• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.63 no.3
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• pp.183-195
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated the characteristics of the authentic inquiry components in the inquiry tasks of Science Inquiry Experiments textbooks developed under the 2015 Revised National Curriculum. After classifying inquiry tasks by core concepts, we analyzed the cases that students autonomously planned or performed the authentic inquiry components. The results of the study revealed that investigating multiple materials component most frequently appeared in all units. However, generating research question, selecting variables, observing multiple variables and transforming observations components appeared in a few tasks of history and everyday science units as they were often guided or structured in textbooks. Controlling simple or complex variables, observing intervening variables and considering methodological flaws components rarely appeared in all units as most of textbooks did not consider or indicate explicitly. Authentic inquiry components of everyday science unit tended to be handled in small group activities. On the bases of the results, the implications for the development of the inquiry tasks of Science Inquiry Experiments textbooks are discussed.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.647-667
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• 2009

This study intends to analyze open-ended inquiry activities of elementary science-gifted students in terms of how similar they are to authentic science inquiry and suggest desirable ways to make more effective programs for the gifted. For this study, we selected a small group with five elementary science-gifted students who had participated in the open inquiry program of summer camp held in the Institute for Science Gifted Education and collected data through recording and video-taping their discussion and performance from planning to coordinating inquiry results. The data was analyzed in terms of epistemological features and cognitive process in authentic science inquiry. The results is as follows. In terms of epistemology, students' inquiry methods were theory laden and they constructed knowledge in collaborative groups. For example, the students often discussed about performing the thought experiment and scientific concept related to inquiry task or their opinion. And in terms of cognitive process, their designing inquiry was similar to authentic science inquiry especially selecting variables, planning procedures, controlling variables, planning measures.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.565-578
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to search for the factors that influence students' understanding of the nature of science through the experience of the cognitive processes of authentic open inquiries. The freshmen of a science high school practiced authentic open inquiries reflecting epistemological characteristics of authentic science. The case study was conducted with four focus students who were successful or unsuccessful at learning the nature of science during the authentic open inquiry activity. Questions that the focus students asked during the inquiries as well as students' answers to pre- and post-VNOS (C type) were analysed, and then elaborated in the semi-structured interview. The findings suggest that open inquiry activities provide the inquiry contexts that help science high school students to understand the nature of science, and that the characteristics of students' cognition influence the understanding of the nature of science. For instance, designing experiments with their own research questions had an influence on the students' understanding about the scientific methods and the diversity of research types, and drawing conclusions from their own data made students experience scientific reasoning. In addition, the experience of collecting anomalous data helped students to understand the role of inferences in generating scientific knowledge and the creative nature of scientific knowledge. In this inquiry context, the reflective thinking that came from proactive discussion among students, made students think about the validity of the designing experiments and interpreting data, and helped them to understand the uncertain nature of reasoning and the diverse nature of scientific methods. Moreover, divergent thinking linked to analogical thinking helped students to understand the creative nature of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.930-943
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate if students may actually experience scientific reasoning based on an epistemology of authentic science during authentic open inquiry. The samples were 86 10th graders in a science-high school in Seoul. The experimental group practiced authentic open inquiry and the control group practiced traditional school science inquiry in five weeks. Then, the questions students asked while performing inquiry tasks were analyzed. The frequency of the questions asked by students was almost same between two groups, however, the types of questions were different. The frequency of thinking questions in experimental group was higher than the control, and the difference was statistically significant (P<.01). Particularly, the frequency of expansive thinking questions and anomaly detection questions was much higher in experimental than the control group. Judging from the result, with the students from the experimental group asking questions reflecting on the epistemology of authentic science such as scientific methods, anomalous data, and uncertainty about reasoning, students may understand authentic science features during the activities of open authentic inquiry. The result from comparing questions according to the inquiry subject showed that more openness caused the higher frequency of anomaly detection questions and strategy questions, but that inductive thinking questions and analogical thinking questions were connected to inquiry subject rather than the openness of the inquiry.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.547-558
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to compare inquiry activities in science textbooks' physics contents for Korean secondary schools with those of Singapore in order to provide a reference for further improvement of inquiry activities in Korean science textbooks. We analyzed inquiry activities using the framework of Millar et al.(1998) and Chinn & Malhotra (2002). The results of this study are as follows: There are differences between Korean and Singaporean inquiry activities in the area of 'learning objectives', 'students' thinking activities' and 'degree of openness'. In the area of 'learning objectives', the Korean textbooks have more activities associated with the learning of science content than those in Singaporean, whereas the Singaporean textbooks have more activities associated with the processes of scientific inquiry than in Korean textbooks. In the area of 'students' thinking activities', the Singaporean textbooks have activities like 'test a prediction', which Korean textbooks lack. The 'degree of openness' is higher in Singaporean textbooks than in Korean textbooks. And some differences in the area of 'authentic scientific inquiry' between Korean and Singaporean textbooks were also found. While the Korean textbooks do not have any activities associated with 'generating research questions', the Singaporean ones feature such activities. In the area of 'designing studies', the Singaporean textbooks have activities corresponding to 'selecting variables' and 'controlling variables', while the Korean ones never have such activities. The results of this study imply that it is necessary to balance inquiry activities in the area of 'learning objectives', 'students' thinking activities' and 'degree of openness', and to present activities close to authentic scientific inquiry in inquiry activities in textbooks.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.848-860
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• 2009

