• 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 the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.63 no.4
• /
• pp.280-288
• /
• 2019

The purpose of this study is to draw implication for scientific inquiry study by investigating level of understanding and actual state regarding the elementary school teachers' scientific inquiry. The survey was conducted toward 42 elementary school teachers who work at the D city by using questionnaire of Views About Scientific Inquiry. Actual state of understanding of scientific inquiry was investigated by categorized the responses to the level of understanding of the eight aspects of scientific inquiry in three levels (informed, mixed, naive) based on analysis criteria. And analyze whether the characteristic of the subjects affect to level of understanding about aspect of scientific inquiry. As a result of the analysis, the two aspects among the eights aspects of scientific inquiry; 'Inquiry procedures are guided by the question asked' and 'Research conclusions must be consistent with the data collected' were appeared to have high rates of informed level of understanding. In the remaining six perspectives, most of elementary school teachers had naive and mixed level of understanding, so informed level of understanding took a relatively low proportion. It implies that elementary school teachers who teach inquiry in the field have limit to understand about scientific inquiry. These results indicated that experiences that have taught students and science related training courses that open sofar have a little influence to increase comprehension about scientific inquiry. Therefore, it is required to reinforce the teachers' understanding about scientific inquiry and to formulate different form of plan unlike existing way of teaching for teaching scientific inquiry.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.96-108
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate how prospective elementary school teachers perceived teacher's inquiryoriented teaching practice, with an emphasis on students' scientific explanations based on scientific evidence. For this study, 94 prospective elementary school teachers were participated. 14 among 94 participants had chances to intensively experience this particular teaching methods for 15 weeks. All of the 94 participants observed the intended science teaching practice for 4th graders in two different elementary schools, which utilized the science talks emphasizing students' scientific explanation activity. For quantitative data analysis, they were asked to provide their reaction to the science teaching methods after their classroom observation. For qualitative data analysis, 5 among the participants, who had relatively long term experience with this teaching practice, were chosen to interview in order to understand their individual reasons of the ways they perceived about the inquiry-oriented teaching methods boosting students' scientific explanation. The results show that the prospective elementary teachers generally thought the emphasis of students' scientific explanation based on scientific evidence could enhance young elementary students' science content understanding, stimulate their curiosity/interests, and further develop their ability to engage actively in scientific discussions. However, some prospective teachers tended to think that the science teaching. methods would not be effective in terms of managing science classes, though. This study concludes that the prospective teachers tended to hold an endemic dilemma. On the one hand, they had their clear preference to the inquiry-oriented teaching practice as the most ideal teaching methods. On the other hand, they also had their persistent hesitance in using these methods due to their fear that elementary students might not adequately grasp the important science content when engaged in scientific discourse through an inquiry-oriented class.

• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.41 no.3
• /
• pp.318-333
• /
• 2017

In this study, we analyzed activities in life science chapters of middle school 'science' textbooks for the 2009 revised Korea national curriculum and examined the difference between the analysis based on scientific practices and the analysis based on inquiry skills. As a results, there was a lot of inquiry skills in the order of 'reasoning', 'observing', 'classification' in the all of grade. In scientific practices, 'data analysis and interpretation' and 'constructing explanations and devising problem solving' were biased. This shows that life science inquiry activities in middle school 'science' textbooks are lacking in diversity in scientific practice elements as well as inquiry skills, and that the goals of the activities are limited. In addition, through the interrelationships between scientific inquiry skills and scientific practice elements, we examined contents relevance in the transition from inquiry function center to scientific practice, and compared with the results of inquiry activities in textbook, The results of this study were matched monotonously due to the tendency to basic inquiry-data interpretation / basic inquiry-explanation. This comes from results of the lack of diversity in activities presented in middle school 'science' textbooks. In this study, it is suggested that efforts should be made to include diverse scientific practice elements in the process of realizing 2015 revised Korea national curriculum from the simple and diversity-less inquiry activity through analyzing the textbooks of the 2009 revised Korea national curriculum.

