• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.197-210
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to explore the cases and features of the abductive inference used by young children when trying to explain natural phenomena in everyday life. From observing a 5-year-old's daily activities with his family, and analyzing the data according to the criterion extracted from the form of abductive inference described by C. S. Peirce, a few cases where the child used abductive inferences to explain natural phenomena were found. The abductive inferences in the cases were conducted: (a) based on figural resemblance and behavioral resemblance (b) under the influence by individual belief and communal belief, then (c) resulted in new categorization accompanied by over generalization. Such features of the abductive inference showed the 'double faces'; sometimes encourages and sometimes discourages children's generating better scientific hypotheses and explanations. These results suggest that even young children use abductive inference to explain doubtful natural phenomena in everyday life, although we need to consider carefully with the double aspects of the features of abductive inference for the practical applications to the fields of science education. Finally, several suggestions and following studies for science education are proposed.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1133-1142
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to verify the effects of science classes using abductive strategies on the scientific concept understanding and meta-cognition. The subjects included two classes of sixth graders from K Elementary School in B Metropolitan City and they divided into two groups. Research group was composed of 21 students(10 boys, 11 girls) and comparative group was composed of 21 students(11 boys, 10 girls). In order to achieve aims of this study, proper contents to apply abductive strategies were selected from the first semester science curriculum for sixth graders. Also five-steps study papers were designed to elicit abductive reasoning. While the research group received 20 times of reframed science lessons using abductive strategies, the comparative group received common science lessons according to the teachers' manual. The results of this study are as follows. First, science classes using abductive strategies were effective for the scientific concept understanding. Also there were statistically significant differences between the research group and the comparative group in overall science sub-domain. In the process of hypothesis formulating, students tried to find out scientific causes thoroughly to present the optimal explanation and they concentrated on the analysis of each scientific concept. It is thought that this process contributed to better understanding in scientific concepts. Second, science classes using abductive strategies were effective for improving meta-cognition. There were statistically significant differences between the two groups and especially in monitoring that is one of sub-factors of meta-cognition. It indicates that hypothesis formulating process gave positive effect on meta-cognition by stimulating critical thinking and manifesting elaboration.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.257-270
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to develop elementary students' ability to generate hypothesis knowledge through knowledge generation learning in science. The learning program consisted of a series of 28 activities to generate hypotheses in science. Eighty 6th grade students participated in the study and were divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group was administered a program geared towards hypothesis generation learning and the control group was administered a program aimed at hypothesis expository learning in elementary science. After using the respective programs, subjects in both groups were tested in terms of their abilities in abductive knowledge generation and administered a descriptive self-report regarding their generation of hypotheses. Two of the 28 activity program worksheets in the experimental group were analyzed in terms of the quality and process of students' hypothesis generation. The results were as follows: 1) The experimental group showed significantly higher scores in terms of scientific knowledge generation (i.e. abductive knowledge generation) than the control group. 2) The degree of hypothesis explanation in the experimental group was significantly higher than in the control group in terms of the quality of the generated hypotheses. In addition, students in the experimental group generated more varied and valid knowledge than the control group in terms of sub-knowledge of hypothesis generation. Therefore, it can be argued that this program for hypothesis knowledge generation in elementary science students was effective in the generation of hypothesis knowledge.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.109-126
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• 2023

In this study, I took the evidence-explanation (E-E) continuum perspective to examine the epistemological implications of scientific reasoning cases designed by preservice elementary teachers during their simulation teaching. The participants were four preservice teachers who conducted simulation instruction on the seasons and high/low air pressure and wind. The selected discourse episodes, which included cases of inductive, deductive, or abductive reasoning, were analyzed for their epistemological implications-specifically, the role played by the reasoning cases in the E-E continuum. The two preservice teachers conducting seasons classes used hypothetical-deductive reasoning when they identified evidence by comparing student-group data and tested a hypothesis by comparing the evidence with the hypothetical statement. However, they did not adopt explicit reasoning for creating the hypothesis or constructing a model from the evidence. The two preservice teachers conducting air pressure and wind classes applied inductive reasoning to find evidence by summarizing the student-group data and adopted linear logic-structured deductive reasoning to construct the final explanation. In teaching similar topics, the preservice teachers showed similar epistemic processes in their scientific reasoning cases. However, the epistemological implications of the instruction were not similar in terms of the E-E continuum. In addition, except in one case, the teachers were neither good at abductive reasoning for creating a hypothesis or an explanatory model, nor good at using reasoning to construct a model from the evidence. The E-E continuum helps in examining the epistemological implications of scientific reasoning and can be an alternative way of transmitting scientific reasoning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.458-469
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• 2003

