The Relationship between Level of Inquiry Skills and Logical Thinking Abilities among Tenth Grade Omani Students

The study aimed at investigating the relationship between Omani 10th grade students' level of the inquiry skills, and their logical thinking abilities as well as the differences among students due to Gender. The sample of the study comprised of (182) grade ten students selected randomly from two Basic Education schools in Muscat Educational Region in the Sultanate of Oman. The data was collected by an Inquiry Skills Test (IST) and Logical Thinking Test (LTT). The tests were carefully and appropriately checked for validity and reliability. The results showed that the level of students' performance in both tests was very low. Also, there was significant difference in some of the inquiry skills due to students’ gender in favor of females in designing activities and experiments and in favor of males in the interpretation skill . As for the logical thinking abilities, the study showed significant differences between students in favor of male students. In addition the findings reveal positive correlation between students' level of the inquiry skills, and their logical thinking abilities.  In the light of the above results, some recommendations and suggestions are proposed.  Teachers should use different types of inquiry in order to improve their students' inquiry skills which lead to reflecting on their logical thinking skills. In addition, science teachers should train their students to practice logical thinking skills by exposing them to the situations that require employing different types of thinking and solving the problems.