• 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 Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.791-797
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated the influences of Integrated Science and Science Inquiry Experiment developed under 2015 Revised National Science Curriculum on students' interest in science, scientific attitude, views on STS, and the nature of science (NOS). 223 tenth graders in Seoul metropolitan area participated in this study. We conducted the survey prior to and after the Integrated Science and Science Inquiry Experiment course using same instruments and compared the results of the pre-test and post-test. The analyses of the results reveal that there were significant improvements in the scores of the pre- and post-test on the interest in science and scientific attitude. In the case of views on STS, there were significant improvements in items related to science research ethics, however there were no significant differences in the remaining items. Also, there were no significant differences in the scores of the pre- and post-test on views on NOS. On the bases of the results, we discuss educational implications and suggest further studies.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of microcomputer-based laboratory (MBL) teaching on 6th graders in Korean elementary schools. Three classes from elementary school were respectively assigned to an experimental group consisting of one class (38 students) and a control group of two classes (78 students). For the experimental group, science instruction employed MBL. For the control group, traditional instruction was used. The results of this study are as follows: Firstly, the MBL was effective in the improvement of scientific inquiry skills. Secondly, there was no significant difference in respect to the results from the achievement test between the experimental group and the control group.

• 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'.

• Asia-pacific Journal of Multimedia Services Convergent with Art, Humanities, and Sociology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.603-613
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to develop an scientific inquiry learning module by applying ESD and to verify its effect so that students could understand sustainable development and geology concepts by reconstructing the contents of the geology related unit. For this purpose, the "Volcanoes and Earthquakes" unit in the 3-4 grade group of the Korea national curriculum was selected and the scientific inquiry learning module was developed. The developed inquiry learning module consisted of one textbook and one teacher 's guidebook, and it was put into one class of elementary school to verify the effect. As a result, the teacher said that it was good to be taught contents of ESD and it was useful because of the concreteness of inquiry activities. The students responded that they were interesting because developed textbook is more often the interesting picture and activity than traditional textbook. And the students responded that 'ESD' has been an opportunity to be interested in science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.135-145
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary teachers' views on the democratic scientific inquiry and the methods for promotion of democratic citizenship in science classroom, and to conduct exploratory discussions about science classroom for promotion of democratic citizenship based on their views. Data were collected from 96 elementary teachers. AS results show, the elementary teachers in the study thought that the features of democratic scientific inquiry was 'communication and cooperation', 'autonomy and fairness', and 'contribution to the benefit of mankind and society'. In addition, the participants regarded the 'inquiry/activity focused on communication and cooperation' as the best method for promotion of democratic citizenship in science classrooms. Finally, several suggestions on the science education for promotion of democratic civic literacy and the democratic inquiry were given.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.760-774
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristic of the linguistic interaction according to leadership type of the leader in the scientific inquiry activity groups and examine how leadership factors affect the linguistic interaction within a group. In this investigation, leaders among 12 elementary school students were chosen by considering results of the leadership diagnosis that tested 3 leadership factors: vision and promotion, assignment responsibility, and decision-making. The members of the groups were organized according to scientific inquiry ability and academic achievement; the groups were assigned to perform scientific inquiry activities. The linguistic interaction was largely divided into the cognitive domain and the affective domain for analysis. According to the results, the frequency of linguistic interaction within a group sorted by leadership type is more influenced by the cognitive domain than the affective domain. The highest frequency of linguistic interaction appeared within the group that had vision and promotion type leader. Assumedly, the vision and confidence of the vision and promotion type leader produced such an outcome. While solving the assignments, linguistic interaction in all three groups had more cognitive domain than affected domain. Linguistic interaction in cognitive domain displayed only low level of linguistic interaction in relation to the experiment itself: high level of linguistic interaction barely occurred. In the case of affected domain, active participation appeared more frequently than maintaining the mood: Interactions related to restricting the group members actions to solve the assignment appeared more frequently than those for maintaining the mood.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.113-128
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to confirm achievement of goals in science curriculum. The questionnaires related to 'solution' chapter of 5th grade were developed. The subjects were 69 sixth grade elementary school students and four elementary school teachers. 5 students were selected for deep interviews. Each interview was progressed separately, and all the contents of the interviews were recorded. As results, it is revealed that most of the students could not understand basic concepts of 'solution' chapter. The teachers and the students recognized that explanations in the textbook were insufficient. Many inquiry activities were introduced in textbooks, but the students could not acquire inquiry abilities, especially data interpretation and generalization abilities. Inadequate pictures in the textbook also disturbed the students' learning of inquiry ability. Using materials of real life in textbook could not attract the elementary school students' interests effectively.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2014

This study aims to investigate the opinions of students who joined the Jeju Scientific Research Academy, a scientific research program with a mentoring system. The 50 middle school students and 50 high school students in the study were chosen as participants after being judged on their research plans. According to the study, students became more confident in research activities and could have a new point of view on research through interaction with a mentor. They were also very interested in the scientific research program of the Jeju Scientific Research Academy and found it helpful to understand the scientific concepts. Therefore the study shows it is necessary to consider actively the introduction of the mentoring system for the scientific research program. The follow-up study should be done to determine which factors influence on the inquiring minds and the understanding of scientific concepts of the students during the experience of the program.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.181-193
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• 2016

We examined the inquiry activities in the material domain of the elementary science textbooks and experimental workbooks based on 2009 revised curriculum. The analysis framework was SEP (Science and Engineering Practices) - 'Asking questions and defining problems', 'developing and using models', 'planning and carrying out investigations', 'analyzing and interpreting data', 'using mathematics and computational thinking', 'constructing explanations and designing solutions', 'engaging in argument from evidence', and 'obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information'. Sub-SEP of each grade band were also used. The results showed that the $3^{rd}{\sim}5^{th}$ grade science textbooks and workbooks mainly emphasized 'make observations and/or measurements', 'represent data in tables and/or various graphical displays', or 'use evidence to construct or support an explanation or design a solution to a problem' among around 40 sub-SEP. In the case of the inquiry activities for $6^{th}$ grade, majority of sub-SEP included were also only 'collect data to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence to answer scientific questions or test design solutions', 'analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for phenomena' or 'construct a scientific explanation based on valid and reliable evidence obtained from sources'. The type of 'asking questions and defining problems', 'using mathematics and computational thinking' or 'obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information' were little found out of 8 SEP. Educational implications were discussed.