The Investigation on the Observation Ability of Elementary School Student about the Grasshopper(Oxya chinesis)

메뚜기를 이용한 초등학교 학생들의 관찰 능력 조사

The enhancement of inquiry skills has been emphasized as a important objective of science education for a long time. Of these, the observation is not only a simple and basic skill, but also a very important skill, in aspect of gathering informations about the nature of all things around us, through interaction between the sense organs of body and objectives. The purpose of this study is to investigate the results of observations about the grasshopper(Oxya chinesis), made by the elementary student from the 3rd to the 6th grade, and to make use of them as the basic materials for the observative teaming and the evaluation of the observation ability. Through this study, the collected items of observation are as follows For grasshopper, a total of observation items is 95, 70 using the sight sense, 13 using the tactile sense,7 using the olfactory sense. 3 using the palate sense and 2 using the auditory sense. In this study, the findings of elementary student's observation are as follows. 1. On the whole, most of students have observed mainly by the sight and the tactile sense, when observing the grasshopper. 2. It is showed a tendency that the observation ability of student is increased with the higher grade in elementary school. 3. As the grade ascends. the observations with operating are increased, also the quantitative expression and interpretation about them are increased. 4. In the case of same grade, there is no significant difference between students' gender, though girls' ability of the observation showed somewhat higher than boys' 5. Occasionally, the interpretations on the observative facts made by student, are inaccurate. Basis on the above results, we suggested some directions for the improvement of the observative learning program in science classroom of elementary school. First, the teacher have to serve as a guide and encouragement in the observative learning class, to be accomplished the various observation, which all the sensory organ can be used by student than the sight sense. Second, to get elevated the ability of observation, it is necessary that some experimental tools(magnifying lens, stereoscope, auxiliary implements etc.) are utilized. Third, the teacher have to make often endeavors showing an example of operation, to be activated the atmosphere of operative observation.