Analysis of the Elementary School Students' Views about Lab-based Science Learning

과학 실험 수업에 대한 초등학생들의 인식 분석

  • Published : 2008.05.31

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the elementary students' views about lab-based science learning. For the purpose of this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty sixth grade students in 12 classes from two elementary schools located in Daegu City. The interview contents consisted of three major categories. The first category was related to attitude toward science lab, the second was related to lab-based science learning which had four sub-categories; recognizing lesson object, planning experiment, performing experiment, drawing conclusion in lab-based science learning in which the students had ordinary have views and expectations, and the last category was related to students' difficulties and something need to be improved in lab-based science learning. In-depth interviews were performed individually and the interviews were recorded. From the interviews, we found that students, in first category, do like lab-activities more than lectures or instruction-based activities in textbook. Students, in second category, wanted generally more discussion for their own activities rather than teacher's instruction and they wanted teacher' mediation conflicts within small groups and comments for students' experiment results. In the last, most of students had fears for some dangerous reagents and accidents. Based on the results, the study suggested that teacher need to give their students to autonomous discussion opportunities to design and interpret data through teacher' guided questions in inquiry steps, to produce some intimate atmosphere for active interaction in small groups, and to teach the safety education on some dangerous reagents.

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