• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.1-10
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of constructivist instruction on science inquiry skills and science-related attitudes, and to investigate the students' responses to the lesson using constructivist instruction. In this study, 108 students of sixth graders from four classes were intentionally selected from two elementary schools located in Gyungsan city, Kyungsangbukdo. Two classes of 54 students were used by the constructivist teaching program and the other two classes were handled by the traditional teaching program. Two teachers who have twenty years' careers guided the program prepared by researcher to the students and this examination was conducted for 8 weeks (total 20 class hours). In pretest and posttest, both groups were tested in the science inquiry skills and science-related attitudes. An interview and questionnaire for the students analyzed the responses about the constructivist instruction. The major results of this study are as follows: First, in science inquiry skills test, there was no statistical significance between the score of the experimental group and that of the comparative group(p>.05). The ability of formulating problem in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the comparative group at 0.05 level. In pretest and posttest, the experimental group was statistically significant on classifying, formulating problem, interpreting data, while the comparative group was not significant on those. Second, we can find that the experimental group has more positive effect on forming the desirable science-related attitudes than the comparative group(p<.05). Especially, experimental group is significantly higher the attitudes about the science curriculum than the comparative group at 0.05 level Third, constructivist instruction has more affirmative tendency of the students' learning activity. Constructivist instruction generated much interest and curiosity about science for the students, and this method prompted students' expression and discussion.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the middle science teachers' perceptions on science lessons with experiments. The study conducted a survey for 110 science teachers participating in inservice program. The middle school science teachers taught classes with lectures rather than with experimental activities. They had an experiment one to three times a semester in their lessons. They did an experiment to follow to what the textbook said, or to confirm it, like a cookbook style. The most teachers answered that they had over average ability to teach both lecture and experiment. Through the experiment, they expected students had interests and curiosity on science. Despite the advantages of experiments, there were many constraints to conduct experiments, such as teachers' excessive work, laboratory conditions, education environment, and others. It was demanded on continuous interest and investment in the variation of educational environment so that teachers can experiment more often.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.226-241
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to elucidate elementary school teachers' pedagogical content knowledge regarding the subject of "weight and pressure in water". 6 elementary teachers in charge of the 6th grade were selected for this study. The 7 hour lessons were observed over $15{\sim}20$ days, and a variety of data including scenarios, questionnaires for teachers, interviews of teachers were analyzed. As a result of this study, teachers who had long career histories thought that the purpose of teaching science was to teach the use of science principles, and teachers who had only taught for a relatively short time thought the purpose was satisfying students' curiosity. Most of the teachers felt that the science content knowledge related to buoyancy was insufficient. They had acquired most of the science content knowledge from teaming experiences in middle and high schools. The pre-service teacher education programs didn't help them to satisfactorily acquire the science content knowledge under analysis here. Most of the teachers taught the science lessons according to the order of sequence as shown in the science textbook. They didn't teach the contents that they thought were needed if they were not already included in the science textbook. Only one teacher who had taken science courses in high school managed the science classes freely according to his own thoughts and opinions. From the results of this research, it could be concluded that most elementary school teachers did not have enough pedagogical content knowledge to teach their students effectively.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.96-108
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate how prospective elementary school teachers perceived teacher's inquiryoriented teaching practice, with an emphasis on students' scientific explanations based on scientific evidence. For this study, 94 prospective elementary school teachers were participated. 14 among 94 participants had chances to intensively experience this particular teaching methods for 15 weeks. All of the 94 participants observed the intended science teaching practice for 4th graders in two different elementary schools, which utilized the science talks emphasizing students' scientific explanation activity. For quantitative data analysis, they were asked to provide their reaction to the science teaching methods after their classroom observation. For qualitative data analysis, 5 among the participants, who had relatively long term experience with this teaching practice, were chosen to interview in order to understand their individual reasons of the ways they perceived about the inquiry-oriented teaching methods boosting students' scientific explanation. The results show that the prospective elementary teachers generally thought the emphasis of students' scientific explanation based on scientific evidence could enhance young elementary students' science content understanding, stimulate their curiosity/interests, and further develop their ability to engage actively in scientific discussions. However, some prospective teachers tended to think that the science teaching. methods would not be effective in terms of managing science classes, though. This study concludes that the prospective teachers tended to hold an endemic dilemma. On the one hand, they had their clear preference to the inquiry-oriented teaching practice as the most ideal teaching methods. On the other hand, they also had their persistent hesitance in using these methods due to their fear that elementary students might not adequately grasp the important science content when engaged in scientific discourse through an inquiry-oriented class.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.357-369
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• 1998

