• Journal of Science Education
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.300-317
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to suggest improvements in the science concepts and inquiry activities presented in the earth science section in the 2015 revised curriculum elementary science textbooks. For this study, two science educator and three elementary school teachers developed a survey questionnaire to investigate science concepts, inquiry activities, and suggest improvements. The survey was conducted two times, and 30 elementary school teachers and three earth science professors (geology, meteorology, astronomy) participated in the survey. As a result, it was investigated that eight concepts in the solid section, three concepts in the fluid section, and one concept in universe and integration section contained misconceptions. It was investigated that the content of inquiry activity needs to be supplemented, with seven elements in solid section, three elements in fluid section, and one in the universe and integration section. According to the research results, if the textbook is revised, it is necessary to accurately confirm the science concepts or content of inquiry activities. Also in the case of science concepts presented in textbooks, it will be necessary to consider not only the scope and sequence of contents but also the process of learning progression.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.183-198
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to develop teaching modules related to Earth Science courses in order to enhance scientific inquiry skills of middle school students. A 'process skill-centered' module was developed to induce scientific process skills, while students explore specific scientific context. A module consists of several activities, and each activity focuses on a specific science process skill. Modules were designed such that the skills would improve depending on the completion of the module. To evaluate the effectiveness, field workshops for middle school science teachers were done twice. Science teachers, who were participants of the workshop, commented that the activities in each module were suited to enhance students' interest in science. They noted that scientific inquiry skills would be developed from each activity. Students responded that the activities in the modules were interesting, and it was a good experience to do them by themselves. Students were the focal point in class, not teachers. This enabled teachers to evaluated each student's achievement level, and provide a proper feedback. Hence, applying these modules in classes should enhance the students' scientific inquiry skills.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.210-226
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• 2021

The purpose of this study was to understand what orientations elementary school teachers have related to their science classes, what realities they encounter in real classes, how they overcome their frustrations and failures they experience. We employed a narrative inquiry method and analyzed the experiences of two early career elementary school teachers (Miss Park and Mr. Choi). Miss Park wanted to conduct students-driven inquiry classes, in which students become active investigators, but in reality, she faced herself who conducted teacher-driven classes. Mr. Choi wanted to conduct science classes based on constructivism, but in reality, he encountered himself as a knowledge giver rather than scaffolder. However, rather than giving up their orientations, the two teachers tried to keep them in their own way. It was expected that by understanding what strategies beginner teachers take when their theoretical orientation and ideals are not well implemented in actual educational reality, we could find a clue that will lead to a more successful transition from pre-service teacher to teacher.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.253-266
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• 2021

This study analyzed the use of visualization materials in "free inquiry" reports for scientifically-gifted elementary school students focusing on infographics. From 2017 to 2019, 78 students in grades 4~6 at a gifted science education institutes in Seoul were selected. The visualization materials in the reports (n=60) of "free inquiry" submitted by the students were analyzed from the viewpoint of using infographics. The analysis of the results showed that the visualization materials were mostly general illustrations, and infographics were very few. In addition, there were more cases of citing the existing infographics than the case of constructing the infographic. Looking at each stage of inquiry, general illustrations or infographics composed by the students appeared in 'inquiry method' or 'inquiry result' stage, but the existing infographics appeared in 'theoretical background' stage. Among the infographic types by 'expression type', 'structural type' and 'process type' were the most frequent and 'statistical type' or 'comparative/analytic type' was used frequently. Among the infographic types by 'construction level', 'simple reorganization', 'simple layout', and 'reorganization' appeared relatively more. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.268-280
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• 2005

Teaching with laboratory activities in school science, which are distinctive characteristic, is placed from other disciplines fur teaming almost 200 hundred years ago. A number of science educators have suggested that there are rich benefits in teaming from using laboratory activities. At these time, however, some educators have begun to seriously question the effectiveness and the role of laboratory activities. There are some causes related to obscure and vague aims of laboratory activities. The purposes of this paper is to review aims of laboratory activities presented in the literatures through historical overview, and to obtain implication for school science. There are various aims of laboratory activities by a number of researchers. Overall synthesizing, there are ffur domains of aims of science teaching through laboratory activities, (a) science knowledge has two sub-domains; scientific content knowledge and procedural knowledge, (b) nature of science, (c) science attitude has two sub-domain; scientific attitude and attitude toward science, and (d) ability of scientific inquiry has two sub-domain; manipulative skills and scientific thinking. But, it is necessary to continue the following study in order to obtain the aims of laboratory activities agreed by expert community, and setting up of lists of aims of laboratory activities for students to achieve hierarchies of school science curriculums.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.402-415
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• 2018

