• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.295-306
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• 2022

This study aims to analyze the aspect of inquiry activity for seven national science textbooks, which were recently authorized and developed for elementary schools. The study reviewed seven of the abovementioned textbooks, which were introduced to the authorized textbook system for 2022 in elementary schools. In-depth analysis was conducted on inquiry activities, which were frequently emphasized since the third curriculum. A chapter entitled "Stratum and Fossils" was selected to analyze the detailed types of inquiry activity using the framework. First, analysis was conducted on six types of inquiry activity. The result indicated that two out of seven inquiry activities different among the national and authorized textbooks. In other words, the two slightly differed from the inquiry activities presented in national textbooks. It was not reasonable that the introduction of the authorized textbook exerted an effect on the increase of autonomy and variety of teaching and learning activities compared with those of national textbooks. Second, science process skills, material, and inquiry process were established as standards for the detailed types of inquiry activity. The study demonstrated a slight difference among textbooks in terms of material and inquiry process, whereas the inquiry activities of the seven authorized textbooks were the same or similar. This finding indicated that students could experience seven types of inquiry activities. Moreover, the study examined inquiry activities related to essential learning contents in detail and found that there were more diverse than types of inquiry activities.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.168-181
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to monitor evaluation in science education at primary and secondary school in Korea. In order to do this, the survey was administered. The subject was 518 teachers; 292 elementary school teachers, 110 middle school science teachers and 116 general high school science teachers. It was found that the ratio of paper examination increased while that of performance evaluation decreased according to the grade of school. In the science paper examination, the ratio of selection type item was higher than that of supply type item, and the ratio of item belonging to knowledge area was higher than that of item belonging to the inquiry area regardless of the grade of school, teaching career, and teacher's gender. The teachers recognized the necessity of supply type item, but they suffered from the reliability of the result of that item. And it was hard for them to do performance evaluation because it took much time and effort. This study suggested that the high-quality in-service teacher training be provided and laboratory assistants who help the science experiment and grading test papers be employed in order to fulfil the performance evaluation and increase the ratio of supply type item and items belonging to the inquiry area.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.173-185
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to present a reflective review of the earth and universe units from the revised elementary curriculum of 2007-2015 and suggest changes in the 2022 revised curriculum. For this purpose, we conducted an FGI with earth science educators and elementary school teachers regarding the content elements and system, the achievement standards and inquiry activity composition, and the vertical and horizontal curriculum connectivity. Free response and weighted hierarchical analysis items were incorporated into the FGI to ensure logical consistency of the inductively derived improvement. This analysis revealed that the composition of units by grade group had been unevenly distributed among each of the "earth systems" until the 2015 revised curriculum was finalized. Furthermore, the basic concept was still insufficient. We suggest that achievement standards centered on the learning content and skills must state specific scientific core competencies, and inquiry activities should include rigorous critical thinking, student written responses, and student inquiry and analysis. In the hierarchical analysis items, FGI emphasized the inclusion of essential content elements rather than reduction of content elements, understanding-oriented concept learning rather than interest-centered phenomenon learning, basic concept division learning before integration between subjects, and expanding vertical-horizontal connectivity rather than repeating and advancing learning. There is a limit to the generalizing the suggestions proposed in this study to the common opinion of elementary earth science experts. However, since the main vision of the 2022 revised curriculum is to gather opinions through educational entities' participation in a variety of educational subjects, it is suggested that our results should be incorporated as one of the opinions proposed for the 2022 curriculum revision.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.33-46
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• 2021

Inquiry occupies an important place in science education, and research related to inquiry is widely conducted. However, due to the inclusiveness of the concept of "exploration," each researcher perceives its meaning differently, and approaches may vary. In addition, criticisms have been raised that the results of classes using inquiry in science education do not guarantee meaningful changes to students. Therefore, this study attempts to identify the trend of SSCI-level research papers dealing with inquiry in science education over the past three years to confirm the current status and effectiveness of the inquiry. Researches used in the analysis are International Journal of Science Education, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Research in Science Education, and Science Education, and limited to those that directly suggest "inquiry (enquiry)" as a keyword. Based on extracted 75 papers, the classification process was conducted, and an analysis frame was derived inductively by reflecting the subject and characteristics. Specific cases for each category were presented by dividing into three aspects: perception and perspective on inquiry, support and strategy for inquiry, and teacher professional development for inquiry. The results of examining the implications for scientific inquiry are as follows: First, rather than defining inquiry as an implicit proposition or presenting it as a step-by-step procedure, it was induced to grasp the meaning of inquiry more comprehensively and holistically. Second, as to whether the inquiry-based instruction is effective in all aspects of the cognitive, functional, and affective domains of science, the limitations are clearly presented, and the context-dependent and subject-specific properties and limitations of inquiry are emphasized. Third, uncertainty in science inquiry-based instruction can help learners to begin their inquiry and develop interest, but in the process of recognizing data and restructuring knowledge, explicit and specific guidance and scaffolding should be provided at an appropriate timing.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.22-29
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of lessons adopting portfolio assessment regarding feedback on elementary school student's scientific knowledges, inquiry abilities and their perceptions of it. For this study, two classes of 5th grade elementary school in suburb were selected. As an experimental group, one class was selected to apply the lessons adopting portfolio assessment regarding feedback, and the other class as a control group was selected to apply the lessons adopting portfolio assessment without feedback. The investigator taught and assessed both group students. The results showed a significant difference in scientific knowledge between the experimental group and the control group (p<.05). More detailed analysis of scientific knowledge found that the feedback effect was statistically positive in the memory and the understanding domain, but there was no effect in the application domain. No statistical difference was identified in inquiry abilities. The results of the questionnaire on the perceptions of portfolio assessment showed that students of the experimental group had higher positive responses on the 'perception about the effects of lesson' and on the 'perception in scientific attitudes' than the control group. However, the control group students had higher positive responses on the 'perception about self-evaluate of their own portfolio' and the 'perception about need of feedback' than the experimental group.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.93-108
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• 2023

