• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.262-276
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate and analyze the elementary teachers' views and students' views about the difficulties in teaching and learning on open inquiry activities of elementary school science. Semi-structured interviews were conducted individually with three elementary teachers who have serviced more than three years, and with twenty four elementary students attending schools located in Cheongju City. And their anecdotes were collected and analyzed. The interview questions were developed through Seidman's steps to acquire the reliability in the interview data. From the interviews and anecdotes, we found that elementary teachers' views about the difficulties of teaching open inquiry activities: the difficulties of teaching in finding inquiry problem and planning inquiry, the difficulties of managing group activities, the difficulties of managing class hours for inquiry, the lack of the students' inquiry abilities, and problems on students' affective characteristics. And the students have the views about the difficulties in doing open inquiry activities: the difficulties of finding inquiry problem and planning inquiry, being unaccustomed to write reports, the troubles with investigating, problems on affective characteristics, the difficulties of joining in a group, and the lack of inquiry abilities. The teachers give suggestions for effective application of the open inquiry activities: first, the teachers must encourage students' emotion and will in doing open inquiry activities, second, there must be the steady inquiry teaching and learning in ordinary elementary science classes. Based on the results, this study suggested that elementary teachers should concern specially about students' being unaccustomed to write reports and the troubles in doing scientific investigation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.213-223
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• 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 Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.213-223
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to identify the types of essential inquiry activities presented in elementary science textbooks for grades 5-6, and to find out what difficulties teachers have in the actual teaching process. To this end, the essential research activities presented in the textbook were analyzed into six types: experimentation/observation, investigation/discussion and presentation, data interpretation, discussion/discussion, simulation activity, and expression. In addition, 108 elementary school teachers were investigated for the suitability of inquiry activity achievement standards, suitability at the student's level, student interest, and difficulty in teaching instruction. To summarize the research results, the most frequently suggested type was the experiment/observation type, followed by simulation activity type and data interpretation type. It was analyzed that there was no discussion/discussion type in the 5th grade textbooks, and the 6th graders did not present research activities that correspond to the research/discussion/presentation type and the expression type in the textbook. In the results of teachers' responses to the suitability of achievement standards for inquiry activities presented in textbooks and the suitability of the student's level, 5th graders showed lower average scores than 6th graders, and showed similar average scores in student interest and instructional difficulty. Also, it was confirmed that improvement was required for a total of 17 inquiry activities. Specifically, teachers responded that they had difficulty in guiding inquiry activities when the experimental results did not appear as intended in the textbook, when students' interest in inquiry activities was low, and when students and teachers had low understanding of related science concepts. Teachers pointed out practical problems such as difficulties in long-term observation in astronomy-related units, and students in upper elementary school not actively participating in dynamic play activities.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.67 no.6
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• pp.441-461
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• 2023

This study explore characteristics of teaching orientation and pck of science teachers in online-offline mixed learning environment. Data consisted of open-ended survey, semi-structured interview, class observation, field notes from 12 science teachers. We categorized teaching orientation considering both science education goals and science teaching·learning orientation. There were 8 different teaching orientations such as 'understanding science concepts-lecture centered' 'constructing science concepts-inquiry based' 'applying science concepts and inquiry-inquiry based' 'applying science concepts and inquiry-lectured centered' 'analyzing and judging science information-inquiry based' 'developing scientific attitude-inquiry based' 'developing scientific attitude-lecture centered' and 'developing perception of interrelationships among science, technology, and society-inquiry based'. Teachers with inquiry based teaching·learning orientation seemed to have knowledge of science curriculum specific to online learning environment for student inquiry. While teachers with 'understanding science concepts-lecture centered' teaching orientation appeared to have questioning strategy of checking student understanding and strategy of repeating a lecture, teachers with 'constructing science concepts-inquiry based' teaching orientation appeared to have knowledge of instructional strategies to perform online group activities targeting student construction of knowledge and to replace face-to-face group activities with virtual experiments and individual experiments. While teachers with 'understanding science concepts-lecture centered' teaching orientation did not show knowledge of student science learning, teachers with 'constructing science concepts-inquiry based' teaching orientation appeared to have knowledge of student difficulties in inquiry based learning.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.415-429
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• 2011