Hypothesis is defined as a proposition intended as a possible explanation for an observed phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to generate a grounded theory on the process of undergraduate students' generating hypothesis-knowledge about scientific episodes. Three hypothesis-generating tasks were administered to four college students majored in science education. The present study showed that college students represented five types of intermediate knowledge in the process of hypothesis generation, such as question situation, hypothetical explicans, experienced situation, causal explicans, and final hypothetical knowledge. Furthermore, students used six types of thinking methods, such as searching knowledges, comparing a question situation and an experienced situation, borrowing explicans, combining explicans, selecting an explican, and confirming explicans. In addition, hypothesis-generating process involves inductive and deductive reasoning as well as abductive reasoning. This study also discusses the implications of these findings for teaching and evaluating in science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.37-49
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to classify the logical forms of scientific explanations provided by teachers in secondary earth science classrooms, to examine the characteristics of the scientific explanations in different forms, and to identify the roles of the teacher and students in discursive practices for scientific explanations. Data came from the earth science teachers who participated in overseas teacher in-service programs in the years 2003 and 2004. A total of 18 video-taped lessons and their verbatim transcriptions were analyzed. The result showed that deductive-nomological explanations occurred most frequently in earth science classrooms and that the deductive-nomological model was well-suited to those problems for which there existed firmly established scientific laws or principles to construct scientific explanations. However, abductive explanations were presented when the classes dealt with retrodictive tasks of earth science. The statistical-probabilistic and statistical-relevance models were also employed in explaining weather proverbs and unusual changes of weather, respectively. Most of the scientific explanations were completed through the teachers' monologic utterances, and students assumed passive roles in discursive practices for developing scientific explanations. Implications for science lessons and science education research were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.667-679
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• 2000

One of the major activities in scientific inquiry, as well as in the process of conceptual change, is the generation of scientific hypothesis. In this study, the definition and the characteristics of scientific hypothesis are analyzed. Especially, differences between explanatory hypothesis and scientific explanation, predictive hypothesis and scientific prediction, and scientific hypothesis and the inductive generalization are analyzed. And the process of making scientific hypothesis is suggested as 4 stages, and the role and the characteristic of the abductive thinking, which can be viewed as one of the scientific inferences needed to generate hypothesis, are discussed. In analysis, concrete examples from integrated science textbook of high school are used for application to the classroom teaching.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.29-42
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• 2000

Hypothesis is defined as a single proposition proposed as a possible explanation for the occurrence of some observed phenomena. The purpose of this study was to analyze and categorize hypotheses generated by students on the cause of difference between the structures of muscles of the fishes and the terrestrial animals. A hypothesis-generating test was administered to 23 three college students who were majoring in science education. The study showed that college students generated manipulative and theoretical hypotheses as proposed explanations for the structural difference between muscles of the fishes and the terrestrial animals. Furthermore, students generated several hypotheses which were categorized by the quality of abductive process based on the degree of likeness between experienced knowledge and current phenomena. This study also discusses the implications of these findings for teaching and research in science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.77-87
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• 2020

Scientific inquiry has emphasized its importance in various aspects of science learning and has been performed according to various methods and purposes. Among the various aspects of science learning, it is emphasized to develop core competencies with science, such as scientific thinking. Therefore, it is necessary to support students to be able to formulate scientific reasoning properly. This study attempts to explore problem-finding and scientific reasoning in the process of performing scientific inquiry. This study also aims to reveal what factors influence this complex process. For this purpose, this study analyzed the inquiry process and results performed by two groups of college students who conducted the inquiry related to osmosis. To analyze, research plans, presentations, and group interviews were used. As a result, it was found that participants used various scientific reasoning, such as deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning, in the process of problem finding for their inquiry about osmosis. In the process of inquiry and reasoning complexly, anomalous data, which appear regularly, and the characteristics of experimental instruments influenced their reasoning. Various reasons were produced for the purpose of constructing the best explanation about the phenomena observed by participants themselves. Finally, based on the results of this study, several implications for the development context of programs using scientific inquiry are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.367-378
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to investigate the features of science language in Earth science textbooks and Earth science research articles. We examined two Earth science textbooks and two Earth science articles using the taxonomy of scientific words, the text structure analysis of explanations, the analysis of conjunctive relations and reasoning, and the function of conjunction. The results showed that school science language revealed in Earth science textbooks had high proportion of naming words and the text structures in which definition/exemplification structure and description structure were dominant. Also, internal relations that showed additional arrangement rather than logical inference, were predominant in Earth science textbooks. However, scientists' science language revealed in the Earth science articles had more proportion of process words and concept words than the Earth science textbooks and the schematic structure of explanation texts, such as orientation - implication sequence - conclusion. In addition, the text structures in each sentences of implication -sequence showed cause/effect or problem-solving after description structures. Also each sentences expressed causal or abductive reasoning through the internal relations using verbs or adverbial inflection. It is necessary that we bridge the gap between the two languages for students' authentic use of science language. For the bridging, we propose "interlanguage", which mediates between school science language and scientists' language.