• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.647-667
• /
• 2009

This study intends to analyze open-ended inquiry activities of elementary science-gifted students in terms of how similar they are to authentic science inquiry and suggest desirable ways to make more effective programs for the gifted. For this study, we selected a small group with five elementary science-gifted students who had participated in the open inquiry program of summer camp held in the Institute for Science Gifted Education and collected data through recording and video-taping their discussion and performance from planning to coordinating inquiry results. The data was analyzed in terms of epistemological features and cognitive process in authentic science inquiry. The results is as follows. In terms of epistemology, students' inquiry methods were theory laden and they constructed knowledge in collaborative groups. For example, the students often discussed about performing the thought experiment and scientific concept related to inquiry task or their opinion. And in terms of cognitive process, their designing inquiry was similar to authentic science inquiry especially selecting variables, planning procedures, controlling variables, planning measures.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.27 no.9
• /
• pp.930-943
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate if students may actually experience scientific reasoning based on an epistemology of authentic science during authentic open inquiry. The samples were 86 10th graders in a science-high school in Seoul. The experimental group practiced authentic open inquiry and the control group practiced traditional school science inquiry in five weeks. Then, the questions students asked while performing inquiry tasks were analyzed. The frequency of the questions asked by students was almost same between two groups, however, the types of questions were different. The frequency of thinking questions in experimental group was higher than the control, and the difference was statistically significant (P<.01). Particularly, the frequency of expansive thinking questions and anomaly detection questions was much higher in experimental than the control group. Judging from the result, with the students from the experimental group asking questions reflecting on the epistemology of authentic science such as scientific methods, anomalous data, and uncertainty about reasoning, students may understand authentic science features during the activities of open authentic inquiry. The result from comparing questions according to the inquiry subject showed that more openness caused the higher frequency of anomaly detection questions and strategy questions, but that inductive thinking questions and analogical thinking questions were connected to inquiry subject rather than the openness of the inquiry.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.37 no.3
• /
• pp.233-253
• /
• 2018

Since open inquiry of science was formally introduced at the 2007 Revised Science Curriculum Course, the purpose and effect of it has been positively evaluated, and it is underlined continuously until the revised science education course in 2015. However, through many previous studies, there is still a lack of awareness of open inquiry of both students and teachers in the field, and it was revealed they are continually appealing confusion and difficulties. Therefore, in this research, we analyzed the causes that make it difficult to execute open inquiry, and developed differentiated open inquiry guide materials that can contribute to the realization of teachers and students. They were developed by the brain-based evolutionary approach to provide students with authentic science. The brain-based evolutionary approach is reflecting the evolutionary attributes and the brain functions associated activities of scientists. It was revealed that, in the same way as the pilot test results, the usefulness of the differentiated guide materials were very high, and there was a statistically significant difference in the science attitude. It was found that the application of the brain-based evolutionary approach had positively influenced the stage of determining the inquiry themes, and self-confidence that could be able to do as a scientist. Analysis of top and sub group types on the basis of inquiry ability showed that both groups are improved at science attitude by the differentiated guide materials. There was a positive effect on change in the self-perception of scientific creativity. We were able to see a positive change in the post survey for open inquiry-efficacy. The developed differentiated open inquiry guide materials contributed to the improvement of open inquiry-efficacy for both the teacher and student.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.565-578
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study is to search for the factors that influence students' understanding of the nature of science through the experience of the cognitive processes of authentic open inquiries. The freshmen of a science high school practiced authentic open inquiries reflecting epistemological characteristics of authentic science. The case study was conducted with four focus students who were successful or unsuccessful at learning the nature of science during the authentic open inquiry activity. Questions that the focus students asked during the inquiries as well as students' answers to pre- and post-VNOS (C type) were analysed, and then elaborated in the semi-structured interview. The findings suggest that open inquiry activities provide the inquiry contexts that help science high school students to understand the nature of science, and that the characteristics of students' cognition influence the understanding of the nature of science. For instance, designing experiments with their own research questions had an influence on the students' understanding about the scientific methods and the diversity of research types, and drawing conclusions from their own data made students experience scientific reasoning. In addition, the experience of collecting anomalous data helped students to understand the role of inferences in generating scientific knowledge and the creative nature of scientific knowledge. In this inquiry context, the reflective thinking that came from proactive discussion among students, made students think about the validity of the designing experiments and interpreting data, and helped them to understand the uncertain nature of reasoning and the diverse nature of scientific methods. Moreover, divergent thinking linked to analogical thinking helped students to understand the creative nature of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.29 no.8
• /
• pp.848-860
• /
• 2009

This study examined the characteristics of scientists' writing on the laboratory reports written in the authentic open inquiry, and explored the possibility that the class discussion after the inquiries could influence the laboratory report writing. The samples were 131 10th graders in a science high school in Seoul. The control group (n=45) practiced traditional school science inquiries, the experimental group 1 (n=43) practiced the authentic open inquiries, and the experimental group 2 (n=43) practiced the authentic open inquiries and the class discussion after the laboratory activities. Their laboratory reports were analyzed into three parts - prediction (prediction with background and apposite description), data analysis (data transformation and critical analysis), and conclusion (objective description based on evidence). The frequency of the characteristics of scientist's writing in the experimental group was higher than the control group. Particularly, the differences of the prediction with background (p<.01) and the critical analysis of data (p<.05) were statistically significant. However, the frequency of writing the conclusion based on evidence was very low in all of the three groups. The result from comparing descriptions of reports showed that the writing prediction in experimental groups were more elaborate, and the data transformation in experimental groups were more correct, and the evaluation to data in experimental groups were more critical than the control group. And the descriptions of the critical evaluation to data and the finding flaw in methods were found in experimental groups 2, indicating that the class discussion can stimulate students' scientific thinking.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.1216-1234
• /
• 2004

