• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.25 no.spc5
• /
• pp.465-475
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this study was to develop a spider inquiry program for elementary school students based on the scientific-knowledge generating model. For the purposes of this study, we selected three species of snider (e.g. Pardosa astrigera, Argiope bruennichii, Nephila clavata) which were easily found in a school garden by elementary school students. The spider inquiry program was based on a model of the process of scientific-knowledge generation, and consisted of two sections: for students and teachers. The students' program was designed to generate scientific-knowledge, whilst the teachers' program was designed to guide the inquiry smoothly even in the case of teachers who lack experience in inquiry activities or possess limited subject knowledge on spiders. As a result, this program was found to have an influence on generating the scientific-knowledge of elementary students and the results further suggest that it may be helpful to teachers conducting an inquiry activity. Additionally, this program could be used as a selective activity lesson such as a science inquiry lesson, or as a biology inquiry class, as a weekend life experience study or as an activity on a science camp.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.155-165
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study is to look into self-concept and teaching anxiety of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class, and investigate correlations among them. For this study, the survey was carried out on 338 elementary school teachers, and the interview was conducted with 5 of them. The results of this study are as follows; Self-concept of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class was more positive than usual. And the teachers who were male, older and majored in science education showed more affirmative self-concept about inquiry instruction in science class. Teaching anxiety of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class was less than usual. And the teachers who were male, older and majored in science education showed less teaching anxiety about inquiry instruction in science class. The correlation of self-concept and teaching anxiety of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class was an negative interrelation. This presents that the teachers, who have more positive self-concept about inquiry instruction in science class, have less teaching anxiety than those who have more negative one. Consequently, teacher training and retraining programs should be developed and conducted by grasping teachers' self-concept and their anxiety, to reduce anxiety about inquiry instruction in science class.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.296-307
• /
• 1993

The purpose of this study was to identify concretely how to improve inquiry learning. To put the purpose in detail : 1) to define the inquiry skills 2) to select the factors of inquiry skills appropriate to the content of Science I (earth science) textbook 3) to develop items which consist of experimental inquiry and concept inquiry in due proportion, to evalute inquiry skills 4) to analyze the relationship between high school students' cognitive levels and the achievement of science inquiry skills. To achieve these objectives, the investigator sampled 558 students in eleventh grade, living in Seoul, Chung-Ju and Kwang-Ju, and evaluated their cognitive levels and the achievement of science inquiry skills. The results of this study showed that the cognitive levels of students were lower than those identified in Piaget's work and that the achievement of science inquiry skills were low also. It may be thought that one of most important reasons to bring about those results is lacking in adaptation capability of science inquiry items and inquiry learning. So, it can be recommended as a way to heighten cognitive levels to make inquiry learning using the textbook content. In conclusion, the investigator make suggestions as follows : 1) to give inquiry learning which consist of experimental inquiry and concept inquiry in due proportion 2) to develop inquiry items to include content for evaluating inquiry learning, and test items for psycho-motor areas 3) to publish textbooks which motivate students' inquiry activities and develop their creative thinking, considering students' cognitive levels and inquiry skills.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.440-449
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study is to make a preference and result analysis on the free inquiry method of pre-service elementary school teachers. Also, this study investigates how free inquiry activities effect the science-related attitudes and the self-directed learning characteristics of pre-service elementary school teachers. For this study 76, second year, science education pre-service elementary school teachers from Busan National University of education were selected. The inquiry examined the effectiveness of each of the following teaching methods: the IIM method, the PBL method, the PROJECT method, and the small group inquiry method. The students were divided into groups in which they incorporated the respective methods into their practice. In conclusion, the IIM free inquiry activities proved to be much more effective than the PBL method, the PROJECT method, and the small group inquire method in terms of developing self-directed learning characteristics and science related attitudes at the significant difference of p=0.05.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.181-191
• /
• 2007

The purposes of this study were as follows; to investigate elementary school teachers' understanding of scientific inquiry, experiences in learning/teaching, their educational experience of scientific inquiry, and to study the difficulties they experience in teaching scientific inquiry methods to elementary students and their suggestions for future inquiry materials. For the purposes of this study, 157 elementary school teachers participated in a survey and 10 teachers were interviewed in-depth in relation to their ideas and experiences of scientific inquiry. The results show that most elementary school teachers had a lack of understanding of scientific inquiry skills, and lacked educational experiences of inquiry methods in general. They generally perceived the 7th science text-books as being inappropriate and inadequate for teaching students scientific inquiry processes. The educational implications are discussed to help practitioners implement scientific inquiries successfully through the various types of teaching materials and professional developments.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.32 no.8
• /
• pp.1367-1377
• /
• 2012

Inquiry activity is a major source of student investigation which both of the national curriculum standards strongly emphasize for achieving scientific literacy. The purpose of this study was to examine inquiry activities incorporated in high school biology textbooks used in China and Korea. The inquiry activities were examined with regard to inquiry level and science process skills. Bell's and a modification of Padilla's framework were used in these analyses. Results show that the Korean textbooks were more exclusively occupied by simple inquiry activities - None of them provided activity more complex than level 2 inquiry. In addition, the Korean textbooks had uniformly basic science process skills, whereas their Chinese counterparts gave students some challenges for higher level process skills. Therefore, it cannot be guaranteed that the activities in the Korean textbooks are helpful in guiding students toward a gradual progression to high-level inquiry. Implications for inquiry-based science education were suggested based on the results of the study.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.37 no.4
• /
• pp.391-401
• /
• 2018