• 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 Childcare and Education
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.29-52
• /
• 2023

Objective: This research aims to examine the effect of a young children's engineering-focused STEAM program based on the project approach - a program that constructs components aligned with children's interests in their play through an engineering design process - on their scientific inquiry ability, mathematical problem-solving ability, and creativity. Methods: In this research, 42 five-year-old children from a public kindergarten in S district, I city, were randomly divided into experimental and comparative groups, each with 21 children. The engineering-focused STEAM program was conducted from April 18 to June 10, 2022, with the experimental group exploring the 'car' theme and the comparison group focusing on a different theme. The study employed an independent sample t-test and analysis of covariance(ANCOVA), using the pretest as a covariate to control variables. Results: The children-selected 'cars' themed engineering-focused STEAM program was effective in enhancing their scientific inquiry ability, mathematical problem-solving ability and creativity. Conclusion/Implications: The engineering-focused STEAM program, which emerges from young children's interesting daily play, had positive effects on enhancing their scientific inquiry ability, mathematical problem-solving ability, and creativity. This research can serve as fundamental data for developing education programs focused on engineering within the STEAM framework, guided by children's emergent play.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.634-649
• /
• 2003

The aim of this paper was to diagnose Korean sixth graders' understanding for scientific evidence and explanation. The instrument constructed by Jeong, Songer, and Lee (2002) was used to assess students' understanding for priority of scientific evidence, objectivity of data, relevance of evidence, data interpretation, coordination of theory and evidence, and repeated observation. Results showed that although many students recognized certain features of scientific inquiry such as objectivity of data, few of them understood why such features are valued and how to collect and use such data. In particular, students experienced difficulty in formulating explanation from evidence, not knowing, for example, that repeated observations are needed before making a general statement. The results of this study suggest that efforts to foster students' inquiry abilities need to be based on careful analyses of students existing inquiry skills and understanding.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
• /
• v.19 no.2 s.30
• /
• pp.96-107
• /
• 2006

Inquiry has great value in environmental education(EE). Being able to see the world environmentally through 'inquiry-based environmental education' can be an important value and goal of EE. In this study, we intended to develop an EE program of measuring activity of dissolved oxygen(DO), based on the theory of 'inquiry-based EE'. Especially, we recognized the potential that DO meter can be used in 'inquiry-based EE', and we tried to develop a model of inquiry-based EE using DO meter. As a result of this research, we present specific models of inquiry-based EE about how to perform measuring activity of DO and how to use the DO meter in laboratories and streams from the perspective of inquiry of water environment. In the process of program development, we considered organization of the inquiry process, use of concept and knowledge, scientific inquiry and insightful inquiry, integration, sustain-ability, content components of 'Environmental Studies for EE', developmental level and in-forest of students. The developed EE model is a scientific inquiry model, pursuing 'explanation' based on data collection. Through this model, we tried to make students see water environment more deeply. The developed program can be applied to various water environments, like laboratories, streams, ponds, etc. It can be more effective inquiry activity if we perform measuring activities simultaneously with PH, electrical conductivity, and turbidity meters.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.33 no.1
• /
• pp.132-143
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of inquiry activities proposed in high school physics textbooks that were developed based on the 2009 science curriculum in Korea. The inquiry activities were analyzed using the notion of scientific practices introduced in the Science Education Framework (NRC, 2012). The results showed that the inquiry activities in the textbooks emphasized two of eight types of scientific practices including "Analyzing and interpreting data" and "Constructing explanations". In contrast, the activities required students to "ask questions" only once in a total of 291 science inquiry activities. The other types of scientific practices appeared less than 10%. Also found was that the types of scientific practices were not relevant to the way inquiry activities were used for textbook content. Implications for the curriculum and science teacher education were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
• /
• v.65 no.3
• /
• pp.209-218
• /
• 2021

This study investigated the condition of chemistry teacher's student competency assessment based on the inquiry report. To this end, an inquiry report was collected for chemistry teachers who took the training at two universities that conducted the 2020 first-class chemistry teacher training. The science subject competencies presented in NAEA analysis framework was used to analyze what kind of competencies teachers assess students through inquiry reports. A total of 63 chemistry teachers submitted inquiry reports, which were analyzed by competency, sub-element of each competency, and detail element to analyze the actual situation. As a result of the study, most chemistry teachers reflected their 'scientific inquiry and problem-solving ability' in their evaluation through inquiry reports. 'Ability to understand and apply scientific principles', which is mainly evaluated through paper-based evaluation, was partially used as confirmation of prerequisite learning at the beginning of the inquiry and the weight of evaluating 'scientific communication skill' was not large. In 'scientific inquiry and problem-solving ability' through inquiry report, 'design and conduct explorations', 'data analysis and interpretation' and 'drawing conclusion and suggesting solution' were mainly assessed. However, 'discover and recognize problems' and 'development and use of model' were hardly assessed.