“Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” for seamless science inquiry in a primary school

• BYOD combined with appropriate pedagogy contributed to students' learning.
• Students perceived the seamless inquiry-based learning experiences positively.
• The artifact tracking approach sheds light on examining seamless learning.

This paper reports a one-year study on the project of “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) for seamless science inquiry” in a primary school in Hong Kong. BYOD in this study refers to “the technology model where students bring a personally owned mobile device with various apps and embedded features to use anywhere, anytime for the purpose of learning”. The study aims at investigating (a) what advancement of content knowledge students made in their science inquiry in a seamless learning environment supported by their own mobile device; (b) how the students advanced their content knowledge in science inquiry; and (c) what students' perception is regarding their learning experience supported by their own mobile devices. The topic of inquiry was “The Anatomy of Fish”. Data collection included pre- and post-domain tests, self-reported questionnaire, student artifacts, class observations and field notes. Content analysis and a student artifact tracing approach were adopted in the data analysis to examine and trace students' knowledge advancement. The research findings show that the students advanced their understanding of the anatomy of fish well beyond what was available in the textbook and they developed positive attitude toward seamless science inquiry supported by their own mobile devices.