The term scientific inquiry, as manifested in different educational settings, covers a wide range of diverse activities. The differences in types of scientific inquiry can be organized along a continuum according to the degree of teacher control and intellectual sophistication involved in each type of inquiry. Types of scientific inquiry can also be defined according to whether they produce cultural knowledge or personal knowledge. Authentic scientific inquiry is defined according to five characteristics: development of personal and cultural knowledge; contextualized scientific knowledge; the progression toward high-order problem solving; social interaction for scientific goals; and scientific inquiry as a multi-stage and multi-representational process. The definition of scientific inquiry that forms the basis for the development of an assessment program consists of a two-part analytical frame.