirer identity?
The last decade many tech-related trends increased the saturation
of technologies in our daily life and raised concerns as regards their
(mis)use
Developing an inquirer identity to
students and teachers has been
recognized fundamental for the
society and school of the future
Professionals upon graduating from the university must have the
skills, attitudes, and stances that will enable them to address the
challenges of the digital world

4. Study Aims
01 02 03
Contribute to the research
towards the development of a
well-structured definition of the
notion of inquirer identity, applied
to both students and teachers
This study focuses on one
component of the student-
inquirer identity, the skills that
students develop while doing
their master thesis and
elaborates a model and a
questionnaire for assessing this
component
Identify and characterise the
identity components related to
inquiry and categorise clusters of
teachers which show different
ways of positioning

5. Construction of the Student-Inquirer Identity Model
The structure of the student-inquirer model is based on the teacher-inquirer identity model
(Konstantinidis and Badia, 2019) which was adapted to the ways students conduct inquiry during their
master thesis
Inquiry Phase Skills
Search and Focus Searching for potential topics to develop the thesis
Focusing on a particular topic to develop the thesis
Understand and Explore Building knowledge and understanding on the topic
Exploring what other people know about the topic
Design and Implement Designing a thesis on the topic
Implementing the research project/collecting and analysing data
Interpret/Evaluate and Reflect Interpreting the results and evaluating the research project
Reflecting on the process and outcomes
Write and Present Writing the thesis
Presenting the thesis to the committee

6. Construction of the questionnaire
The final questionnaire is comprised of ten sub-scales (each sub-scale corresponds to a sub-identity of
the inquirer teacher identity), with 42 Likert-type items in total
The response Likert scale ranged from 1 to 5 (not at all, to a small extent, to some extent, to a moderate
extent, to a great extent)
First stage
Creation of
the
question
items
Second stage
Review of
the question
items
Third stage
Questionnaire
development

7. Context and Sample
The questionnaire sent to six
cohorts of students (N=1239) of
three postgraduate programmes
(education and ICT,
psychopedagogy, and learning
difficulties) who attended the
master thesis project at the
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
during academic years 2019-
2020 154 students responded to the questionnaire
12.4%

8. Sample characteristics
Age Working experienceCurrent work
English language Type of thesisExperience in research
48%
33%
19%
nursery-primary-
secondary
school
education-
related position
not working
7%
36%
25%
32%
no work
<5
5 to 10
>10
36%
16%
43%
5%
empirical work
educational
intervention
Professionaliza
tion
Other
15%
15%
7%63%
no
some
sufficient
thesis
17%
40%
43%
elementary
intermediate
advanced
38%
40%
14%
8% 21-30
31-40
41-50
51-60

9. Results
Inquiry skills Example of question item Mean (SD)
Search and
Focus
Searching for potential topics to develop the thesis 4.16 (0.67)
Focusing on a particular topic to develop the thesis 4.07 (0.69)
Understand and
Explore
Building knowledge and understanding on the topic 4.17 (0.68)
Exploring what other people know about the topic 2.99 (1.13)
Design and
Implement
Designing a thesis on the topic 4.00 (0.83)
Implementing the research project/collecting and analysing data 3.97 (0.96)
Interpret/Evaluate
and Reflect
Interpreting the results and evaluating the research project 4.17 (0.70)
Reflecting on the process and outcomes 3.97 (0.82)
Write and
Present
Writing the thesis 4.22 (0.76)
Presenting the thesis to the committee 4.32 (0.79)
Response scale: 1-5 (not at all, to a small extent, to some extent, to a moderate extent, to a great extent)

10. Conclusions
The design of the student-inquirer identity model
12.4%The model is founded on
sound theories and it can
assist in the
conceptualisation of the
student-inquirer identity
The results of the
questionnaire
corroborate to a
considerable extent the
validity of our model
the questionnaire largely
ignores the inquiry context
and students’ personal
characteristics

11. Conclusions
Students’ inquiry skills while conducting their thesis
12.4%
moderate extent
Searching, Focusing
Understanding,
Designing, Implementing
Interpreting and
evaluating, Reflecting
Writing and Presenting
when students conduct their master thesis, they
develop inquiry skills to some or moderate extent
some extent
Exploring
whether or why students
develop some inquiry skills
more than others?
how this might affect
their student-inquirer
identity?

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