This study aims to inquire into the U. S. elementary school teachers' storylines for science teaching methods, scientific knowledge and interactions with students. As research subjects, two American elementary school teachers, named Christina and Melissa, were selected. As test tools, this study adopted Storyline Test and semi-structured interviews. Firstly, in regard to the science teaching method, Christina evaluated that she gradually improved her science teaching skills up to positive 6 points, starting from 2 points in the first year of teaching career, while Melissa sustained a stable state with 5 points in the 9th year of teaching career, starting from 1 point in the first year of teaching career. It was found that both the teachers had more confidence in their science teaching methods by participating in various training programs. Secondly, Christina evaluated her scientific knowledge in the first year of teaching career as 4 points, but evaluated her present scientific knowledge as stable as 6 points since she started studying teaching materials actively, discussing with other teachers and having more ability of application through science class integrated with other school subjects, in the 7th year of her teaching career. On the other hand, Melissa evaluated her scientific knowledge in the first year of teaching career as 1 point since she did not exactly know what to teach elementary school students, but in the 6th year of teaching career, she sustained a stable state with points through joint-activities with other teachers. It was found that chances to research with other teachers had important effect on both the teachers' confidence in scientific knowledge. Thirdly, in regard to interactions with students in science class, Christina said that she did not have any interaction with students when instructing inquiry activities in the first year of teaching career, but since the 10th year of her teaching career, she had sustained a stable state with 6 points through active interaction with students, by leading learning projects and science competitive exhibitions, etc. On the other hand, Melissa evaluated her interaction with students in the first year of teaching career as 1 point because her class was reading-oriented, but since the 9th year of teaching career, she had sustained a stable state with 6 points so far, by developing inquiry activity strategies to improve interaction with students. Overall, it was found that inquiry activities played a central role in improving both the teachers' interaction with students.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.61-72
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to analyze elementary school teachers' implementation for the emphasis on the revision, major contents, teaching and learning method, and evaluation in the 2009 revised national science curriculum. To fulfill the purpose of this study we carried out a survey with 222 elementary school teachers. Main findings of this research were as follows: First, they highly agreed to the increase in class hours and the application of subject classroom, but they had a lower recognition for setting the subject groups. Second, the degree of necessity in discussion and STS was relatively high, but the degree of implementation in science writing, discussion and STEAM was low. Third, in teaching and learning method, they showed a high performance for mutual cooperation, student-led activities and communication, but, a low implementation for open inquiry and instruction considering individual differences. Fourth, in the evaluation of science learning, they showed a high implementation for evaluation based on achievement standards and one based on the understanding and application of basic concepts, but, a low implementation for the development of common evaluation tools. Fifth, it seemed that their recognition for amount, level and interest of science contents and inquiry activities was appropriate and positive.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.487-494
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of MBL experiment instruction on the 7th graders' scientific inquiry skills and graph construction and interpretation ability in the unit "Elements and movement of sea water". Results are as follows: First, this study analyzed the influence on students' scientific inquiry skill after having six MBL instructional classes. The result showed a significant difference in the scientific inquiry skills between the experimental group and the control group, which implies that the instruction using MBL was an effective way to improve students' scientific inquiry skills. Second, this study also analyzed the influence on students' abilities to construct and interpret graphs. The result did not show any significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in the ability to construct graphs. But it showed significant differences in the ability to interpretgraphs, which means that instruction using MBL was an effective way to improve students' ability to interpret graphs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.116-125
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• 1995

This study is to consider hypotheses with integral view on the respect of creative thinking. Subjects of this study are Korean students in the 5th grade who participated in the Field Trip Contest of the second Korean Youth Science Festival, an openended inquiry investigation. Objectives of this study are as follows: 1) to measure the inquiry level of the Field Trip Contest activity 2) to find how many hypotheses were made on different types in the inquiry investigation 3) to measure the quality level of hypotheses made in the scientific inquiry investigation 4) to find out the correlation between the 1st and 2nd hypotheses and the final activity score in the two staged scientific investigation In the consequence of it, inquiry level of the Field Trip Contest was very high with good activity topics and openended way of investigation. Hypotheses were made in the prediction, plan, and conclusion parts in the field trip activity report. They used hypothesis-as-prediction typed statements(3.41/team) more than hypothesis-as-explanation(1.28/team) and descriptive hypothesis(0.03/team) types. Content-related hypothesis(5.03/team) and process-related hypothesis(6.16/team) were usually coupled each other. Most of them had difficulties in hypothesis-from-evidence(0.31/team, 10/32 teams) in the comparison of hypothesis-from-simple conjecture(10.62/team). The quality level of content-related hypotheses(0.74point/statement) and process-related hypotheses(1.98point/statement) were very low by the hypothesis-quality scale(Quinn and George, 1975) for the content-related hypotheses and the process-related hypothesis quality scale developed in this study. There was considerable correlation between the activity score and the 1st and 2nd hypothesis in the 2 staged inquiry investigations with the 2nd and 3rd topics($0.41{\ast}$, $0.59{\ast}{\ast}$ repectively).

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.421-431
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of portfolio instruction on the creativity and scientific inquiry ability of 6th-grade students in science classroom. Four classes were sampled from an urban elementary school in southern part of Seoul. Two classes were assigned to experimental group and the other two classes to control group. Portfolio instruction was administered to the experimental group for 10 weeks, and traditional instruction to the control group. Data on students' creativity and scientific inquiry ability were collected prior to and after the treatment for both groups. Students' perception on portfolio instruction was investigated with experimental group after the treatment. The results of this study are as follows: (1) Portfolio instruction had a significant positive effect on creativity; (2) Students' originality, one of sub-domain of creativity, showed marked increase after portfolio instruction; (3) Portfolio instruction had a significant positive effect on scientific inquiry ability; (4) Integrated inquiry ability, a sub-domain of inquiry ability, improved meaningfully after portfolio instruction; and (4) Students' perception on portfolio instruction is very positive.