Relationship between Intelligence and Scientific Inquiry Skills among Secondary School Students

Robert Sternberg defines intelligence as "the mental abilities necessary for adaptation to, as well as shaping and selection of, any environmental context (1997, p. 1) .In today?s world of rapid change, along with sufficient intelligence, one has to acquire life skills also to meet the challenges of day to day life. Scientific Inquiry skills can help the learners to meet the challenges in their learning process. The term ?Inquiry Skills? as applied to science stands for the intellectual skills needed for conducting scientific investigation attained by the student as a result or consequence of learning science. Hence Science teaching and learning in the classroom should be able to develop Scientific Inquiry Skills among students. The major objective of the study is to find out the relationship between Intelligence and Scientific Inquiry Skills .among secondary school students of Kerala state. The study adopted survey method. The study showed that there is significant relationship between Intelligence and Scientific Inquiry Skills .among secondary school students of Kerala state. Studies by Fraser, J.B (1981); Padilla (1983) & Tobin (1986) revealed strong correlation between acquisition of Inquiry Skills and achievement in science. The categories of scientific inquiry skills selected for the study are Observing, Sensing the problem, Classifying, Hypothesizing, Designing experiment and Inferring. This study revealed the fact that school curriculum should provide provisions to develop Scientific Inquiry Skills among students especially children belonging to secondary stage as it is the stage of full of energy and enthusiasm.