• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.69-85
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to develop criteria for evaluating final reports of free inquiry activity and to apply developed evaluation criteria to free inquiry activity reports. 323 inquiry reports submitted to internal contests in the elementary schools as well as 189 award-winning ones from the inquiry competition for students in Seoul were collected. Nine categories and 18 sub-categories of evaluation criteria were derived by collecting reports analysis, literature reviews and interviews with 15 elementary school teachers. Criteria for each sub-category were organized into three steps and 12 elementary school teachers assigned scores for each sub-category, which were averaged. 132 including both award-winning and general reports were evaluated based on the developed evaluation criteria. The content validity and the reliability across scorers were significant. Furthermore, award-winning and general reports were significantly distinguished by the developed criteria in terms of all sub-category scores. The developed evaluation criteria will be an effective tool to asses student's free inquiry activity.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to understand characteristics of students' reflective inquiry disposition in the contexts of classroom and to find educational implications for the promotion of the reflective inquiry activity in the inquiry-based class. In this study, we determined a characteristic of the reflection inquiry by examining students' responses showed in response to the different class types in high school earth science inquiry class. The result of the study indicated that the difference between the newly developed class type to promote the reflective inquiry and the existing inquiry class type was found significant. The newly developed reflective inquiry class had a multitude of reflective inquiry statements related to various elements of data context in terms of the quantity and diversity of the reflective inquiry. In conclusion, we found that the newly developed class type had a positive impact on the students' reflective inquiry activity. We believe that the development of the inquiry activity to promote students' reflective inquiry is critical.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.443-450
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• 1998

This study was performed to find the environmental factors of inquiry instruction perceived by secondary school science teacher. The instrument consisted of three domains such as teaching conditions, viewpoints of secondary school science teachers of environmental factors for inquiry instruction, and barrier and improve! rent factors of inquiry instruction. Teaching conditions between middle school and high school science teachers were not different significantly. Environmental factors of inquiry instruction of secondary school science teacher included five factors such as 'facilities and encouragement', 'amount of works and materials', 'teacher education and textbook', 'practice and knowledge' and 'perception of necessity and satisfaction'. And all factors except 'perception of necessity and satisfaction' were very low state for inquiry instruction. In the disturbant and improving factors, the critical factors were 'over students per class', 'textbook' and 'learning materials' for middle school science teachers, and 'over students per class', and 'entrance examination' for high school science teachers. Thus the development and diffusion of adequate inquiry learning materials may be helpful to practicing inquiry instruction as decrease of works and psychological charges, and it is needed to reorganize systematically and intensify pre- and in-service teacher education to practice inquiry instruction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.210-224
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to analyze students' recognition of the free inquiry activity and to investigate what effect the free inquiry activity of the 2007 Revised Educational curriculum revision has on the science inquiry ability of middle school students. To conduct the research we worked with 262 female students, 8 classes of first graders in a middle school. Among them, 4 classes were taught in free inquiry activity and the remaining 4 classes were taught in the traditional way. The results of Likert-questionnaire indicate that students were learning about cooperative spirit through group investigation activities and discussions and did not take the free inquiry activity as a hard activity. Also they showed positive reaction agreeing that this activity is both a helpful method in learning science and interesting. However, it seemed that the investigation tends to flow between the leading 1~2 members of the group and showed difficulty in carrying out the investigation as a group after school hours. It showed there are few problems and obstacles in operating the free inquiry activity. The free inquiry activity did not give any meaningful influence on the improvement of science inquiry ability of students. Integrative inquiry process skills did not give a relevant influence, however, it showed a meaningful influence on the improvement of basic inquiry process skills. Especially, among the low-ranking element of basic inquiry process skills, it enhanced the capacity for prediction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.211-226
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate science teachers' understandings about scientific argumentation in the classroom. Seven structured interview protocols were developed, asking the definition of scientific inquiry, the differentiation between scientific inquiry and hands-on activity, the opportunity of student argumentation, explicit teaching strategies for scientific argumentation, the critical example of argumentation, the criteria of successful argumentation, and the barrier of developing argumentation. The results indicate that there are differences and similarities in understandings about scientific argumentation between two groups of middle school teachers and upper elementary. Basically, teachers at middle school define scientific inquiry as the opportunity of practicing reasoning skills through argumentation, while teachers at upper elementary define it as the more opportunities of practicing procedural skills through experiments rather than of developing argumentation. Teachers in both groups have implemented a teaching strategy called "Claim-Evidence Approach," for the purpose of providing students with more opportunities to develop arguments. Students' misconception, limited scientific knowledge and perception about inquiry as a cycle without the opportunity of using reasoning skills were considered as barriers for implementing authentic scientific inquiry in the classroom.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.207-218
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• 2010

