• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.541-557
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• 2012

Interest is acknowledged to be a critical motivational variable that influences learning and achievement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the interest of the elementary students when free inquiry activities were performed through a brain-based evolutionary scientific teaching and learning model. For this study, 106 fifth grade students were chosen and performed individually free inquiry activities. The results of this study were as follows: First, after free inquiry activities, as to free inquiry science related attitude, a statistically significant difference was not observed. But they came to have positive feelings about the free inquiry. Especially students marked higher mean score in openness showed consistency in sub-areas of free inquiry science related attitude. Second, students had interests in various fields, especially they had many interests in area of biology. They chose inquiry subjects that seems to be easily accessible from surrounding and as an important criterion of free inquiry they thought the possibility that they could successfully perform it. And students who belong to the high level in the science related attitudes and academic achievement diversified more topics. Third, most of students failed to further their topics. However, the students who specifically and clearly extended their topics suggested appropriate variables in their topics. On the other hand, students who couldn't elaborate their topics were also failed to suggest further topics and their performance of inquiry was more incomplete. In conclusion, the experiences of success in free inquiry make the science attitude of students more positive and help them extend their inquiry. These results have fundamental implications for the authentic science inquiry in the elementary schools and for the further research.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.848-860
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• 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 Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.109-122
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• 2015

In National Curriculum of Science revised in 2007, free inquiry was newly introduced to increase student's interest in science and to foster creativity by having students make their own curiosity questions and find answers by themselves. The purpose of this study is to analyze elementary school students' perceptions on free science inquiry activities applying a brain-based evolutionary approach. For this study, 106 the fifth grade students participated, and then completed a questionnaire on free inquiry activities according to a brain-based evolutionary science teaching and learning principles. The students performed a series of steps of the Diversifying, Estimating-Evaluating-Executing, and Furthering activities in each of Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive domains (ABC-DEF approach) and constructed their own free inquiry diary, then the observations by the researcher and interviews with the students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major results of the study were as follows: First, the majority of the students perceived the each domain and step positively although a few of them perceived negatively. The reasons perceived as negatively were categorized into two; preference dimension of like or dislike and ability dimension of metacognitive or self-reflective capacity. Also, they perceived the free inquiry experience in the form of ABC-DEF as helpful to understand the nature of scientists' scientific activities. Based on these findings, implications for supporting authentic inquiry in school science are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.267-275
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• 2016

Experiment is recognized as an important part in science and science education. Scientists do experiments for verifying or refuting theory and they take many forms to do experiments. One of the central goals of science education is to improve inquiry ability. So we have taken for granted that students engage in authentic inquiry and experiment which scientists carry out to research. But it is not always positive about discussions and opinions what school experiment and its role is in learning science and understanding about science. There is certainly a gap between experiments which scientists and students do even though there is a theoretical basis of school science experiment. In this study, we discussed how scientific inquiry and school inquiry are different, and what it means to use instrument in school science experiment. And as a case, we analyzed chemistry experiments in science textbook and manipulation level of instruments which were handled in chemistry experiments, we shed light on the meanings of experiments and instruments in school science inquiry based on the result of experiments and instruments analysis.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.418-427
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to describe the elementary teachers' teaching behavior procedure in verification-type laboratory instructions. In order to do this, we should know first what constituted the teaching behavior elements in the teachers' instructions, before the teaching behavior can be analyzed. Thirty sets of instructions were recorded and their transcripts were used in this study. The results of this study indicated that the number of teaching behaviors numbered twenty four in total, and that the teaching behaviors could be classified into nine categories, and finally the procedure used in verification-type laboratory instructions generally followed seven steps. These steps can be described as follows; reminding subjects of the preliminary learned concept, presenting inquiry type questions or introducing the main concept, explaining the method used or presenting the predictable outcome/matter for verification, performing lab-based activities, presenting the outcomes, applying the main concept, and finally closing the instruction. For the purpose of promoting more authentic scientific inquiries using these types of instructions, the authors's claims were discussed.

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

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.520-544
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• 2021

This study aims to develop a scientific creativity test for exploring the relationship between elementary students' creative process and product. For this, the researcher reviewed the literatures of scientific creativity and developed the items based on the constructs of creative process and product. After a review conducted by nine science education specialists, a pilot test, and additional revision and supplementation of observation test, the test, consisting of two sets-"animals" and "plants"-was finally conducted on 105 fifth-grade students. The test results were analyzed by using statistical analysis software. WinSteps, SPSS, and AMOS. The main findings from this study are as follows. First, when it comes to scientific creativity, creative process consists of science knowledge, inquiry skills, and creative thinking skills (divergent, convergent, and associative thinking skills). Creative product in science is a new and scientifically useful idea realized in a certain form. Second, observation, which was selected as a representative inquiry skill in this research, should not be related to creative thinking skills. Third, among the rest of the items, usefulness had the lowest averages, as it was, perhaps, difficult to satisfy the teachers' criteria for the scientific validity and usefulness. Fourth, the Spearman correlation coefficients between the items of "animals" and "plants" to find out the parallel-form reliability were significant, except for the item of originality. Fifth, the test was satisfactory with regard to the three aspects of construct validity-convergent, discriminant, and nomological. This study concludes by discussing the usefulness of this test, which has the possibility of exploring the relationship between creative process and product and of playing a role as an authentic evaluation tool in school.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.163-174
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• 2008

