• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.574-588
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• 2011

교사의 과학 탐구 지도에 대한 인식은 실제 수업에서 탐구 지도를 수행하는데 중요한 역할을 할 수 있다. 따라서 교사들이 과학 탐구를 어떻게 인식하는지 이해할 필요가 있다. 이 연구에서는 한국, 싱가포르, 미국 세 국가의 초등교사를 대상으로 과학 탐구 지도에 대한 인식을 조사하였다. 세 국가는 과학교육과정에서 탐구를 강조해 온 역사와 설명 방식이 다르며 전반적인 교육적 상황 또한 상이하다. 총 100명의 초등교사(한국 34, 싱가포르 35, 미국31)를 대상으로 설문을 실시하였으며 설문은 구체적인 교수 상황을 서술하는 교수 시나리오, 이상적인 탐구 수업에 대한 내러티브 쓰기로 구성되었다. 데이터는 외적 기준과 내적 관점 모두에서 분석되었다. 연구 결과 교사들의 과학 탐구 지도에 대한 인식은 전반적으로 전통적 견해에 머무르고 있는 특징을 보였다. 그러나 각 국가의 교육과정에서 탐구가 서술되고 강조된 방식에 따라 차이가 나타나기도 하였다. 이러한 결과가 교사교육에 주는 시사점을 논의하였다.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.267-277
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• 2015

This study explored elementary school teachers' perspectives on science inquiry teaching. First, an open-ended questionnaire was administered to elicit teachers' experiences of their approach to inquiry teaching. These self-reported approaches revealed three conceptions of teaching for inquiry learning in science: 'science process skills-centered' category focused on observing, classifying, measuring, and fair testing; 'generating scientific questions' category focused on students' question-generating; and 'illustrate concept and/or content' category focused on science content demonstration by making use of experimental procedures to obtain expected results. Second, teachers were asked to place 18 activity cards either close to or further from an 'inquiry-based science classroom' card. The relative distances from the activity card to the central classroom card were measured. The teachers perceived that students' activity of 'designing and implementing appropriate procedures' was the most important in supporting an inquiry-based science classroom. Understanding teachers' views has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.203-220
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate how 'free inquiry' was implemented in middle school science classrooms. In order to do this, survey and interviews were administered. The subject of survey was 165 science teachers at 58 middle schools and interviewees were 4 teachers and 10 students. As a result, 49.6% of science teachers in school year 2010, and 34.1% in 2011 applied 'free inquiry'. Teachers applied 'free inquiry' during one semester, and they let the students select topic of 'free inquiry'. Teachers grouped students according to students' opinion or their gender and ability, and one group was consisted of 4 students. The effect of applying 'free inquiry' was that students improved the interest on science, science inquiry ability and self directed learning capability. Students were interested in doing 'free inquiry', and they wanted to do it again. Teachers claimed that it took much time and effort to apply 'free inquiry', and students lacked science inquiry skills and interest on science. The teachers who did not apply 'free inquiry' stated reasons such as the shortage of instructional time, and they didn't think that 'free inquiry' should be implemented. For the effective implementation of 'free inquiry', this study suggested that teachers should be recognized the intention of 'free inquiry', teaching-learning materials about 'free inquiry' be developed and provided, and laboratory assistants be employed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.783-790
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• 2016

The 'Integrated Inquiry' unit is a new addition in the 5th~6th grade science textbooks, and was developed for the 2009 revised national curriculum. The unit deals with six integrated inquiry process skills: problem cognition, formulating hypotheses, controlling variables, transforming and interpreting data, drawing results, and generalization. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions and the teaching practices of elementary school teachers on this unit in their school curriculum and where improvements can be made. Data was collected from questionnaires filled out by 92 elementary school teachers. The results are as follows: First, teachers do have a positive perception on the importance of teaching integrated process skills. Second, with that being true, this unit ended up receiving both positive and negative reviews by teachers. This research found that there were good and bad responses on the educational aspects of this unit in three particular areas: dealing with the development of integrated inquiry process skills, facilitating science learning in other units, and implementing open inquiry. Third, teachers have difficulties particularly in problem cognition, formulating hypotheses, controlling variables, transforming and interpreting data, generalization, and drawing results. There is a lack of student understanding as well as a lack of professionalism for teachers on this unit, and many issues related to the composition of the textbook. This study may have important implications for making improvements in this unit and teaching integrated process skills.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.573-584
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• 2015

