• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1216-1234
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• 2004

School science practical work is often criticized as lacking key elements of authentic science, such as peer argumentation or debate through which social consensus is obtained. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent studies about the argumentation and to explore the conditions and the model of argumentative scientific inquiry, which is specially designed open inquiry in order to facilitate students' peer argumentation. For this purpose, a theoretical discussion for the argumentative scientific inquiry as the way of authentic inquiry in schools was developed. The conditions for argumentative scientific inquiry were found to be the following: multiple arguments, students' own claims, opportunities for oral and written argumentation, equal status of debaters, and community of cooperative competition. For these conditions, the argumentative scientific inquiry was organized into experiment activities and argumentation activities. During argumentation activity, students should be guided to advance written argumentation through writing a group report for peer review and oral argumentation through a critical discussion. Through the argumentation between groups and in group, the students' arguments would be elaborated repeatedly. The feedback from argumentation links experiment activities to argumentation activities. Hence, the whole process of this inquiry model is circular.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.597-610
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• 2022

In this study, we investigated actual cases of assessment science teachers conducted and the cases they preferred in a typical situation based on the curriculum in the context of 'Scientific Inquiries in the History' of Scientific Inquiry Experiment. A questionnaire composed of descriptive questions was developed and a survey was conducted with 70 science teachers with experience in teaching 'Scientific Inquiries in History'. Interviews were conducted with eight of them. The assessment cases were analyzed in terms of the assessment areas and assessment methods, and the results were compared. The analyses of the results revealed that 'scientific inquiry ability' accounted for the highest ratio of the assessment areas in the actual cases of assessment. There were few cases that assessed the core concepts presented in the curriculum, 'the nature of science' and 'scientists' inquiry methods'. The assessment methods were greatly biased toward the report method and various assessment methods were not used. In preferred cases of assessment, the ratio of cases that assessed the core concept increased slightly, however the frequencies remained at a low. As for the assessment methods in preferred cases of assessment, the measurement methods decreased, the performance methods increased, and the informal methods which were not shown in the actual cases appeared. However various assessment methods were still not used. The causes of the survey results were analyzed based on the opinions of the teachers who participated in the interviews. Based on above results, plans to actively conduct NOS assessments in Scientific Inquiry Experiment are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.617-629
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to explore the elementary school teachers' perceptions about making a model of volcanic activity. Thirty elementary teachers participated in the study after they in which they conducted the experiment of "Making a Model of Volcanic activity". A questionnaire was used to investigate how the teachers understood the strengths and weaknesses of the experiment in terms of the goals of school science inquiry. The results showed that 50-60% of the teachers were able to conduct the experiment as guided in the textbook regardless of their career or area of concentration. The teachers perceived that the experiment of current textbook was safe and useful for students to develop their creativity. However, they pointed out three major weaknesses of the textbook experiment: First, the textbook experiment does not clearly present the main purpose of the activity. Second, it does not appropriately reflect the natural volcanic activity. Third, it is a merely simple craft activity. In addition, the teachers agreed that the main goals of school science inquiry are the application of scientific knowledge, development of inquiry skills and cultivation of student's curiosity. However, the teachers perceived that the experiment of current textbook did not meet these three goals. They suggest that the experiment reflect the nature of real volcanic activities.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.334-346
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• 2012

For teachers' conceptions and understandings are critical to their decision making and classroom practice, this study attempts to understand pre-service elementary teachers' views and practices of science inquiry during peer teaching practice. Fifteen 4th year university students in teacher education program participated in peer teaching practice. Their teaching and reflective discussion were video and audio recorded and written lesson plans were collected for data analysis. Five science teacher educators individually looked into the data and shared their comments and interpretations on pre-service teachers' views and practice. The study findings suggest that pre-service teachers emphasized the importance of providing students with motivating resources in the beginning of lesson, employing certain inquiry teaching models, the process of predicting and dis/proving via experiment, and teachers' minimal intervention as the important features of inquiry teaching. Science teacher educators emphasized that it is critical to help children understand inquiry questions in the beginning of inquiry process, to be mindful of children's problem solving and critical thinking rather than following instruction models or simply going through prediction and test process. They also commented that teachers' guidance could lead a good inquiry process in classroom practice, not always interfering students' inquiry. Based on the findings, the study suggests science teacher educators need to understand what and how pre-service teachers view and practice science inquiry teaching and consider these as useful resources where they can start effective teaching for pre-service teachers at the university level.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.60 no.5
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• pp.327-341
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• 2016