This study investigated elementary students' perception of the suitability of inquiry activities related to the science inquiry, essential features of the inquiry and essential features of the inquiry by science inquiry activities. First, 5-6th grade elementary students' perception of the suitability of inquiry activities to the science inquiry was positive in this study and especially the score of experiment and field trip was high. The lowest score was on the discussion and elementary students thought that discussion might be wrong, because they just talked when they participated in the discussion. Second, perception of the essential features of science inquiry was positive. Especially, engaging students in evaluating their explanations in the light of alternative explanations was the highest. Students thought that explanation is important, but it is too hard to perform the science inquiry with only the explanation. Third, the score of research and experiment was high in essential features of science inquiry by science inquiry activities. The score of the field trip was low, so a more meaningful field trip should be carried out in the school.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.404-414
• /
• 2009

The revised curriculum in 2007 includes open inquiry approach to increase students' interest in science and to build up creativity. So teachers and pre-service teachers should be equipped with the ability of open inquiry performance. In order to investigate pre-service teachers' readiness to perform open inquiry tasks, we analyzed reports written as homework by a group of 71 juniors in a national university of education. The investigation tool was composed of four domains: topic selection, the inquiry process, the conclusion, and reporting. Each domain had three or four sub-domains. By using the framework, four raters scored the students' inquiry reports. The findings reveal that the pre-service elementary school teachers have difficulty in the domain of 'topic selection' and the 'conclusion' compared with the other domains. Under the topic selection domain, they showed weaknesses in 'creativity' and 'scientific topic' and under the conclusion domain, they had difficulty in 'recognizing limits' and 'value of conclusion'. The finding suggests that pre-service teaching program should provide with opportunities to perform open inquiry continually.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.39 no.4
• /
• pp.349-360
• /
• 2018

This study analyzed variations of learning stress by comparing the salivary cortisol levels of students who participated in Earth Science inquiry activities. The cortisol concentrations between the pre- and post-inquiries of the sample of 34 university students, who had taken the course of 'Basic Earth Science and Experiments', were analyzed. The Earth Science inquiries consisted of geology and astronomy activities. The observational geology activities consisted of a session of 'structure contours and map patterns' and the cognitive astronomy activities consisted of a session of 'representations of horizontal and equatorial coordinates'. These Earth Science inquiry activities were found to cause students to have anxiety, and the thought processes that these activities involved were found to cause learning stress. The variations in cortisol concentrations of students increased by $1.6{\pm}5.9ng\;mL^{-1}$ after conducting observational activities in geology compared with $2.1{\pm}6.2ng\;mL^{-1}$ after doing cognitive activities in astronomy. The analysis of the observational activities in the geology inquiry activities indicated that they were consistent with low levels of learning stress. Conversely, the analysis of the cognitive activities in the astronomy inquiry activities showed significant individual variations in cortisol concentrations. Furthermore, individual differences in cognitive ability were reflected in the astronomy inquiry activities. While students, who received high scores, exhibited low levels of stress in the geology inquiry activities, they showed high levels of stress in the astronomy inquiry activities. It was concluded that, in the case of students with high scores in the study, the level of learning stress increased due to the raised anxiety in cognitive inquiry activities. In contrast, students, who received low scores in the study, exhibited high levels of stress in the geology inquiry activities, and low levels of stress in the astronomy inquiry activities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.92-103
• /
• 1995

Since the late of 1960,s, the improvement of science inquiry skills has been one of the most important goals in secondary science education. To achieve this goal, it is essential to develop a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating science inquiry skills. The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable instrument for evaluating science inquiry skills for high school students. The instrument is developed through R & D procedure, which includes two field trials of the instrument. This study has formed a clear definition of the elements of science inquiry skills (formulating a hypothesis, controlling variables, designing an experiment, numeric calculation, graphing experimental data, inference, determining relationship, determining causalities, predicting experimental results , drawing a conclusion, formulating a generalization or model), and established the goals of assessment and developed the items of assessment. The instrument, Test of Earth Science Inquiry Skills, consists of 33 items which measure 11 science inquiry skills. There are content-free items for each science inquiry skills. This study has selected 11 science inquiry skills which are considered appropriate for being evaluated by paper-and-pencil test with SIEI (Hur,1984). The content validity of items, objectivity of the scoring keys and clarity of the items were checked by six experienced specialists in science education. At the same time, the two field trials has been executed and produced the reliability of the instrument, item difficulty index, and the effectiveness of distracters. The first field trial was performed using a sample of 304 high school students, and the second one using a sample of 872 high school students. Because the content validity is 84 % and the reliability (K-R 20) is 0.84, the developed instrument in this study is considered valid and reliable. The difficulty index is 49.4 %, answer ratio 59.1 %, the discrimination index 0.47 and the effectiveness of distracters evenly distributed, which also suffice the criteria of good instrument. The developed instrument in this study can diagnosis the well-developed science inquiry skills and the ill-developed science inquiry skills of the students, and trace the degree of the improvement of science inquiry skills.