• 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.20 no.2
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• pp.271-280
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to investigate how free inquiry activities affects the scientific process skills and scientific attitudes of 5th and 6th of elementary school students. For this study, 265 elementary students from 5th and 6th grade in Seoul were selected. In comparison group 130 students were implemented and to the experimental group 135 students who did not the free inquiry activities were implemented. The result of this study is as follows: First, curiosity was the most affective factor that motivate free inquiry activities and made them select their topics. Most of the students invested for the inquiry activity in less than 3 weeks. They had some help in every stages. Students became interested in free inquiry activities because they learned new facts and enjoyed doing experiments and they wanted to continue for the same reasons. Second, free inquiry activities had little effect on the basic science process skills of the experimental group, compared to the control group at the significant difference of p=0.05. Third, free inquiry activities had considerable effect on the integrative inquiry process skills of the experimental group, compared to the control group at the significant difference of p=0.05. Fourth, the result of the post-test of the experimental group showed that free inquiry activities had no effect on scientific attitudes at the significant difference of p=0.05. In conclusion, free inquiry activities will be much more effective in developing integrative inquiry process skills than in developing basic scientific process skills and scientific attitudes.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.67 no.6
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• pp.441-461
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• 2023

This study explore characteristics of teaching orientation and pck of science teachers in online-offline mixed learning environment. Data consisted of open-ended survey, semi-structured interview, class observation, field notes from 12 science teachers. We categorized teaching orientation considering both science education goals and science teaching·learning orientation. There were 8 different teaching orientations such as 'understanding science concepts-lecture centered' 'constructing science concepts-inquiry based' 'applying science concepts and inquiry-inquiry based' 'applying science concepts and inquiry-lectured centered' 'analyzing and judging science information-inquiry based' 'developing scientific attitude-inquiry based' 'developing scientific attitude-lecture centered' and 'developing perception of interrelationships among science, technology, and society-inquiry based'. Teachers with inquiry based teaching·learning orientation seemed to have knowledge of science curriculum specific to online learning environment for student inquiry. While teachers with 'understanding science concepts-lecture centered' teaching orientation appeared to have questioning strategy of checking student understanding and strategy of repeating a lecture, teachers with 'constructing science concepts-inquiry based' teaching orientation appeared to have knowledge of instructional strategies to perform online group activities targeting student construction of knowledge and to replace face-to-face group activities with virtual experiments and individual experiments. While teachers with 'understanding science concepts-lecture centered' teaching orientation did not show knowledge of student science learning, teachers with 'constructing science concepts-inquiry based' teaching orientation appeared to have knowledge of student difficulties in inquiry based learning.

• 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.39 no.2
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• pp.243-254
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• 2020

This study analyzed the characteristics of "free inquiry" products for scientifically-gifted elementary school students. To do this, 5~6 graders (n=99) at a gifted science education institutes in Seoul were selected. The products (n=82) of "free inquiry" submitted by the students in 2018 and 2019 were analyzed according to their contents and method types. The analysis of the results showed that the free inquiry outputs of scientifically-gifted students tended to not include the scientific knowledge of the upper grades than the corresponding students. In the outputs, the scientific knowledge in different grades were often not linked. There were relatively many cases of convergence of knowledge in various science and/or non-science subjects and knowledge of 'physics', whereas knowledge of 'earth science' were the least. The outputs were more often aimed at "finding scientific facts" than "development and invention" and tended to target non-living things rather than living things. The scientifically-gifted students tended to conduct free inquiry using 'experimental-centered inquiry' by themselves rather than by group. They were also most likely to conduct experiments only once, and did not clearly write down the period of their inquiry. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.349-360
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• 2018

This study analyzed variations of learning stress by comparing the salivary cortisol levels of students who participated in Earth Science inquiry activities. The cortisol concentrations between the pre- and post-inquiries of the sample of 34 university students, who had taken the course of 'Basic Earth Science and Experiments', were analyzed. The Earth Science inquiries consisted of geology and astronomy activities. The observational geology activities consisted of a session of 'structure contours and map patterns' and the cognitive astronomy activities consisted of a session of 'representations of horizontal and equatorial coordinates'. These Earth Science inquiry activities were found to cause students to have anxiety, and the thought processes that these activities involved were found to cause learning stress. The variations in cortisol concentrations of students increased by $1.6{\pm}5.9ng\;mL^{-1}$ after conducting observational activities in geology compared with $2.1{\pm}6.2ng\;mL^{-1}$ after doing cognitive activities in astronomy. The analysis of the observational activities in the geology inquiry activities indicated that they were consistent with low levels of learning stress. Conversely, the analysis of the cognitive activities in the astronomy inquiry activities showed significant individual variations in cortisol concentrations. Furthermore, individual differences in cognitive ability were reflected in the astronomy inquiry activities. While students, who received high scores, exhibited low levels of stress in the geology inquiry activities, they showed high levels of stress in the astronomy inquiry activities. It was concluded that, in the case of students with high scores in the study, the level of learning stress increased due to the raised anxiety in cognitive inquiry activities. In contrast, students, who received low scores in the study, exhibited high levels of stress in the geology inquiry activities, and low levels of stress in the astronomy inquiry activities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.515-529
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• 2020