Science-related affective domain is considered as a very important domain for achieving students' scientific literacy. Most science educational objectives include some objectives about affective domain such as scientific attitudes, values, curiosity, interests and concerns about nature and science. In this research, the evaluation framework and items of science-related affective domain were developed. The evaluation framework consists of three main categories such as cognition, interest and scientific attitudes and 16 subcategories. The validity of the evaluation framework is tested by ten science educators. Forty-eight items are selected among item pool by considering item response analysis and item-test correlation coefficient. The Cronbach ${\alpha}$ of the tests is 0.83(cognition and interest) and 0.86(scientific attitudes). The results of the test are as follows. First, boys got higher scores than girls. Second, elementary students got higher scores than secondary students. Finally. students in urban areas showed higher scores than those in rural areas.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.473-484
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to develop science and art integrated program to improve the creativity of scientifically gifted elementary school students. This study was to develop science and art integrated program to enhance the creativity of these subjects. This program was consisted of 30 lessons covering 10 topics. It was developed of five stages including the observation stage reflecting the characteristics of the right hemisphere relevant to creativity, the interest and curiosity stage, the experiment design and performing stage, the internalization stage, and the stage of expressing arts. This program was applied to 20 senior gifted students in Y Elementary School in Gyeonggi province. Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking(TTCT) was used in order to investigate and measure the effectiveness of the program before and after its use in class. The results of this study are as follows: First, this program showed results of significant improvement of creativity of scientifically gifted elementary school students after its use in class(p<.05). Second, it was significantly effective in increasing their creativity, especially in the subdomains such as originality, abstractness of title, and territory of resistance on hasty conclusions after its use in class(p<.05). Third, it was significantly effective to increase the Creativity Index that represents creative potential(p<.01). In particular, emotional expression, internalized visualization, unique visualization, and richness of the imagery emerged. This study implies that the science and art integrated program was closely related to the right hemisphere of the features enabling the subjects to create new ideas, new things, and new reactions. In addition, this program is expected to contribute to activate the brain areas of creativity for gifted students in the science field.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.93-102
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• 2021

In this study, we investigated the characteristics of inquiry problems set by high school students who observed an 'unexpected phenomenon' and identified the effects of providing scientific information on setting inquiry problems. The subjects of this study were 126 eleventh grade students in Seoul that were randomly assigned to group A (N=66) and group B (N=60). In the study, watching a video of about 45 seconds of the unexpected phenomenon repeatedly for 20 minutes, all the students freely wrote inquiry problems that they wanted to carry out in their handouts. At this time, it is characterized that only the handout of group B additionally included scientific information on the unexpected phenomenon. As a result of the study, students, regardless of group, set more 'curiosity-oriented inquiry problems (i.e., focusing on inquiries they want to do rather than revealing what might be the cause of the phenomenon)' rather than going into a 'cause-oriented inquiry problem solving (i.e., revealing the cause of the phenomenon).' Among the curiosity-oriented inquiry problems, most of them were 'new-result inquiry problems (i.e., investigating what new results will occur by simply manipulating experimental situations).' It was also found that students who were provided with the scientific information tended to set significantly more inquiry problems using the provided information than those who were not (χ2(1)=8.996, p<.01), nevertheless the students with the scientific information did not set significantly more cause-oriented inquiry problems (χ2(1)=1.376, p>.05). The findings have been discussed from the four perspectives (i.e., lack of provided information, lack of opportunities to internalize the provided information, personal curiosity-seeking, and intuitive thinking), and implications for inquiry problem setting were suggested.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.109-122
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• 2015

In National Curriculum of Science revised in 2007, free inquiry was newly introduced to increase student's interest in science and to foster creativity by having students make their own curiosity questions and find answers by themselves. The purpose of this study is to analyze elementary school students' perceptions on free science inquiry activities applying a brain-based evolutionary approach. For this study, 106 the fifth grade students participated, and then completed a questionnaire on free inquiry activities according to a brain-based evolutionary science teaching and learning principles. The students performed a series of steps of the Diversifying, Estimating-Evaluating-Executing, and Furthering activities in each of Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive domains (ABC-DEF approach) and constructed their own free inquiry diary, then the observations by the researcher and interviews with the students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major results of the study were as follows: First, the majority of the students perceived the each domain and step positively although a few of them perceived negatively. The reasons perceived as negatively were categorized into two; preference dimension of like or dislike and ability dimension of metacognitive or self-reflective capacity. Also, they perceived the free inquiry experience in the form of ABC-DEF as helpful to understand the nature of scientists' scientific activities. Based on these findings, implications for supporting authentic inquiry in school science are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.21-38
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• 2005

This study aims to find methods to improve the scientific literacy of the youth, which comprise the group who will lead the upcoming era of knowledge and science. To do this, the study focuses on improving the youth's understanding of science and their ability to utilize it. It is widely recognized that scientific literacy Is highly essential in this era of scientific revolution and innovations. Accordingly, various kinds of programs are being developed in Korea and other countries. In particular, 'Project 2061' is designed to enable a permanent learning system by improving problem-solving ability through the scientific process. This system plays an Important role In supporting the Americans' Pursuit of Increased literacy in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering. To improve the scientific literacy of young people, content development in relation with school courses as well as information services that arouse Interest and curiosity In the field of science is very important. In addition, It is necessary to develop a problem-solving program by stages. Further studies focusing on methods of improving scientific literacy of the youth are recommended.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.131-140
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• 2019

In this study, a block-base coding that could develop computing thinking was applied to Earth science teaching and learning to identify how the perception of computational thinking and scientific attitude was changed as part of creativity education. Based on the results of the study, the conclusions are as follows: First, an Earth science education program was developed using a block-based coding for elementary school students. The 12-hour program was designed for inquiry activities to encourage students to engage in various thinking by providing them with activity-oriented problems. Second, the Earth science education program using a block-based coding showed significant results in confidence in the use of a computer program, integrated learning with a computer, computational thinking, and problem-solving factors with computational thinking. Third, the Earth science education program using block-based coding showed significant differences in the categories of curiosity, criticism, cooperation, persistence, and creativity. It could be judged that it was effective for students in the process of questioning and trying to solve the problem themselves.