Analysis on the Complexity of Scientific Reasoning during Pre-service Elementary School Teachers' Open-Inquiry Activities

예비초등교사의 자유 탐구 활동에서 나타나는 추론 복잡성 분석

The purpose of this study was to analyze the complexity of scientific reasoning during open inquiry activities of pre-service elementary school teachers. In this study, 6 pre-service elementary teachers who participated in open-inquiry activities were selected. The data of scientific reasoning during their inquiry process was collected from the video recording of reporting about inquiry process and results, their reports and researcher's notetaking. CSRI Matrix (Dolan & Grady, 2010) was used to analyze the complexity of participants' scientific reasoning. The result showed that the degree of the complexity of their scientific reasoning varied in participants. Particularly the low degree of the complexity of scientific reasoning presented in posing preliminary hypotheses, providing suggestions for future research, communicating and defending finding. Also, The more pre-service teachers' epistemology of inquiry are similar to that of scientists, the more complex scientific reasoning represents. This results suggest that teachers should impress on students the importance of doing the precedent study and providing suggestions for future research, and provide a place for communicating and defending findings.