This study aims to analyze the types and roles of visualization materials presented in the third- and fourth-grade national and authorized science textbooks based on the 2015 revised curriculum. Using the type and role framework, 17 chapters were analyzed. The analysis revealed, first, that the national and authorized textbooks had different total amounts of visualization data and total amounts of simple illustrations. However, no difference in the amounts of simple illustrations and infographics used in the units was evident. The units that used the most infographics were Life, Earth and Universe, in that order, in both the national and the authorized textbooks. Second, simple illustrations were observed to have role differences according to the type of visualization data, but infographics had no such differences. Specifically, the motivational role in a simple illustration increased in all the authorized textbooks. Third, looking at the frequencies of the infographic subtypes, the Process, Structure, Comparative Analysis, and Timeline types accounted for 86% of the total, but the proportions of those subtypes varied in the national and authorized textbooks. Based on the results of this study, I suggest that to achieve differentiation in the types or roles of visualization materials, changes in the types, processes, and skills of inquiry must first occur, as must changes in the structure of chapters or lessons. Continuous research and discussion on the standards and methods for authorized textbooks are also needed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1245-1255
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable evaluating instrument for elementary school fifth and sixth graders. The instrument is developed through R&D procedure, which includes two checks of science specialist and two field trials of the instrument. Evaluating items are content-free for each science inquiry skill. Each science inquiry element is based on SAPA and the 7th curriculum. This study has selected 10 science inquiry skills(observing, classifying, measuring, predicting, inferring, recognizing of a problem, controlling variables, interpreting data, drawing a conclusion, designing an experiment), formulated a clear definition of the elements of science inquiry skills, and established the objectives of evaluation. The content areas are divided into three categories, material and energy, life and environment, and the earth and circulation. Each category contains 10 items. So the instrument consists of 30 items. The content validity of items, objectivity of the scoring keys, and clarity of the items has been checked twice by specialists in science education. At the same time, two field trials were performed to produce the reliability of the instruments, discrimination index, and item difficulty index. The instrument has the content validity is 91.6%, reliability 0.79, objectivity 93.3%, discrimination index 0.30, and item difficulty index 66.1%.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.180-185
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to inquire the properties and relationship of attitudes toward science and process skills of preservice elementary teachers. Two instruments were used to collect the data, SAS(Science Attitude Scales) for checking up attitude toward science and TIPS II(Test of Integrated Process Skill II) for inspecting science process skills. Three main results were revealed. First, preservice elementary teachers' the attitude toward science and science process skills could not show the significant differences by gender. This result is differ from the results of preceding researches which had set up the students of elementary, middle and high school as objects. Second, the properties of preservice elementary teachers' the attitude toward science and science process skills according to the course in high school were also differ from those of preceding researches having students as objects. The preservice elementary teachers who got the literary courses in high school were more confident in science learning and perform that those who have the academic background of science courses in high school. In addition, although they showed better abilities in two sub-scales of science process skills, the preservice teachers with science course didn't show the better science process skills than those who had taken the literary course in total score of science process skill test. Third, there was a significant relationship between attitude toward science and science process skills of preservice elementary teachers but just one sub-scale was related with science process skills. According to these results, it can be said that the preceding results with students as objects can not be applied to and preservice elementary teachers should be guided by the methods which are considering their special properties.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.7
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• pp.856-869
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• 2006

J. J. Schwab is usually considered as the founder of the concept of scientific enquiry, perhaps the most important key word of science education of the 20th century. Mainly through the method of literature review, this study reappraises Schwab's life as a science educator as well as a curriculum scholar, and his ideas concerning several important issues about science and science education. Like other eminent science educators, before the 1950s, who were originally talented scientists but later became engaged in educational activities, Schwab were trained and known as a genetic scientist, but later he concentrated on university reform, curriculum studies and science education. His academic interest was very diverse across different disciplines, from biology and science in general to history, philosophy and education. The essence of his theory of scientific enquiry was 'to teach science as science', and the best way to do it was 'to teach science as enquiry'. With enquiry, however, he tried to deliver some important but differentiated meanings, for example by distinguishing 'science as enquiry' and 'teaching as enquiry', and 'static enquiry' and 'fluid enquiry'. Scientific enquiry was the core concept upon which many of his ideas concerning science education and education in general were based, such as the diversity of science, textbooks, curriculum and roles of teachers. In summary, Schwab can be characterized as a rational reformist of science education, who tried to identify the very nature and goals of the discipline and to bring its substantial changes with concrete and practical guidelines. Nevertheless, some of his ideas, like the diversity of science and conceptual invention, have been handed down by his followers frequently with considerable distortion.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.17-30
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to identify how developed program influence students' creativity by analyzing creative thinking and creative attitude which is appeared when mathematically gifted students get the program expected to improve their creativity. For the study, the 'dimension based geometry exploring program' was developed that consist of twelve lessons. The main idea of it, is implication of the novel . Through a pre and post-test, students's creativity were measured and compared. The results show significant changes on the scores of creative thinking skills and creative attitudes. As the result, mathematically gifted students' creative thinking skills and creative attitudes were improved by applying the of dimension based geometry exploring program.