• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.120-125
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• 2007

The purpose of the present study was to test the validity of the confirming abduction model (CAM). CAM is a process model which explains how reasoners confirm their hypothetical explicans. To test this model, 154 8th grade students were sampled from one middle school in Korea. Three types of vapor condensation hypothesis confirming tests were developed and administered to the subjects. The results of this study revealed that student confidence increased when hypothetical explicans were borrowed into experienced phenomena from questioning phenomena. These results validated CAM. According to CAM, the process. of confirming hypothetical explican is as follows: representing a questioning phenomenon, representing an experienced phenomenon that is similar to the questioning phenomenon, representing the hypothetical explican of the questioning phenomenon, comparing the questioning phenomenon with the experienced phenomenon, and borrowing the hypothetical explican as the hypothetical explican of the experienced phenomenon from the hypothetical explican of the questioning phenomenon. This study also discussed the implications of these findings for teaching and learning in science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1269-1280
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to analyze the verbal interaction during elementary students' hypothesis generation learning. For this study, 32 6th graders were selected and were assorted into heterogeneous small-groups by achievement levels. The topics of hypothesis generation learning were developed by analyzing the current elementary school curriculum. Each group's verbal interactions were audio/video taped and transcribed. After coding the protocol and having student retrospective interview, types and frequency of verbal interaction were analyzed. The frequency of verbal interaction during observation was highest and that of questioning situation identification was lowest. Regarding to the quality of verbal interactions, low level interactions were significantly frequent during observation. On the other hand, hypothetical explicans generation revealed high frequency of high level interactions. The results revealed that elementary students can make high level verbal interactions through hypothesis generation learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.458-469
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• 2003

Hypothesis is defined as a proposition intended as a possible explanation for an observed phenomenon. The purpose of this study was to generate a grounded theory on the process of undergraduate students' generating hypothesis-knowledge about scientific episodes. Three hypothesis-generating tasks were administered to four college students majored in science education. The present study showed that college students represented five types of intermediate knowledge in the process of hypothesis generation, such as question situation, hypothetical explicans, experienced situation, causal explicans, and final hypothetical knowledge. Furthermore, students used six types of thinking methods, such as searching knowledges, comparing a question situation and an experienced situation, borrowing explicans, combining explicans, selecting an explican, and confirming explicans. In addition, hypothesis-generating process involves inductive and deductive reasoning as well as abductive reasoning. This study also discusses the implications of these findings for teaching and evaluating in science education.