The revised curriculum in 2007 adds an open inquiry approach to increase students' creativity and interest in science. Because it is the first time for elementary students to perform the open inquiry due to the national curriculum, it is essential that teachers give students' successful experiences in order to build a positive impression about inquiry activity. The purpose of this research is to develop and apply the open inquiry program. The research findings are as follows: First, we analyzed the students' traits of open inquiry ability during the program. The third and fourth grade students showed weakness in operating and inquiring abilities. They also feared failure and were unable to concentrate in classes which were based on explanation or discussion. When students had unexpected results, however, their inquiring abilities and creativeness increased considerably. Additionally there were some students who were stressed during the science-inquiry activity, due to no interest in science and an inability to think scientifically. Second, we developed an open inquiry program for elementary students. The program was modified, reflected upon the students' traits during open inquiry in class. Through repeated feedback like this, we completed the program. Third, for those who studied in the lessons there was a meaningful change in students' science inquiry abilities and abilities to perform 'formulating a hypothesis' and 'the control of variables'. These students' level of self-inquiry performance improved steadily. Moreover, they obtained a strong attachment to their inquiry and understood the method of quantitative experiments.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.341-358
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to develop performance assessment materials of scientific inquiry skills on sixty scientific activities in elementary science textbook for fifth and sixth grades. For this study, a total of 500 elementary teachers were sampled and surveys were carried out to examine the status of performance assessment of scientific inquiry skills in school. The classification system of assessment methods by Hart(1994) was also analyzed to create' assessment strategy of scientific inquiry skills' for elementary school students. Based on the quantitative data analysis and literature study, performance assessment materials were developed and applied to science classes for fifth and sixth grades. Teachers and students were interviewed after the classes for asking about merits and improvements and the performance assessment materials were revised. This study can provide elementary school teachers with reliable sources for performance assessment of scientific inquiry skills utilized in their science classes.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.487-494
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• 2003

In this study, the effects of science achievement faculties improvements upon students' logical thinking, science inquiry skills, experiment attitudes, manipulated skills and inquiry process skills were investigated in high school inquiry chemistry experiments. For this purpose, the participants were 150 students taking the course of high school chemistry class in Anyang-city. Logical thinking and science inquiry skills' data were collected from written tests, inquiry process skills' data were collected from reports and experiment attitudes and manipulated skills' data were collected from classroom observations. As the results of this study, students' inquiry process skills, experiment attitudes and manipulative skills were very low. But other parts except inquiry process skills were significantly increased. And the science achievement of students were improved when continuously inquiry chemistry experiment were applied to students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.56-65
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• 1993

The purpose of this study is to analyze the inquiry activities of SCIIS and Korea primary school science curricular meterials and to make suggestions for the improvement of inquiry learning based on the analysis The Scientific Inquiry Evaluation Inventory (SIEI: Myung Hur, 1984) was used to evaluate the inquiry activity content of the primary school "Science, Level-6" and "SCIIS, Level-6" textbooks. The results are as follows: 1) The inquiry activities of Korean science textbooks are stressing on gathering and organizing data, but rarely require students to formulate a hypothesis, to design an experiment. 2) The SCIIS textbooks relatively tended to put more weight on interpreting/ analysing data and hypothesizing/ designing experiments. 3)The Korean science textbooks had little concern about establishing hypothesis and designing experiments, interpreting / analysing data. 4) The SCIIS textbooks require students to perform a variety of inquiry skills when compare to Korean science textbooks. 5) Competition / Cooperation Scale checks the level of competition and cooperation among student teams inherent in science curricular materials. The result from each team is incorporated into the formation of a class result. The communication is required to formulate a synthesized class response, enhances cooperation among teams. The SCIIS(84%) is the higher than Korea(50%) in cooperation scale. 6) Korean science textbooks rarely require students to discuss about experiment when compare to SCIIS textbooks. 7) Korean science textbooks provide students with both inquiry problems and experimental procedure, or including answers SCIIS textbooks provide students with both inquiry problems and experimental procedure, or problems only. 8) The Korean textbooks emphasize demonstrating or verifying of the text while the SCIlS emphasize extending the content of the text in inquiry scope scsle. The inquiry pyramid which helps analysis the inquiry activity curriculum as a whole is one of type 1- the course is centered on gathering and organizing data. The SCIIS are better than the Korean science textbook in the light of proportion of interpreting / analysing data and hypothesizing / designing experiments.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.114-126
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to identify the theory of inquiry and to suggest an example of teaching/learning strategy through inquiry for effective environmental education. This study was based on the review of literature in the area of background of inquiry, inquiry in school subjects-social science, science, and environment and activities for inquiry. The teaching/learning strategy which was developed in this study included several inquiry activities focusing on recent social issue. And it can be used in environmental class.