• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.95-112
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• 2012

The research evaluated the effects of the improvements in scientific inquiry for elementary school students and focused on the development and application of the explicit and reflective learning strategy through observation and classification. The explicit and reflective learning strategy was modified and completed with the review of the experts after the development of the draft based on the theoretical approach. The students were evaluated for their academic achievements in scientific inquiry skills before and after taking the course. The results were as follows: First, the steps of the developed learning strategy (1) to motivate, (2) to explore reflectively, (3) to guide explicitly, (4) to inquire explicitly, and (5) to verify reflectively were set to reflect the verification. Second, the results of applying the developed model to the lessons based on the quantitative analysis was effective for observation and classification skills in the quest for improved performance of the whole (the sum of observation and classification, inquiry skills) and the observed features, but there was no effect on classification. Also, the lessons applied the developed teaching strategy and showed effectiveness in improving academic achievement. Particularly in analyzing the relationship between the academic achievement and exploration capabilities, in order to improve academic achievement, the importance of improving inquiry skills was found. Third, the qualitative analysis of teaching and learning strategy developed by applying the lessons of this teacher guide and small group activities through the explicit and reflective observation and classification of the student learning activities showed the significant improvement of ability of the scientific inquiry skills. In addition to the improvement in the abilities of the classification showed after the formation of the most basic observation skills of the scientific inquiry.