• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.273-290
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• 2017

The purposes of this study are to develop a measuring instrument for perception of science classes based on the view of 'Community of Inquiry in Science Classroom' and to investigate elementary school students' perceptions with the instrument developed in the study. A total of 417 6th grade students participated in this study. As a result, first, we developed two set of questionnaire: (a) the questionnaire for the 'process of inquiry' consisted of six factors: 'problem recognition I: recognition of inconsistency,' 'problem recognition II: interests,' 'problem explanation I: hypothesis generation and examination,' 'problem explanation II: cooperative review,' 'problem solving I: reflection on the change of relationship with objects/conceptions,' and 'problem solving II: reflection on the change of relationship with community/ inquirer,' comprising a total of 42 items; (b) the questionnaire for the 'basis of inquiry' consisted of three factors:'will of conducting inquiry,' 'attitudes of conducting inquiry,' and 'structure of communication,' comprising a total of 17 items. Second, we found that elementary school students had positive recognition generally on their science classes in terms of the 'community of inquiry in science classroom,' but they had relatively negative recognition on the factors of problem recognition based on recognition of inconsistency, problem solving accompanied with reflection on the change of relationship with objects/conceptions, and attitudes of conducting inquiry based on severity and fallibilism, Finally, several suggestions for the science education were given.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.707-715
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• 2019

The self-directed inquiry to improve students' core scientific competency is an important teaching method. Students experience a variety of difficulties in carrying out their inquiry tasks, sometimes fail to produce the desired results, or fail to perform a meaningless inquiry. This study was conducted to identify the causes of difficulties and failures in students' self-directed scientific inquiry. The study involved 16 high school students with experience in science research at science high schools and science-focused high schools. The data collection consisted of in-depth interviews centered on semi-structured open questions. Qualitative data analysis was imputed by finding paragraphs from the interview material that might reveal the difficulties and failures experienced by participants and the reasons for them. The study found that most of the causes of failure were lack of ability, incomplete procedures, and selection of complicated tasks. A variety of cognitive biases, such as overconfidence, planning fallacy, and groupthink, were also analyzed as causes. Based on the results of the study, it is necessary to develop an educational strategy that students can be fully prepared to reduce their trials and errors in a self-directed inquiry maximally.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.139-152
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• 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 Science Education
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.103-120
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to compare science teachers' perceptions with students' perceptions about the important aims of laboratory activities in science instructions, to identify whether there was a difference between them. For the purpose, the two questionnaires were designed; for secondary science teacher and secondary student. The samples selected in each group were 108 middle school teachers, 109 middle school students, 104 high school teachers, and 110 high school students. The survey responses from each group were analyzed through multiple response method. The results indicated that science teachers selected the science process skills as important aim of laboratory activity whereas students selected the ability for creative problem-solving and the central tendency of teachers' responses about certain item-science process skill was relatively higher than students' responses about certain item-the ability for creative problem-solving. From these results, we found there was the difference between teachers' perception and students perception about the important aims of laboratory activities in science instructions.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.66 no.2
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• pp.163-170
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• 2022

This study investigated and analyzed the social and emotional learning components of middle school science, and high school integrated science and science inquiry experiments, which are common subjects that all students must complete. The subjects of analysis were 139 achievement standards of science and curriculum and 496 activities included in textbooks. The research results are as follows. In the case of curriculum achievement standards, 'cultural understanding' was hardly included among the seven science and social-emotional learning elements, 'numeracy' and 'creative thinking' appeared high in middle school, 'critical thinking', 'social technology' and 'ethical understanding' were included with high frequency in high school. And in the case of textbook activity, the tendency of social-emotional learning elements in middle school and high school was similar. 'critical thinking', 'creative thinking', and 'social skills' were mainly provided, while 'ethical understanding' and 'cultural understanding' were reflected in a limited way. In order to cultivate the elements of overall social-emotional learning, it is necessary to specify the achievement standards of the curriculum or to supplement the textbook activities and teaching-learning process.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.686-702
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• 2012

This study investigated the impact of grouping methods on free inquiry implementation through the use of mixed research methods. Some 113 7th graders and 2 science teachers in two middle schools participated in this study. The 113 students who participated in this study were grouped by homogeneity and heterogeneity according to scientific inquiry skills and personality types respectively, and performed free inquiry activities on the same subject for three weeks. Data were collected by means of a test on science inquiry skills and from focus group interviews with 36 students and in-depth interviews with 2 teachers. The quantitative results of this study showed that homogeneous grouping was more effective than heterogeneous grouping in improvement of scientific inquiry skills. Meanwhile, the qualitative results revealed both the students and teachers perceived that it was effective to compose a small group according to their affective quality than their cognitive quality. Particularly, most of the students preferred the method of small group from the personality types. Some students and both teachers proposed that it is necessary to collect enough information on students and to use them in mixture with the method of small group according to the affective quality.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.359-368
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to find out the factor that causes the difference on understanding the aim and perception of laboratory activities between teachers and students. For this study, in-depth interview was conducted for sixth grade students and teachers of 10 classes. The questionnaire of the interview can be divided into 3 sections: the aim of laboratory activities, whether teachers present the aim of laboratory activities, the method of laboratory class progress and the evaluation method. The factors that bring about the difference between the teachers and the students on perception of the aim are the absence of proper guidance on the aim of laboratory activities, the laboratory classes that the progress out of teachers' intention and evaluation method that is the performed without any relationship with the aim of the laboratory activities. Because the teacher-intended aim of laboratory activities is not properly presented, students can't percept the accurate aim. Even though teachers recognize the importance of the improvement of science process skill acquired through laboratory activities, this is not delivered practically in the class and students also can't percept the importance of science process skill.

• Proceedings of the Zoological Society Korea Conference
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• 1998.10b
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• pp.375.2-375
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• 1998

• 한국지구과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.02a
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• pp.223-228
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• 2005

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.261-277
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• 2013

This study aims to investigate the effect of a scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program on pre-service elementary school teachers' attitudes toward science and scientific inquiry in the class of elementary school science educational theory at education university. As for research subjects, this study selected 141 pre-service elementary school teachers who were in the third year of education university. The results of this study can be summarized as below. First, it was found that the scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program improved pre-service elementary school teachers' attitudes toward science and helped them realize it important to have knowledge about science, further making them find it more enjoyable to teach science at school in the future. Second, it was found that the scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program had positive effect on pre-service elementary school teachers' attitudes toward scientific inquiry. In other words, they came to think of inquiry-based learning styles as an important course of science class. Third, as a result of carrying out open-ended questions about what would be helpful in an actual education site through the scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program, this study found out that most of the research subjects responded it would be helpful when applying a class model, and thought it would be helpful for elementary school students to have scientific knowledge and understand the process of inquiry.