This study examined the characteristics of scientists' writing on the laboratory reports written in the authentic open inquiry, and explored the possibility that the class discussion after the inquiries could influence the laboratory report writing. The samples were 131 10th graders in a science high school in Seoul. The control group (n=45) practiced traditional school science inquiries, the experimental group 1 (n=43) practiced the authentic open inquiries, and the experimental group 2 (n=43) practiced the authentic open inquiries and the class discussion after the laboratory activities. Their laboratory reports were analyzed into three parts - prediction (prediction with background and apposite description), data analysis (data transformation and critical analysis), and conclusion (objective description based on evidence). The frequency of the characteristics of scientist's writing in the experimental group was higher than the control group. Particularly, the differences of the prediction with background (p<.01) and the critical analysis of data (p<.05) were statistically significant. However, the frequency of writing the conclusion based on evidence was very low in all of the three groups. The result from comparing descriptions of reports showed that the writing prediction in experimental groups were more elaborate, and the data transformation in experimental groups were more correct, and the evaluation to data in experimental groups were more critical than the control group. And the descriptions of the critical evaluation to data and the finding flaw in methods were found in experimental groups 2, indicating that the class discussion can stimulate students' scientific thinking.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.465-481
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• 2017

This study is a research synthesis analyzing how field geology education is conducted in domestic and foreign countries in the recent 20 years and how it reflects the characteristics of authentic geologic inquiry. For these purposes, we first drew five elements of inquiry in field geology (observation, representation, abductive reasoning, spatial thinking, and diachronic thinking) considering the field geologists' actual research method as well as its pedagogical significance in science education. We developed analysis criteria for field geology education. The 53 cases were analyzed based on each element of inquiry in field geology and its sub-elements, and also the tendency of overall elements. As a result, observation and representation were included in most cases, but there appeared less frequency in order of abductive reasoning, spatial thinking, and diachronic thinking. For observation, the ratio of purposive observation and autonomous observation is high. For representation, both visualizing and linguistic type of representation and free-form representation appear frequently. For abductive reasoning, the step of generating hypothesis is often included and the hypothesis tends to be about the geological formatting process. For spatial thinking, type of self-location and perception of the spatial configuration of the structure appear at a high rate. For diachronic thinking, type of stratigraphic sequence is the most frequent. The proportions of the cases including three or more elements of inquiry in field geology consist 87% of the total. We suggested implications for improving geological fieldwork as authentic science inquiry in the future.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1216-1234
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• 2004

School science practical work is often criticized as lacking key elements of authentic science, such as peer argumentation or debate through which social consensus is obtained. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent studies about the argumentation and to explore the conditions and the model of argumentative scientific inquiry, which is specially designed open inquiry in order to facilitate students' peer argumentation. For this purpose, a theoretical discussion for the argumentative scientific inquiry as the way of authentic inquiry in schools was developed. The conditions for argumentative scientific inquiry were found to be the following: multiple arguments, students' own claims, opportunities for oral and written argumentation, equal status of debaters, and community of cooperative competition. For these conditions, the argumentative scientific inquiry was organized into experiment activities and argumentation activities. During argumentation activity, students should be guided to advance written argumentation through writing a group report for peer review and oral argumentation through a critical discussion. Through the argumentation between groups and in group, the students' arguments would be elaborated repeatedly. The feedback from argumentation links experiment activities to argumentation activities. Hence, the whole process of this inquiry model is circular.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.684-695
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• 1999

In this study, the 'extended science investigation' was conceptualized as a comprehensive science investigation contrasted with exercise of process and skill component and cookbook style experiment. The extended investigation tasks can be characterized with practical context. openness and continuity. The purpose of this study is to describe the change of students' cognitive engagement while they perform the extended science investigations and to explore how the characteristics of the extended investigation tasks affect the students' cognitive engagement. 128 7th graders attending coeducational school in Seoul were participated in this study. The questionnaire was implemented repeatedly to monitor students' cognitive engagement. And ten students were interviewed to explore the cause of the change of cognitive engagement. The result showed that there was no difference between directive traditional investigations in textbook and developed extended investigations in understanding of the content and whole process of investigations but participants' commitment was increased significantly in the extended science investigations. Especially the extent of students' understanding and commitment became higher in the second half than in the first half of the extended science investigations. The openness of the extended investigation tasks contributed on the increase of commitment. And the continuity of the tasks contributed on the increase of students' understanding in the second half of the extended science investigations.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

In this paper, we study inquiry tendency in informatics textbooks for middle school students. These textbooks were written in accordance with 2009 revised national curriculum, and were adopted in schools starting from 2013. Romey analysis was implemented to analyze inquiry tendency in six textbooks using four different criteria-text, data, activity, evaluation. The results showed that some textbooks displayed a low level of inquiry tendency, lacking participation from students and employing an authoritative tone. Among four factors, the 'activity' displayed the highest degree of inquiry tendency while the 'text' retained the lowest level of inquiry tendency. The Romey measures in some sections were zero, thereby indicating room for improvement.