This study explores the effective visual resources in the “regularity in chemical reactions” unit of ninth grade science textbooks (2009 revised version). The frequency and role of visual resources were initially examined, and the students’ perceptions of visual resources were investigated. The results of the analysis represented the learning material presentation (68%), motivational categories (14%), guide to inquiry procedures (9%), and inquiry results and summaries (8%). According to the investigation of the students’ perceptions of visual resources, the most effective visual resource for motivation is a photograph depicting physical and chemical changes, such as in bread baking and the most effective for learning material presentations in mass conservation, definite proportion, and stoichiometric concept units were a cartoon, graph, and formula representing stoichiometric phenomena, respectively. The most effective resource for guide to inquiry (experimental) procedures were photographs of both instruments and sequential experiment processes; and in the inquiry results and summary category, incomplete tables and graphs for students to work on themselves. The aims of this research are to increase the usefulness of visual resources in the teaching-learning activity and provide informative supplements for the development and improvement of visual resources, according to the students’ perceptions.

• 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.15 no.2
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• pp.133-148
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• 1995

This study has been performed in order to achieve three objectives. They are as follows: To analyze, based on the research literatures, the nature of scientific inquiry ability and the characteristics of its constitutive elements. To identify inquiry skills and techniques essential to such areas as physics, chemistry, biology. and earth science. To develop instructional models and materials for enhancing inquiry ability on the part of high school students. It was found in the study that the scientific inquiry was interpreted in terms of different meanings according to the viewpoint of the person who are interested in the nature of science. The scientific inquiry has been viewed as the process of knowledge formation, scientific method, inquiry process or process skills depending on the epistemological, methodological, educational perspectives, respectively. It was also identified that certain kind of skills or techniques would be used for inquiry in only one specific area of the science. This study drew a conclusion based on the findings that the skills and techniques will effectively be learned when those are taught with specific knowledge in each area of the science. Reported in this paper are the materials developed, for fostering scienctific inquiry skills on the part of the high school students. The materials were developed, using two themes of a theoretical-abstract chemistry topic and a conceptual-concrete biology topic. Those materals were designed for an experiment and an observation, respectively.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.197-206
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to research pre-service chemistry teachers' inquiry ability and perception on inquiry by analyzing their argument structure. Nine graduating senior students have participated in this study. They have experimented with mass change during state change, which is included in 7th grade science textbook. We have analyzed pre-service teachers' experimental reports using Toulmin's argument model. Also, we have researched their views on science and experiments through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. As results show, various factors have affected pre-services' argument structures; lack of science knowledge and inquiry ability, belief about error, and additive data. This study shows that pre-service teachers' inquiry abilities is insufficient, and it is necessary to review rearrangement of pre-service science teacher curriculum in order to offer inquiry experiments in teacher education program.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.669-679
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated how 'Scientific Inquiry Experiment,' a newly introduced subject under the 2015 revised curriculum, was implemented to identify the difficulties that science teachers face in the process of teaching the subject and to explore how to support them through online survey and interview methods. A questionnaire of the survey, which consisted of environmental factors of class, preparation and execution of class, teacher self-evaluation of class, and direction for the subject, was developed, and the online survey was requested with a response from one teacher per school from 1674 high schools nationwide. We analyzed the results from 814 teachers who answered all required questions, and we also conducted interviews and online advisory discussions to ensure the validity of our analysis. In the results of the study, teachers complained of lack of time for preparation and execution of the subject, and they demanded laboratory assistants and quality teaching materials. In addition, in order to achieve the goal of the subject, they agreed the necessity of using the 'block scheduling' though they also agreed the difficulties of its implementation. Meanwhile, the alteration of guidelines for evaluation, which was changed from 9-grade system to 3-grade system, was positively recognized by teachers. As a result of this change, the percentage of performance assessment increased in 2019 compared to 2018, but there were no significant changes in the number of 'hands-on activity.' Finally, we proposed ways to support 'scientific inquiry experiment'.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.102-111
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• 2010

This study examined the instructional influences of MBL programs on elementary school students' science achievement, scientific inquiry skills, and science learning motivation. The perceptions of students and their teacher toward science classes using MBL programs were also examined. The subject of this study was sixty four 4th grade students from two classes. The experimental group engaged in science classes that applied MBL and the control group engaged in traditional science classes based on the textbook and experiment workbook. As results, there was no significant difference in academic achievement, scientific inquiry skills, however, were significantly higher for the experiment group compared to the control group. There was also significant difference in the relevance and confidence, the sub-categories of science learning motivation. In the analyses of students' perceptions toward science classes using MBL, students showed positive perceptions in aspects of interests of science classes, content comprehension, and convenience of experiments. The teacher also showed positive perceptions using MBL in elementary science classes. Educational implications of appling MBL in elementary science classes were discussed.