Abstract
The purpose of this research was to enhance the understanding of scientific thinking of $5^{th}$ graders of elementary school through conducting investigative analyses on the students' associations with regard to illustrations on science textbooks and to provide basic data that are needed for the teachers teaching science in classrooms to reorganize textbook illustrations suitable to the realities of science contents and realms. In order to achieve the research purposes, subject $5^{th}$ grade students were asked to write down what they associated with the illustrations on the matter part of the $5^{th}$ science textbooks of elementary school: among 14 illustrations, a half of them were after lessons and other half from before lessons. The types of students' learning goal statements according to Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives were compared with the learning objectives provided in teachers' guide. The differences between before and after lessons in associated words which students used responding to given illustrations were investigated. Students' responses were analyzed in terms of how their associations were consistent with what their preference of learning objectives would be as well. Students variables including their achievement levels and gender were used as group variables in order to locate their effects on differences in their associations before and after the lessons. It was found that students manipulated the given illustrations more variously with more explanations before the lessons than after. After the lessons students tended to describe the illustrations more homogeneously and made theirs stick on the given direction by the textbooks. The implications for how school teaching affected to students' perception was made.