In this study, we compared textbook knowledge organization with students' mental models to contribute to a more well-designed instruction scheme. The selected science content was the cause of moon phases. We investigated 9 textbooks and 25 third-year middle school students. Patterns and features in participants' mental models were identified through cross inter-rater data analysis by 9 researchers, including in service teachers and experts in science education. According to the results, observing and modeling are the main activities engaged in when dealing with moon phases. The activities consisted of such concepts as: lunar revolution, the sun's parallel rays, the illuminated half of moon, and the relative positions of the sun, moon, and earth. Each concept involved inquiry skills such as: creating and manipulating models, utilizing the relationship between time and space, and communicating. However, the most important skills which are required for authentic scientific inquiry, namely controlling variables and formulating hypotheses, were missing. We categorized students' mental models into three types: scientific models, mixed models, and alternative models. The knowledge structure of each of the models was also discussed in this paper. Consequently, it was found that, typically, students were not given enough opportunities to strengthen the connection among ideas.

• 한국지구과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.19-19
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• 2010

현재 과학교육의 목표는 과학적 소양의 함양이며 이를 구현하기 위해서는 교실에서의 과학탐구의 실현을 필수로 하고 있다. 과학자들이 경험하는 과학탐구는 "실질적 과학탐구(ASI)"라고 하여 필수적인 5가지 탐구요소(문제제기, 자료수집, 설명형성, 설명평가, 발표 및 정당화)를 포함하고 있다. 현재 사용하고 있는 지구과학내용의 교과서를 이 ASI 관점으로 분석하여 5가지 탐구요소의 분포도를 분석하고 이를 이용하여 지구과학탐구를 가르치는 초임교사를 대상으로 탐구에 대한 인식 및 교수실천을 같은 ASI관점으로 분석하였다. 탐구요소 2,3,4 에 해당하는 '증거수집', '설명형성' 그리고 '설명평가'는 빈번하게 나타났으나 탐구요소 1에 해당하는 '문제제기'나 5에 해당하는 '발표 및 정당화'의 기회는 나타나지 않았다. 특히 다른 과학(화학)과목 경우에 '증거수집'이 가장 빈번한 것에 비해 지구과학의 경우에는 '설명형성'이 주를 이루는 것은 지구과학탐구의 특징이라 할 수 있겠다. 또한 교과서 탐구기능은 SAPA로 분석한 결과 일반화, 의사소통, 예상, 그래프작성, 자료해석이 주를 이루었다. 과학적 소양을 함양을 위한 실질적인 과학탐구의 실현하기 위해서는 자유탐구와 같은 부차적인 기회를 통해서 경험하지 못한 ASI의 탐구요소의 기회를 학생들에게 부여해야 할 것이다. 또한 이 연구에 참여한 지구과학 초임교사의 과학탐구 인식 및 교수실천 또한 ASI로 분석한 결과 탐구요소 2번째에 치우친 경향을 보여주고 있었다. 실질적인 과학탐구의 실현을 위해서는 교과서에서 강조되는 탐구요소뿐만 아니라 다른 탐구요소를 경험할 수 있는 자유탐구를 개발하여 실용화해야 할 것이며, 관련 초임교사연수를 통해 초임교사들의 과학탐구에 대한 인식 및 교수실천의 반영 및 이들의 새로운 형성이 추진되어야 할 것이다.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.740-753
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• 2022

This study was conducted to develop and apply an out-of-school STEAM program model based on Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) for underprivileged students in the lower grades. To this end, a STEAM program based on SEL was developed, with the following characteristics. First, by integrating traditional STEAM learning elements and SEL elements, a structured program was designed with consistent stages, including mindfulness meditation→present an authentic situation→creative design→emotional experiences→reflection. Second, the program was structured so that elementary school students could develop mathematical thinking and scientific inquiry skills in problem-solving situations in daily life. Third, the detailed themes for each STEAM program involved storytelling-based problem situations, as well as activities centered on play and sympathy to reflect the educational needs of underprivileged students. From these characteristics, a total of five programs were developed and applied to 16 teachers and 354 lower-grade elementary school students in 16 community children centers nationwide. The results were as follows. First, while students' satisfaction with the STEAM program was 4.16, there were no significant differences in STEAM satisfaction according to gender. Second, while all students' interest and self-efficacy, which was one of sub factors of STEAM attitude, were significantly improved, no significant difference was seen in STEAM attitudes according to gender. Third, although students' SEL competencies were not significantly improved, relationship skills, which were among the sub factors of SEL competencies, were significantly improved, and there were no significant differences in SEL competencies according to gender. From these results, a discussion on the effect of the out-of-school STEAM program for underprivileged students and directions for follow-up studies was suggested.