• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.31 no.8
• /
• pp.1199-1213
• /
• 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 The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.236-264
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this study is to provide teachers with sub-components of inquiry skills and help them to give direct instructions on the skills to their students. Inquiry skills and strategies are considered by-products of science and inquiry instruction by most of the science teachers. On the other hand, much research shows that many students are not familiar with the way that they can use inquiry skills therefore direct instruction on the inquiry skills is needed. The lack of guidance on the sub-components for the inquiry skills, however, results in science teachers' ignorance of the inquiry skills. As shown in the previous studies which suggest that without teachers' guidance, students cannot acquire the intended skills, and it is necessary to inform science teachers of the necessity for direct instruction on the inquiry skills and strategy as well as give them the sub-components of the inquiry skills. On the basis of the results from the previous research on the inquiry skills, this study presents the sub-components of basic inquiry skills (observation, classification, measure, prediction, and reasoning) and integrated inquiry skills (problem recognition, hypothesis formulation, control of variables, data transformation, data interpretation, drawing conclusion, and generalization).

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
• /
• v.40 no.1
• /
• pp.471-492
• /
• 2009

Inquiry instruction is a dynamic process that uses questioning and answering to have students actively participate in their own learning. Inquiry instruction is a teaching technique in which teachers do not provide knowledge, but help students discover knowledge by themselves. However, Inquiry instruction currently has problems of lack of connection between inquiry process and school library, lack of collaboration between the media specialist and teacher, and lack of applicable models. Information literacy is the ability to access, evaluate and use information. Information literacy process is closely related to the inquiry process. Thus, this study suggested an elaborative model in inquiry instruction using information literacy process. This research derived the skills, strategies, activities of inquiry instruction model by comparing and analyzing Lippitt's inquiry process with information literacy process(Big6 Skills, Pathways to Knowledge, I-Search, 8Ws, Inquiry Process, Inquiry in the Research Process). Based on the results, this study designed an elaborative model in inquiry instruction using information literacy process.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.43-55
• /
• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of inquiry oriented instruction on the learning of area formulas. For this purpose, current elementary mathematics textbook(2007 revised version) which deal with area formulas was reviewed and then the experimental research on inquiry oriented instruction in area formulas was conducted. The results of this study as follow; First, there was no significant effect of inquiry oriented instruction on the mathematical achievement in area formula problems. Second, there was no significant effect on the memorization of area formulas. Third, there was significant effect on the generalization of area formulas. Forth, there was significant effect on the methods of generalization of area formulas. Fifth, through inquiry activities, the students can learn mathematical ideas and develop creative mathematical ideas. Finally, implications for teaching area formulas through inquiry activity was discussed. We have to introduce new area formula through prior area formulas which had been studied, and make the students inquire the connection between each area formulas.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.193-212
• /
• 2021

This study is to support the school's mathematics exploration activities. Mathematics exploration is a very important mathematical activity not only for mathematics teachers, but also for students. Looking at the development of mathematics, it has been extended from one mathematical fact to a new mathematical fact. Mathematics exploration activities are not unique to mathematicians, and opportunities are equally given to all ordinary people who are learning mathematics and teaching mathematics. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a method of mathematics exploration activities that teachers and students can perform in schools, based on mathematics exploration activities based on one mathematical fact. Specifically, the cosine law was selected as one mathematical fact, and mathematical exploration activities were performed based on the cosine law. By analyzing the results of these mathematics exploration activities, we developed a method to explore school mathematics. Through the results of this study, it is expected that mathematics exploration activities will be conducted equally by students and teachers in the mathematics classroom.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.81-94
• /
• 2024

This study explores and conducts an in-depth comparison of the epistemic characteristics in different data types utilized in the science inquiries of preservice teachers regarding noise as a risk in everyday life. Focusing on primary and secondary data in the context of science inquiries about noise, we examined how these data types differ in science inquires in terms of inquiry design, data collection, and analyses. The findings reveal that sensor-based primary data enable direct measurement and observation of key phenomena. Conversely, secondary data rely on predetermined measurement methods within a public data system. These differences require different epistemic considerations during the inquiry process. Based on these findings, we discuss the educational implications concerning teaching approaches for science inquiries, teacher education for inquiry teaching, and the development of risk response competencies in preparation for the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) era.

• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.139-152
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this study is to provide some suggestions for future improvement of scientific inquiry activities in Korean elementary science textbook. The modified framework of Lee(2005) and Millar et al.(1998) was used to compare inquiry activities in the Korean and Singaporean science textbooks. The results of this study are as follows: Korean text books have more activities than Singapore's, but both countries have similar time allotment for science classes. In the area of 'inquiry process skill', Singapore is more balanced in 'Basic inquiry process skills' and 'Integrated inquiry process skills' than Korea. Singapore's integrated inquiry rate is also higher than Korea's. Next the results of comparing leaning objectives to scientific inquiry activities shows that Korean text books tend to focus on 'contents objectives', while Singapore's text books focus on balancing 'contents objectives' and 'process objectives'. Korean science textbooks encourage students to communicate the results of experiments but in most case these communication activities are actually not performed. Lastly Korea and Singapore have low degree of openness in inquiry activities. Remarkably 'Suggest questions' are totally conducted by teachers. This study implies that Korean science textbooks should have lower amounts of inquiry activities to accomodate enough time for communication about results. Next we need to make balance not only 'Basic inquiry process skills' and 'Integrated inquiry process skills' but also 'Content objectives' and 'Process objectives'. Lastly we need to make student to be the leader in science classes through encouraging them to plan procedures for experiments and to discover results by themselves.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.29 no.7
• /
• pp.626-639
• /
• 2008

To present the suggestions for improvement in science textbooks of high school, scientific inquiry activities in geology of earth science textbooks of Korea and the U.S. were assessed in the areas of the contents, processes and contexts. Regarding the contents of inquiry activities, Korean textbooks contain more number of inquiry activities (5.8 per section) than the U.S. curriculums (4 per section). Inquiry activities of Korean textbooks mostly fall on the interpretation of diagrams and graphs whereas those of the U.S. textbooks more hands-on experiment, data transformation and self designing. As for the number of inquiry process skills per inquiry activity, Korean curriculums contain an average of 1.8 whereas the American ones 3. It suggests that the U.S. textbooks require more integrated process skills than the Korean earth science curriculums. In the process skills of all textbooks studied, the highest frequent elements were inferring and data interpretation; the percentage of these two elements was an average of 73.3% in Korean textbooks and 46.2% in the U.S. This suggests that the Korean textbooks emphasize the process skill on particular area, and uneven distribution of elements of process skills may hinder the development of integration ability of students. particularly in the integrated process skills, the U.S. textbooks presented all 7 elements, while Korean ones presented only 2 to 4 elements, indicating that the Korean textbooks may have weak points in providing various inquiry activities for students compared to the American textbooks. In inquiry context analysis, Korean curriculums provide simplistic inquiry contexts and low applicability to real life whereas the U.S. curriculums provide more integrated inquiry contexts and high applicability to real life.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.40 no.3
• /
• pp.307-320
• /
• 2020

This study explores how the positioning of two pre-service science teachers (PSTs) is reflected in their different epistemic understandings of inquiry-based lessons. We collected the PSTs' products during their design and enactment of an inquiry-based lesson and recorded their practices in the enacted lesson. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The results indicate that one PST, Dohyung was positioned as a subject of evaluation throughout the course and the other, Jinwoo, was positioned as a preservice teacher and a subject of evaluation. Their positions were reflected in their epistemic understandings of inquiry-based lessons, which were developed when designing these lessons. During lesson design, both PSTs showed a shared understanding; they explained inquiry-based lessons as students setting and evaluating hypotheses under teachers' guidance. However, as they faced unexpected situations during lesson enactment, they developed different epistemic understandings. To receive a good grade, Dohyung showed a strong preference for anticipating situations that could occur in class and planning responses to them. He understood inquiry-based lessons as ones in which students conduct experiments to produce results expected by the teacher. On the other hand, Jinwoo emphasized the reasoning process based on students' prior knowledge and explained inquiry-based lessons as ones in which students construct new knowledge through a scientific reasoning process based on their knowledge. The findings of this study will contribute to developing strategies to support PSTs' development of their epistemic understandings of knowledge construction in inquiry-based lessons.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.30 no.7
• /
• pp.909-927
• /
• 2009

Inquiry became an essential methodology in science education. Recently, argumentation becomes more important in inquiry, but inquiry-based teaching in school science would not provide enough opportunities for students to have voluntary and active interactions during inquiry activities. Informal science learning can be an alternative for authentic inquiry. Accordingly, this study aims to find interaction patterns in dialogic inquiry of junior high school students in small groups in the natural history gallery. Inquiry elements and interaction patterns are analyzed with 42 dialogues of 13 small groups. As a result, seven interaction patterns are identified. First, five major interaction patterns were drawn as follows; Sharing questions, asking questions and simple response, asking questions and simple explanation, asking questions-simple explanation-(collecting data)-data based explanation, and asking questions-collecting data-data based explanation. Second, pattern 2, 'asking questions and simple response', is subdivided into three categories; passive and/or evasive response, inaccurate response, and repeated patterns of asking questions-simple response. The results of the study provide different patterns of dialogic interactions in a small group inquiry in informal contexts from formal contexts, and provide foundations to understand middle school students' interactive dialogues of inquiry occurred in the natural history gallery.