'Scientific inquiry experiments', which was newly created subjects in the 2015 revised curriculum, was expected in the aspect of learning science and developing core competences through science practices. Based on changed view of evaluation, assessments of a practice-centered subject 'Scientific inquiry experiments' should be try to conducted in various ways, but many challenges were reported. In this study, through analysis of current status of assessment of the subject, we intended to find the way of conducting and supporting 'Scientific inquiry experiments'. We collected assessment materials and explanatory description about them from 25 teachers who taught 'Scientific inquiry experiments' in 2018 and 2019. And we analyzed the cases with framework which were consisted with three main categories: elements, standards, methods of assessments. Also, we investigated how the results of assessment were utilized. For the validity, we requested verification of the results of our data analysis to experts of science education and science teachers. From them, we also collected their opinions about our analysis. As a result of the study, teachers assessed some elements of inquiry skills such as 'analysis and interpreting the data', 'conducting inquiry' more than others which were closely related to what subject-matter the teachers used to organized inquiry program with. In the aspect of domain of assessments, though cognitive domain and affective domain as well as skills were evaluated, we also found that the assessment of those domains had some limitation. In terms of standard of assessment, the goals of assessment were presented in most cases, but there were relatively few cases which had the specific criteria and the stepwise statements of expected performance of students. The time and subject of the assessment were mainly post-class and teachers, and others such as in-class assessments, peer-assessments were used only in specific contexts. In all cases, the results of assessments used for calculating students' grade, but in some cases, we could observe that the results used for improving teaching and feedback for students. Based on these results, we discussed how to support the assessments of 'Scientific inquiry experiments'.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.719-731
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• 2017

The aim of this study was to analyze a group of pre-service elementary teachers experience on the cognitive terms of biology inquiry subjects, and experience on living materials related with the domain of life in the Korea elementary school science textbook. Firstly, elementary school pre-service teachers had the confidence of inquiry subjects related with the domain of life such as 'when we take breath what will happen in human body?' and 'Can we make the model of human body?' But they did have the most diffidence of 'The search for pieris rapae, a cabbage butterfly's life', 'Can we grow the little creature?' The reason why pre-service elementary teachers had diffidence of comprehending experiment procedure and planning ability was that 'they focused on understanding the scientific concepts instead of planning experiments by themselves', and 'they carried out the least amount of experiments' Secondly, elementary school pre-service teachers had never experienced biology materials related with the domain of life in the Korea elementary school biology science textbook such as 'tradescantia reflexa', 'Caddis larva', 'hydrilla verticillata', and 'Plantain lily.' According to the findings obtained from the study, the reason why they had never seen the biology materials was that they had the least opportunity of immediately observing life creatures due to memorization-intensive classes.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.494-504
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• 2003

The primary purpose of the study was to determine the appropriateness of the inquiry processes described in Science VII's written based on the 7th National Science Curriculum. It was found that the basic processes were well reflected on the textbooks analyzed for the research. However, only a few integrated processes and the inquiry activities could be seen on the same textbooks. Furthermore, a larger majority of the inquiry processes and activities were not agreed with what the tasks and titles say. Especially, the none of as many as 71 experiments were not coincided with their titles' intentions. Also suggested in the paper were the implications of the results for the science education in the Korean middle schools.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.124-135
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to find the relationship between elementary school teachers' beliefs of inquiry and science performance assessment. To collect data for analyzing elementary school teachers' beliefs of inquiry and their practice of science performance assessment, the researcher was surveyed with elementary school teachers by open-ended questionnaires and interview. The findings of this study were as follows; First, Most of elementary school teachers beliefs of inquiry was shown as constructivist tendency. This view of inquiry involves watching and doing experiments, and the skills of thinking processes, in which learners make their own interpretations rather than merely acquiring preexisting knowledge structures. Second, for content knowledge, participants' preception about the target of science performance assessment involved assessing application of science knowledge rather than basic level of substantive knowledge. For inquiry process, participants' preception about the target of science performance assessment involved assessing the lower level of inquiry rather than the higher level of inquiry. Most of participants was measured using a paper and pencil test for the actual evaluation methods due to the ease and objectivity of the assessment, the lack of understanding how to perform the performance evaluation process and method. Especially, participants who recognize that the higher level of inquiry was used performance and informal mode of assessing.