Inquiry has been consistently emphasized in science education as a crucial element for learning. Although many researchers came to agree on the importance of scientific inquiry, authentic inquiry activities are hard to be actualized in an educational context. Therefore it is required to critically examine what teachers have difficulty in teaching inquiry. In this article, we looked into inquiry-based science activities in a small group setting where pre-service science teachers faced dilemmas between cognition and practice of inquiry. A case study was conducted on eight undergraduate students who are majoring in science education. The participants attended a weekly science program for middle school students in low SES as teaching assistants and mentors, and took full care of his/her mentees during open-inquiry activities. The results were drawn by analyzing participants' personal and group interviews, participant observations, self-reports, and others. The pre-service teachers viewed the knowledge and procedure of science as an essential factor in inquiry activities along with student's spontaneous attitude. However, in the process of performing inquiry, they faced several dilemmas between ideal cognition and real activities. The aspects of dilemmas could be summarized in three pairs of opposing concepts: 'diverging inquiry or converging science', 'interest-centered inquiry or learning-centered inquiry', and 'student as the subject or student with the insufficient expertise.' We discussed ways of resolving dilemmas and alternative perspectives on scientific inquiry.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.280-288
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to draw implication for scientific inquiry study by investigating level of understanding and actual state regarding the elementary school teachers' scientific inquiry. The survey was conducted toward 42 elementary school teachers who work at the D city by using questionnaire of Views About Scientific Inquiry. Actual state of understanding of scientific inquiry was investigated by categorized the responses to the level of understanding of the eight aspects of scientific inquiry in three levels (informed, mixed, naive) based on analysis criteria. And analyze whether the characteristic of the subjects affect to level of understanding about aspect of scientific inquiry. As a result of the analysis, the two aspects among the eights aspects of scientific inquiry; 'Inquiry procedures are guided by the question asked' and 'Research conclusions must be consistent with the data collected' were appeared to have high rates of informed level of understanding. In the remaining six perspectives, most of elementary school teachers had naive and mixed level of understanding, so informed level of understanding took a relatively low proportion. It implies that elementary school teachers who teach inquiry in the field have limit to understand about scientific inquiry. These results indicated that experiences that have taught students and science related training courses that open sofar have a little influence to increase comprehension about scientific inquiry. Therefore, it is required to reinforce the teachers' understanding about scientific inquiry and to formulate different form of plan unlike existing way of teaching for teaching scientific inquiry.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1300-1311
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to investigate pre-service science teachers' difficulties in the 'inquiry mentoring' program, which was developed to improve pre-service science teachers' inquiry teaching ability. For this study, I developed the 'inquiry mentoring' program in which pre-service science teachers taught high school students. This program was adapted for 2.5 months, and 45 pre-service science teachers participated and taught 44 high school students. During this program, pre-service science teachers kept 'mentor diaries' and wrote 'mentoring reports' at the end of the program. Interviews were conducted with all pre-service science teachers. Results are as follows: first, pre-service science teachers thought that the difficulties in inquiry mentoring resulted from their inadequacy (mentor factor) than students' inadequacy (mentee factor). Second, pre-service science teachers perceived their lack of cognitive ability, inquiry ability and teaching ability as a mentor factor. Third, pre-service science teachers thought that they had difficulties in students' differences and lack of activity as a mentee factor. Fourth, they described difficulties caused by emotional distance as well as physical distance as an interaction factor. They also mentioned the difficulties related to teaching range and online interaction. Fifth, pre-service science teachers expressed a sense of frustration with the inquiry environment. Additionally, some implications were discussed for pre-service science teacher education through the 'inquiry mentoring' program.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.77.2-77.2
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• 2011

이 연구의 목적은 7차 교육과정에서 소개된 과학적 자유탐구 활동 모형을 개발하고 이러한 자유탐구 활동모형에 대한 효과를 알아보기 전에 예비 초등교사들의 인식조사를 하는 것이다. 개발 목적은 학생들의 과학탐구 활동능력신장에 있으며, 본 연구는 천문학사에 근거한 예를 사용하였다. 연구방법으로 Lawson(2010)의 과학적 탐구추론모형을 택하였다. 천문학사에서 예를 택해 자유탐구 모형과 설문지를 개발하여 예비초등교사들의 인식조사를 실시하였다. 연구결과는, (1)대부분 예비 초등교사들은 이러한 자유탐구전략의 사용에 대한 아이디어를 좋아했으며, (2)이러한 과학적 자유탐구활동의 사용의 효과 또한 대부분의 응답자들이 잘 인식하고 있었다. (3)그럼에도 불구하고 많은 예비 초등교사들은 이러한 자유탐구 전략의 구성이 쉽지 않은 과정임을 인식하였고, 학생들에게 적합한 자유탐구활동모형의 개발을 위해서는 학생을 지도하는 교사들이 서로가 협력해야 한다고 응답하였다.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.83-92
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school students' understandings about scientific inquiry. Data were collected from 119 elementary students who are in the 4^th grade using the Views About Scientific Inquiry questionnaire for elementary students (VASI-E). We also conducted semi-structured interviews of 21 students from 119 students who responded to VASI-E. Students' responses were analyzed as naive, mixed, or informed views on each aspect of scientific inquiry that VASI-E includes. We found that, first, 53.8% of students have mixed views, and 30.3% of students have informed views, and 16% of students have naive views on the knowledge 'investigation begin with a question'. Second, 54.6% of students have naive views, 37.8% of students have mixed views, and 7.6% of students have informed views on the knowledge 'scientists use many methods to answer their questions.' Third, 47.9% of students have informed views, 34.5% of students have naive views, and 17.6% of students have mixed views on 'procedures guided by question asked.' Fourth, 55.5% of students have mixed views, 42% of students have informed views, and only 2.5% of students have naive views on 'conclusions must be consistent with data and explanations come from data and prior knowledge.' Based on the results, implications for teaching and learning scientific inquiry at elementary level in Korea were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.197-203
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyse the characteristics of domestic scientific inquiry related research topics and consequently provide fundamental data and suggestions from a teaching method point of view. The study subjects was collected from the initial issue to the february 2016 issue of academic journals and using the keyword that 'inquiry', 'scientific inquiry'. The framework of Professional factors of teaching practice was developed and used for selecting subjects of study. The selected study subjects were analyzed according to the framework. And Topics of study were categorized and analyzed. The topic was thoroughly debated between 2 science education experts and 4 doctorate candidates within a specialist workshop. Results show that scientific education environments, scientific inquiry evaluation and teaching ability was studied less than education process and textbook analysis, scientific inquiry designing and application. And The research on the topics indicated that most research is concentrated in specific areas. It is postulated that additional research into scientific education environments, scientific inquiry evaluation and teaching ability would further develop the teachers' teaching abilities and enable a more successful science lesson in the classroom.