In the elementary science classroom, inquiry-based learning activities are often limited to students' hands-on experiences. As a result, students often overlook core concepts they are supposed to acquire from the inquiry activities and show difficulties in applying those concepts in a real life context. To make a connection between the hands-on activities and the concept leaning, a small-group discussion can be considered. In this study, we designed a team-based learning (TBL) model for the elementary science classroom. We developed teaching and learning materials for the "Comfortable Environments" unit in the 6th grade curriculum based on the TBL model. After appling the model with 32 6th grade students, we compared the TBL participants' level of concept understanding and attitudes toward science before and after the intervention, and also compared them with their counterpart control group who participated in a traditional classroom. The results showed that the level of concept understanding of the TBL participants were higher than that of the control group. However, there was no statistically significant difference found in attitudes toward science between the TBL participants and the control group. In addition, the interviews with the TBL participants showed that they positively perceived the TBL experiences.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.841-854
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate the teaching methods of prediction, inference, and hypothesis. The major data source was gathered by in-depth interview of science teachers (about 50-80 minutes for each interview). The interviews were conducted using semi-structured interview protocol, which consisted of three major parts: (1) Teacher's definition of prediction, inferences, hypothesis, (2) Teaching methods of prediction, inferences, and hypothesis and (3)Reasons of teacher's inaccurate perceptions of prediction, inference, and hypothesis. All the interviews were audio-taped and transcribed. Topics in the questions were categorized. The results were as follows: Teachers recognized the importance of prediction, inferences, and hypothesis. But they didn't have an accurate conception and they have great difficulty in classifying and explaining the prediction, inferences, and hypothesis. To find out the teaching methods, researcher investigated the inquiry activities, teaching times, usage of terms, teachers' questions, and teaching difficulties. Reasons for having difficulty were lack of teaching competency, difficulties from the students, and problems in the present curriculum. Finally, we discovered that the reasons for teacher's inaccurate perceptions of prediction, inference, and hypothesis were two factors. One is internal factors, which include the lack of scientific inquiry process skills, burdens of science subject and lack of science education knowledge. The other is external factors, which include education system for evaluations and lack of teacher education. In conclusion, this study suggested establishing more elementary teacher education programs that include strengthened concepts of inquiry process skills and teaching methods.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.1489-1501
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to search for effective strategies on teaching open-inquiry by comparing students' and teachers' recognition of its difficulties and helpful strategies. This study focused on the cases of science high school students and their teachers, who carried out open-inquiry to participate in KYPT. This research was conducted through participant observation, questionnaires, and interviews. The research findings were as follows: students stated that planning and doing experiments were the most difficult parts, whereas teachers viewed that their students had difficulties in analyzing data and making a conclusion. With respect to the effective strategy, students stated that they gained many ideas from peer discussions although they have had to carry out their individual tasks. On the contrary, teachers thought that reference materials and the discussions with teachers were most helpful. There were clear differences between students' and their teachers' recognition toward open-inquiry and the gap needs to be closed. Consequently, it would be useful to guide students to form teams and to spend more time in peer discussions especially when doing experiments and to encourage teachers to understand students' actual difficulties and needs.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.68-85
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to understand science teaching experiences of elementary school teachers who taught the system thinking-based science inquiry class. The phenomenological methods were applied to analyze four elementary teachers' meaningful experiences. The four step methods of phenomenological experience research proposed by Giorgi (1985) and interview questions developed by Seidman (1998) and Schuman (1982) were used in order to collect qualitative data. The major findings of this study were as follows: First, teachers intentionally tried to ask divergent thinking questions which promoted the system thinking in classes. The teachers used divergent thinking questions to promote their students' thinking activities and to induce students' system thinking. In addition, the receptive mood created by teachers and interactive environments had a positive effect on promoting system thinking skills. Second, teachers remarked lack of teaching and learning materials and difficulties in selecting themes of their classes in order to teach the system thinking-based science inquiry class effectively. In addition, it was very difficult for teachers to evaluate the contents and processes of students' learning correctly because there were little evaluative tools and methods readily available. The findings indicated that there were some limitations in maximizing the effects of system thinking-based science inquiry instruction due to elementary students' inappropriate process skills of inquiry activities. Findings of this study revealed significant insights about elementary school teachers' experiences regarding the system thinking-based science class.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.191-207
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• 2023

In this study, we comprehensively investigated the cases of science teachers who implemented NOS assessments in Science Inquiry Experiment. Two science teachers working at high schools located in Seoul who taught and assessed NOS in Science Inquiry Experiment according to the 2015 revised curriculum participated in the study. We collected lesson and assessment materials and observed NOS lessons and assessments. We also conducted interviews. Based on the collected data, we analyzed the processes of the teachers' NOS assessments. The analyses of the results revealed that the teachers constructed the assessments by themselves due to a lack of NOS assessment experience and related materials. They had difficulties in selecting an appropriate assessment method and constructing assessment questions and criteria. Both teachers found it difficult to assess an understanding of NOS because it concerns the subjective views of individual students. Therefore, they had difficulties in setting detailed assessment criteria, which also led to difficulties in the overall assessment process. There was a difference in the reflective level of the assessments between the two teachers. In the reflective activities of low levels, the assessments were not properly enacted because it was difficult to infer students' understanding. Orientation toward teaching NOS influenced the perceptions of NOS assessment and overall lessons, resulting in a difference in NOS assessments. Finally, the absolute evaluation of Science Inquiry Experiment also affected teachers' NOS assessments. Based on the above results, implications for effective NOS assessments in schools are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.903-927
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• 2012

The study aimed to analyze middle school students construction of physics inquiry problems for open inquiry from the viewpoint of variable isolation and clarification, and investigate students' difficulties during the processes of variable isolation and clarification to get implications for teaching and learning strategies for small group open inquiry activities which have been included in the 2007 national curriculum. The participants were 4 students who had attended an outreach program for the science gifted run by a university institution located in Seoul area. They performed an open inquiry on egg drop for 13 lessons for 30 hours. Level descriptions for variable isolation and clarification have been developed and applied to analyze students' inquiry problems and variables included by the problems. Students iterated inquiry processed 5 times and the inquiry problem showed progress gradually. Dependent variables have been isolated ahead and the levels of variable isolation and clarification showed higher than the independent variables. Many kinds of independent variables isolated extensively and the independent variables and control variables have been mingled. One of the reasons why students had some difficulties in isolation of independent variables could be the absence of theoretical models. The realities of school lab could restrict the variable isolation and clarification as well as topic selections. Some sensory or extensive variables such as broken eggs and drop height seem to be salient to be focused on as core variables. Lack of background knowledges could be one of the reasons for students' difficulties in variable clarification, such as theoretical definitions and operational definitions. As a result of lacking background knowledges, students could not construct theoretical models even though they could isolate and clarify variables as scientific lexical definitions. Some perceptions of inquiry as trial and error or reckless establishment of causal relations between variables could be accounted as one reason.