고교생의 과학적 사고력에 관한 연구-논리적 사고와 추리력을 중심으로-

A Study on Scientific Thinking of Korean High School Students-With Reference to Logical Thinking and Reasoning Power-

The purpose of this study was to investigate the development of logical thinking and scientific reasoning pattern of Korean high school students. To carry out this study subjects were selected about 2,000 Junior high school students, and about 4,100 senior high school students throughout the nation. They were identified as concrete, transitional or formal operational stage with the use of TOLT(the Test of Logical Thinking) by Tobin and Capie(1980), and TOSR(the Test of Scientific Reasoning) by W.A Farmer(1986). This study turned out that more than 76% of Junior high school students were classified as the concrete operational stage and about 44% of senior high school students were classified as the formal operational stage, while about 26% of them were still in the concrete operational level. This study showed that the main factor of the intellectual development of students is learning by the gradual advancement of their grades and especially entrance into the senior high school rather than by the physical growth. This study also showed that there are the take-off stage of the development of logical thinking between fourteen and fifteen years of their ages. Less than 25% of junior high school students were in the formal operational stages which are capable of control of variables, probabilistic, correlation and combinational logic in problem-solving situation, while 33-54% of senior high school students were in the formal operational levels. 38% of junior high school students were in the formal operational stage which is capable of proportional logic, while about 55% of senior high school students were in the formal operational stage. Less than 20% of senior high school students were classified as group of highly capable of scientific reasoning, while more than 23% of them were classified as group of poor capability. It also turned out that there are differences or no differences between male and female students of each school in problem-solving situation regarding each logic approach. These differences were proved to be fluctuating depending on the situations and their grades. The other results of this study is similar to those of other researches such as Tomlinson-Keasey 1972, Coleman 1973, Lawson 1973, Lawson and Renner 1974, Neimark 1975, Han 1982, and Kim 1989.