• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.212-221
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• 2006

The purposes of this study were to examine the characteristics of teacher help in small group Thinking Science(TS) activities and analyze the way students respond to teacher help. For this study, twenty-four 5th grade and twenty-four 7th grade students were selected, to undertake TS activities. Out of the 8 activities students participated in, the verbal interactions in activity 4 and 6, by students in four small groups, which incorporated relatively active argumentation was analyzed. Students' cognitive level was identified through a science reasoning task and the students were grouped heterogeneously according to their cognitive level. This study showed that teachers predominately used simple confirmation questions in preference to metacognitive question. Also, teacher help varied according to one's personal traits, work experience and degree of activity recognition. It was discovered that when the teacher provided student appropriate metacognitive questions and sufficient feedback, students actively engaged in argumentation. On the other hand, when the teacher asked simple confirmation questions and interfered in the activity, students did not participate in argumentation actively.