• Title/Summary/Keyword: scientific inquiry ability

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Effective Classroom Environments in Discovery Learning Classes for Gifted Science Pupils (초등과학 영재교실에서 발견 학습 모형 수업에 효과적인 환경 조건의 탐색)

  • Lee, In-Ho;Jhun, Young-Seok
    • Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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    • v.25 no.3
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    • pp.307-317
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    • 2006
  • Those students with ability and interest in science should be supported to develop their potential and to reach high levels of achievement in science and technology. In order to ensure that gifted pupils are able to enhance their creativity as well as research abilities, appropriate learning programs and environments are essential. One of the various teaching and learning models for the gifted in science is the discovery learning model based on inductive science activities. There is a clear line of continuity between knowledge discovery at the forefront of research and student's learning activities. If students receive excellent training in organizing scientific concepts for themselves, they will be able to skillfully apply appropriate scientific concepts and solve problems when facing unfamiliar situations. It is very important to offer an appropriate learning environment to maximize the learning effect whilst, at the same time, understanding individual student's characteristics. In this study, the authors took great pains to research effective learning environments for gifted science students. Firstly, appropriate classroom learning environments thought by the teacher to offer the most potential were investigated. 3 different classes in which a revised teaching and learning environment was applied in sequence were examined. Inquiries were conducted into students' activities and achievement through observation, interviews, and examination of students' worksheets. A Science Education expert and 5 elementary school teachers specializing in gifted education also observed the class to examine the specific character of gifted science students. A number of suggestions in discovery learning classes for elementary students gifted in science are possible; 1) Readiness is essential in attitudes related to the inquiry. 2) The interaction between students should be developed. A permissive atmosphere is needed in small group activities. 3) Students require training in listening to others. In a whole class discussion, a permissive atmosphere needs to be restricted somewhat in order to promote full and inclusive discussion. 4) Students should have a chance to practice induction and abduction methods in solving problems.

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A Status Survey and Improvement Plan for the Science Education in Vocational High Schools (실업계 고등학교 과학교육의 실태분석과 개선방안)

  • Pak, Sung-Jae;Kwon, Jae-Sool;Kim, Chang-Sik;Oh, Dae-Sub;Woo, Jong-Ok;Lee, Wha-Kuk;Cho, Hee-Hyung
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.8 no.1
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    • pp.1-22
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    • 1988
  • The educational policy of a nation should be based on the results of nation-wide studies and their analyses. This study is the third one in a series of research on "development of improvement plan and monitoring system for secondary school science", focusing on the three major areas, such as students' achievements, science instruction and conditions for science education in vocational high schools. In general, the results showed that science achievements in vocational high schools were significantly lower than those of general high schools. While the achievement level in physics was lower by one percent, the achievement levels in chemistry and biology were significantly lower by more than 5 percents. In the case of scientific inquiry, the results showed much lower scores compared to those of general high schools. Concerning the inquiry abilities, most of the students did not possess the formal operational thinking skills such as controlling variables and combinatorial thinking. The ability of experimental skills seemed to be closely related to the students' majors. Students in industrial arts schools could measure electric resistance very well, while students in agricultural high school students failed completely. In the area of students' attitude toward science, the greater part of the students had the experiences of using scientific equipments (68.6 %), experimentation (54.3 %), and extracurricular science activities (56.9 %). They also showed positive attitude towards the nature of science (59.8%). The results of the survey on science instruction and school conditions for science education showed the needs for improvement In general, the priority of science education in vocational high schools was very low compared to their major subjects. The teachers as well as students thought science text books nor to be difficult These responses and the low achievement levels seemed to be contradictory to each other. The facilities for science experiments were better equipped and installed to general high schools. However. the lack of budget was a major problem for performing experiments uning the facilities. Therefore. science education in vocational high school have many things to be improved For the improvement of science education in vocational high schools, financial support as well as the intention for the improvement must be the essential factors.

