• 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.

• 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.30 no.2
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• pp.291-303
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to investigate the difficulties in engaging in open-inquiry activities of elementary pre-service teachers. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 22 pre-service teachers and their open-inquiry products. The 22 pre-service teachers who participated in this study were enrolled in college openinquiry course and performed open-inquiry activities for fifteen weeks. The results of this study show that pre-service teachers struggled with several difficulties; selection of the subject, the lack of understanding about the science process skills and content knowledge, background knowledge, environment matters and self confidence about open inquiry. However, they thought open-inquiry is interesting in spite of much difficulties, and is necessary for science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contents of open inquiry activities of the newly revised 2007 National curriculum for each grade level and to teach open inquiry activities and selection of rational inquiry activities. For this study, 470 elementary students in Seoul, ranging from 3rd to 6th grades were surveyed. The experiment plans written by students were analyzed based on the analysis criteria. These criteria consisted of the reason for the selection, type, and suitability of open inquiry activities. The reason for selecting open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the reason why they want to conduct the activity, degree of getting help and the object of getting help. The types of the open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the field of inquiry, the inquiry method and the period of inquiry. Suitability of the open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the reason of suitability or unsuitability.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.210-224
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to analyze students' recognition of the free inquiry activity and to investigate what effect the free inquiry activity of the 2007 Revised Educational curriculum revision has on the science inquiry ability of middle school students. To conduct the research we worked with 262 female students, 8 classes of first graders in a middle school. Among them, 4 classes were taught in free inquiry activity and the remaining 4 classes were taught in the traditional way. The results of Likert-questionnaire indicate that students were learning about cooperative spirit through group investigation activities and discussions and did not take the free inquiry activity as a hard activity. Also they showed positive reaction agreeing that this activity is both a helpful method in learning science and interesting. However, it seemed that the investigation tends to flow between the leading 1~2 members of the group and showed difficulty in carrying out the investigation as a group after school hours. It showed there are few problems and obstacles in operating the free inquiry activity. The free inquiry activity did not give any meaningful influence on the improvement of science inquiry ability of students. Integrative inquiry process skills did not give a relevant influence, however, it showed a meaningful influence on the improvement of basic inquiry process skills. Especially, among the low-ranking element of basic inquiry process skills, it enhanced the capacity for prediction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.1199-1213
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difficulties in engaging in open-inquiry activities - especially finding inquiry topics for student themselves. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 11 middle school students and their open-inquiry worksheets from 4 months of activities. The investigation tools were composed of three domains for topic choice: selecting subjects, making 10 questions, and choosing a topic with the 10 questions. The study revealed that middle school students have difficulties in the domain of 'object selection' and 'finding inquiry topic.' Under the object selection domain, they showed burden of selection of unlimited subject, lack of knowledge on the science object, and lack of interest in object. Under the domain of finding inquiry topic, they have difficulties from their selected topics that were non-scientific, focus only on interest, lack of background information or those that could be resolved by short answers. Each student has difficulty in doing open-inquiry with relatively different seriousness. The findings suggested that an open inquiry program should be provided along with a systematic guide program on finding inquiry topic for open-inquiry activities to be a successful and continual performance gauge.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.373-386
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to survey the middle school science gifted students' perception of the open-inquiry activity. To conduct the research we worked with 80 science gifted students, and the questionnaire was about the experience of the open-inquiry activity and the preference of the research methods. And also, we observed 19 gifted students of their open-inquiry activity and interviewed in each step. The answers were compared with the questionnaire survey. As a result, gifted students in this study have average of 3.25 times of open-inquiry experiences, and they prefer the group investigation comparing with the individual project. In the method of selecting the subject, they prefer an autonomous selection rather than passive influence of the instructor. And they seem to give large meaning on the fact that they are operating the open-Inquiry by themselves.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.405-420
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to contrive the specific teaching plans based on the frame of 2007 revised science curriculum for applying open-inquiry lesson in real education situation and to research the effects of open-inquiry lesson on the student's science-related attitude, science process skill, and to investigate instructing teachers' cognition about open-inquiry. For this study, two fifth grade classes were chosen, one class was the experimental group, who were taught by open-inquiry based lesson, and another was the comparative group, who were taught by traditional method based lesson. The findings of this study were as follows: After open-inquiry lesson, the experimental group students came to enjoy open-inquiry learning and had the positive thought about it. After open-inquiry lesson, the experimental group marked higher mean score than the comparative group in science-related attitude's field but didn't showed the meaningful difference. On the other hand, in science process skill's field, the experimental group showed the significant higher improvement than the comparative one, especially in the subordinate area of basic science process skill. Finally, teachers who instructed students open-inquiry lesson thought open-inquiry lesson is the self-directed problem solving learning which raise the student's science process skill and interest. And the teachers thought the obstacles to instruct open-inquiry lesson are the lack of the student's cognition about open-inquiry and the insufficient circumstance for open-inquiry lesson. Therefore the teachers argued that the prerequisite for settling open-inquiry lesson successfully is to develope open-inquiry lesson curricula and teaching materials.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.533-543
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• 2010

This paper analyzed the improvement of cognitive level of the students and interactions which occurred in each step of free-topic scientific inquiry to help science teachers understand free-topic scientific inquiry better. Free-topic scientific inquiry is helpful to students with a deep strategic learning goal orientation type or a deep strategic ability goal orientation type in their transition (2B/3A) of cognitive levels. Most students have difficulties in the phase of establishing topics and hypotheses. The result says that the discussion techniques are improved through free-topic scientific inquiry, but the quality of interaction is not easily improved. The deep strategic learning goal orientation type concretizes opinion through interaction in free-topic scientific inquiry. The deep strategic ability goal orientation type are actively involve in the interaction, but they pay no attention to the process because they stick to the result. The surface strategic ability goal orientation type can not deepen a discussion due to high frequency of low level inquiry. However, the frequency of high level inquiry increases through free topic scientific inquiry operation. As a result, the characteristics of free-topic scientific inquiry were discussed and the educational implications of the progress of free-topic scientific inquiry and the organization of grouping were drawn.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.63-80
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• 2014

The open inquiry is one of the representative learning approaches for gifted students. However, a gifted student should develop various complicated competencies to succeed in the open inquiry because of its complexity. This study develops a question list in accordance with each stage of inquiry so that the list could provide scaffolding in the process of open inquiry and students develop near-professional competencies and produce distinguished outcomes. For the purpose, we have reviewed various literatures related to research methodologies, academic writings, and learning of inquiry. Based on the review, we identified the open inquiry as cognitive, metacognitive, and sociocultural processes and set up the direction of the development of the question list. We also have elaborated the goals of the open inquiry, provided a model of the stage of inquiry, and developed the guiding question list belonging to each stage. As a discussion, we provided several noteworthy issues in the situation of when the list is used in the teaching of the open inquiry for the gifted.