• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.194-204
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this literature review is to investigate what kinds of research have been done about scientific inquiry in terms of scientific argumentation in the classroom context from the upper elementary to the high school levels. First, science educators argued that there had not been differentiation between authentic scientific inquiry by scientists and school scientific inquiry by students in the classroom. This uncertainty of goals or definition of scientific inquiry has led to the problem or limitation of implementing scientific inquiry in the classroom. It was also pointed out that students' learning science as inquiry has been done without opportunities of argumentation to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed. Second, what is scientific argumentation, then? Researchers stated that scientific inquiry in the classroom cannot be guaranteed only through hands-on experimentation. Students can understand how scientific knowledge is constructed through their reasoning skills using opportunities of argumentation based on their procedural skills using opportunities of experimentation. Third, many researchers emphasized the social practices of small or whole group work for enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills through argumentations. Different role of leadership in groups and existence of teachers' roles are found to have potential in enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills to understand science as inquiry. Fourth, what is scientific reasoning? Scientific reasoning is defined as an ability to differentiate evidence or data from theory and coordinate them to construct their scientific knowledge based on their collection of data (Kuhn, 1989, 1992; Dunbar & Klahr, 1988, 1989; Reif & Larkin, 1991). Those researchers found that students skills in scientific reasoning are different from scientists. Fifth, for the purpose of enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed, other researchers suggested that teachers' roles in scaffolding could help students develop those skills. Based on this literature review, it is important to find what kinds of generalizable teaching strategies teachers use for students scientific reasoning skills through scientific argumentation and investigate teachers' knowledge of scientific argumentation in the context of scientific inquiry. The relationship between teachers' knowledge and their teaching strategies and between teachers teaching strategies and students scientific reasoning skills can be found out if there is any.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.211-226
• /
• 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
• /
• v.20 no.2
• /
• pp.271-280
• /
• 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 Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.399-419
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study was to develop performance assessment materials of scientific inquiry skills on 62 scientific activities in elementary science textbook for third and fourth grades. For this study, a total of 318 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, literature study and existing performance assessment materials analysis, performance assessment materials were developed and applied to science classes for third and fourth grades. Teachers and students were interviewed after the classes for asking about merits and improvements and the performance assessment materials were revised.

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

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.237-253
• /
• 2001

This study examined the effects of the inquiry model on children's scientific thinking ability and processing skills. The experimental classroom of a kindergarten in Seoul was assigned the inquiry model while the control classroom was assigned general scientific education (N=48). Seventeen treatment sessions were applied to the experimental group. Tests to investigate the hypotheses included the Sink and Float Test and a new instrument developed by the researchers. Findings showed that preschoolers receiving the inquiry model of instruction gained higher scores in scientific thinking ability and processing skills than the preschoolers in the classroom using the general scientific education model. In sum, this study proved the superior effect of the inquiry model in developing children's scientific skills and ability.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.68-72
• /
• 1995

This is very important to know teachers' and children's scientific knowledge, scientific inquiry skills and cognitive abilities for better education of children. The subjects of this study are about 60-150 in each group. There are instruments used ; To test scientific knowledge a test is developed by the author. To test scientific inquiry skills, the test developed by Eun Kyung Yong is used. To test cognitive abilities, GALT, short version is used. There are results; Firstly, inservice teachers' scientific knowledge is better than preservice teachers', which is better than children'. Secondly, inservice teachers' scientific inquiry skills nearly equal preservice teachers', which are better than children'. Thirdly, preservice teachers' cognitive abilities nearly equal inservice teachers', which are better than children'. Fourthly, teachers' (special area-science) cognitive abilities are better than teachers' (special area-vidual art, music, physical education). Elementary teachers in Korea have fundamental abilities to teach elementary children.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.213-223
• /
• 2012

This study explored practicing elementary school teacher's beliefs of scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching methods. Defining teacher's beliefs as a broad construct, we tried to examine the teachers' understandings about the scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching method. This study drew on interview data from 10 elementary teachers in busan and changwon area of korea. Conclusions of this study include; First, we found that elementary teacher's beliefs of inquiry were represented variously. And they considered that inquiry is the important goal of science education. They though that the goal of science education is development of Scientific inquiry skills, Scientific thinking skills, development of Creativity and problem solving ability, increasing interest about science, understanding of the basic concepts of science and apply of real-life. second, most of the teachers though that Scientific inquiry is scientists activities, they defined 'the process of creation of new knowledge', 'the process of deriving theory', 'solving process of intellectual curiosity', 'Problem-solving process'. third, they considered that teaching method of scientific inquiry is open inquiry activities. however, they thought that there are many difficulties to actually apply. Understanding teachers' beliefs has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development, with enhanced outcomes for engaging students in Science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.35 no.6
• /
• pp.931-938
• /
• 2015

In the study, epistemological beliefs, metacognition, and scientific inquiry skills all directly affected the science academic achievement levels of high school students. Also, epistemological beliefs indirectly affected science academic achievement mediated by scientific inquiry skills and metacognition, while metacognition had an indirect effect on science academic achievement level mediated by scientific inquiry skills. We found that scientific inquiry skills had the biggest direct effect, while epistemological beliefs showed the most robust indirect effect on academic achievement level. Thus, we argue that students' scientific inquiry skills should be nurtured for the advancement of their academic achievement. In addition, more careful scholarly attention must be given to both epistemological beliefs and metacognition, which directly and indirectly affected academic achievement level. We believe that epistemological beliefs, metacognition, and scientific inquiry skills should all be considered in an integrative manner when developing educational programs and strategies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.54-67
• /
• 1995

This study has been performed in order to achieve three objectives. They are as follows: To analyze, based on the research literatures, the nature of scientific inquiry ability and the characteristics of its constitutive elements. To identify inquiry skills and techniques essential to such areas as physics, chemistry, biology, and earth science. To develop instructional models and materials for enhancing inquiry ability on the part of high school students. It was found in the study that the scientific inquiry was interpreted in terms of different meanings according to the viewpoint of the person who are interested in the nature of science. The scientific inquiry has been viewed as the process of knowledge formation, scientific method, inquiry process or process skills depending on the epistemological, methodological, educational perspectives, respectively. It was also identified that certain kind of skills or techniques would be used for inquiry in only one specific area of the science. The skills and techniques are effectively learned when those are taught with specific knowledge in each area of the science. The model and materials for fostering scientific inquiry skills will be presented on the second part of the report.