School science practical work is often criticized as lacking key elements of authentic science, such as peer argumentation or debate through which social consensus is obtained. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent studies about the argumentation and to explore the conditions and the model of argumentative scientific inquiry, which is specially designed open inquiry in order to facilitate students' peer argumentation. For this purpose, a theoretical discussion for the argumentative scientific inquiry as the way of authentic inquiry in schools was developed. The conditions for argumentative scientific inquiry were found to be the following: multiple arguments, students' own claims, opportunities for oral and written argumentation, equal status of debaters, and community of cooperative competition. For these conditions, the argumentative scientific inquiry was organized into experiment activities and argumentation activities. During argumentation activity, students should be guided to advance written argumentation through writing a group report for peer review and oral argumentation through a critical discussion. Through the argumentation between groups and in group, the students' arguments would be elaborated repeatedly. The feedback from argumentation links experiment activities to argumentation activities. Hence, the whole process of this inquiry model is circular.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.40-56
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this study was to understand the teaching effects after conducting ASI module in the open inquiry activities of the elementary science class. in order to understand the effects of ASI(Authentic Scientific Inquiry) module application using science research notes in open inquiry activities to students' science research ability. The results of this study were as follow. First, the after test results were covariance-analyzed to be the effects to science process skills were statistically significant in 0.5 significance level. Second, in the covariance analysis of the after test of the study group and the comparative group, the effects to scientific creative problem solving skills were statistically significant in 0.5 significance level. Third, the covariance analysis of the after test in the effects of ASI module application using science notebooks to students' scientific attitude revealed that the two groups' average difference was statistically significant in 0.5 significance level. In conclusion, application of the ASI module using science notebooks had a positive effect on improvements of students' science process skills, science creative problem solving ability and scientific attitude. Therefore, the ASI module using science notebooks is hopefully to be provided as an effective instructive strategy in the open inquiry activities courses in school in the future.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.573-584
• /
• 2015

Inquiry has been consistently emphasized in science education as a crucial element for learning. Although many researchers came to agree on the importance of scientific inquiry, authentic inquiry activities are hard to be actualized in an educational context. Therefore it is required to critically examine what teachers have difficulty in teaching inquiry. In this article, we looked into inquiry-based science activities in a small group setting where pre-service science teachers faced dilemmas between cognition and practice of inquiry. A case study was conducted on eight undergraduate students who are majoring in science education. The participants attended a weekly science program for middle school students in low SES as teaching assistants and mentors, and took full care of his/her mentees during open-inquiry activities. The results were drawn by analyzing participants' personal and group interviews, participant observations, self-reports, and others. The pre-service teachers viewed the knowledge and procedure of science as an essential factor in inquiry activities along with student's spontaneous attitude. However, in the process of performing inquiry, they faced several dilemmas between ideal cognition and real activities. The aspects of dilemmas could be summarized in three pairs of opposing concepts: 'diverging inquiry or converging science', 'interest-centered inquiry or learning-centered inquiry', and 'student as the subject or student with the insufficient expertise.' We discussed ways of resolving dilemmas and alternative perspectives on scientific inquiry.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.221-232
• /
• 2019

Despite the continuing emphasis on the importance of scientific inquiry, research studies have commented that authentic scientific inquiry is not implemented in school science classroom due to a lack of understanding of scientific inquiry by the teacher. The purpose of this study is to investigate understanding of scientific inquiry developed by beginning teachers through open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview. They voluntarily set up the goal of inquiry-based classes, planned inquiry-based classes, shared and reflected their teaching experience in professional learning community for more than a year. It appeared that participant teachers understood scientific inquiry as 'what scientists do', 'process how students do science' and 'science teaching methods.' All teacher participants described scientific inquiry as 'what scientists do', and understood 'the process of doing scientific investigation to solve problems related to natural phenomenon' and 'the process of constructing scientific knowledge using scientific practice.' Two participant teachers seemed to understand scientific inquiry as a 'teaching method' based on the understanding of the process how scientists or students do science. Participant teachers had a limited understanding of scientific inquiry that it is the same as laboratory works or hands-on activities prior to engaging the professional learning community, but they developed an understanding of scientific inquiry that there are various ways to conduct scientific inquiry after engaging in professional learning community.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.38 no.4
• /
• pp.541-553
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between epistemic goals, epistemic considerations and complexity of reasoning of science high school students in an open inquiry and to explore the context on how open inquiry compares with the characteristics of an authentic scientific inquiry. Two teams were selected as focus groups and a case study was conducted. The findings are as follows: First, the contexts, such as 'sharing the value for the phenomenon understanding, reflection on the value of the research, task characteristics that require collaboration and consensus, and sufficient communication opportunities,' promote epistemic goals and considerations. On the other hand, contexts such as 'lack of opportunity for critical review of related literature and environmental constraints' lowered epistemic sides. Second, epistemic goals and considerations influenced the reasoning complexity. The goal of 'scientific sense making' led to reasoning that pose testable hypotheses based on students' own questions. The high justification considerations led to purposely focusing attention to the control designs and developing creative experimental know-how. The high audience considerations led to defending their findings through argumentation and suggesting future research. On the other hand, the goal of 'doing the lesson' and the low justification considerations led to reasoning that did not interpret the meaning of the data and did not control the limit of experiment. The low audience considerations led to reasoning that did not actively defend their findings and not suggest future research. The results of this study suggest that guidance should provide communication and critical review opportunities.