Investigating Elementary School Teachers' Internal Factors on Science Experiment Activity

초등과학 수업에서 실험 활동에 대한 교사들의 내적 요인 조사

The purpose of this study was to investigate the internal factors whether teachers execute experiments at the science classes in the elementary school. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were performed with 9 elementary school teachers who have served for more than three years. In-depth interviews were performed individually and all the interviews were recorded. Data sources were analyzed by grounded theory. The results were as follows: The internal factors that they did experiments at the science classes were science teaching faiths in experiment, self confidence in experiment, interest in science. and the internal factors that they did not experiment at the science classes were lack of science content knowledge, lack of science education knowledge, memory of failure at experiment, and so on. The investigation results imply inquiry activities should be more strengthened in elementary teacher education program and pre-service teacher curriculum. And it needs to give a materials of receiving information and guidance detailed about the experiments.