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A Qualitative Study of Running질 Science Garden질 (과학동산 운영에 관한 질적 연구)

  • 채동현;이수영
    • Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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    • v.21 no.2
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    • pp.263-288
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    • 2002
  • 'Science Garden' is a science program that develops acquirements of science & technology at an early stage through experiential study and inspire the spirit of scientific inquiry by carrying out laboratory work, science movie, science lecture, scientific work, outdoor activities, computer classes and science experiment which is hard to do through the regular educational course. It is targeted grade 4,5,6 students during summer and winter vacation. 'Science Garden' is conducted by selective participation freely. It is a wholelistic activity that develops children's potential talents or creativities, improves interest and attitude toward science, and also gives opportunity for self-realization by extending capacity for inquiry to show each student's ability. This study is observed and is compared how it is conducted in elementary school using qualitative study. This study is used narrative observation, in-depth interview and document analysis. Objects of narrative observation are two elementary schools, each from Jellabukdo and Gyeonggido, and 7 teachers were interviewed in-depthly. Here are results of the study. 1 A teacher in school G never takes part in student activities, tends to be indifferent to classes, but focuses on observation and experiment in laboratory. And feedback or evaluation about student's activity is never done. On the other hand, a teacher in school S guides students to understand the principals of science on themselves, and wide variety forms of activities such as role playing, discussion, and games are being done. But an effort to evaluate student's activity is not being made properly. 2. Teachers set a high valuation on the need of 'Science Garden'. Observing the way of conducting 'Science Garden', usually teachers who is in charge of science for official work is selected as a teacher in charge, and groan under a heavy burden of conducting it without anyone's help. Participating students are selected by volunteering or teacher's recommendation, but because of low Participation rate, teachers have difficulty in conducting it. Plan for conducting ‘science Garden’ is made 20 days before it, after getting an official document from Office of Education, refering to booklets produced by National Jungang Science Institute, or data from Office of Education, and internet. Teachers evaluate rarely Most school principals have interest in 'Science Garden' but parents are not well aware of it, The budget is made at the same time with the plan, and scale is varied between 200,000∼500,000 won. Because of the improper way of selecting teacher in charge, difficulty in selecting students, heavy works caused by planning, conducting the program, as well as reporting teacher's work, and lack of parents' awareness, 'Science Garden' has been conducted formally and superficially. Next gives you direction to change, for the right way of conducting' Science Garden'. It is important to motivate competent teachers to instruct students actively. For students' active participation, They should publicize thoroughly beforehand, and develope 'Science Garden' program for teachers to be able to make better use of it. Evaluation of student activities and program should be done in the aspect of developing students’ faculties. Beside of school facilities, they need to put diverse local facilities and places to practical use for immediate natural experience. And not only separate schools but also associated form of schools to conduct it is necessary.

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Study on Korean Science Teachers' Perception in Accordance with the Trends of Core Competencies in Science Education Worldwide (과학교과에서의 핵심역량에 대한 세계의 동향에 준거하여 우리나라 현장 교사들의 인식 연구)

  • Koh, Eun Jung;Jeong, Dae Hong
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.34 no.6
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    • pp.535-547
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    • 2014
  • This study analyzed the characteristics of National Science Curricula in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore, and Korea with respect to core competencies. In the case of overseas countries, literature review on their curricula was conducted, and four common features were extracted: 'association of cross-curricular competencies with science-specific competencies', 'a combination of science contents and scientific practices', 'an emphasis on communication skills', and 'representation of an achievement level of competency'. In addition, the common core competencies of science education were 'critical thinking', 'creative thinking', 'problem solving', 'inquiry skills', 'communication skills', 'cultural literacy', 'ability to integrate discipline', 'application skills', and 'personal/social competency'. In relation to these features, this study also investigated Korean science teachers' perceptions of core competencies in science education. A survey was conducted on 135 teachers in elementary, middle, and high school in Korea. Teachers were not well aware of what core competencies are, and after introduction, they thought that they wanted to and needed to teach core competencies to their students. Teachers claimed that critical core competencies in science education are 'creative thinking', 'problem solving', and 'inquiry skills'. Teachers thought that core competencies-based science class would help develop students' scientific literacy and communication skills. However, they have difficulties in conducting core competencies-based science class because they are not familiar with how to conduct the class and they expect that it will take a long time to prepare such a class.

Developing and Applying the Questionnaire to Measure Science Core Competencies Based on the 2015 Revised National Science Curriculum (2015 개정 과학과 교육과정에 기초한 과학과 핵심역량 조사 문항의 개발 및 적용)

  • Ha, Minsu;Park, HyunJu;Kim, Yong-Jin;Kang, Nam-Hwa;Oh, Phil Seok;Kim, Mi-Jum;Min, Jae-Sik;Lee, Yoonhyeong;Han, Hyo-Jeong;Kim, Moogyeong;Ko, Sung-Woo;Son, Mi-Hyun
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.38 no.4
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    • pp.495-504
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    • 2018
  • This study was conducted to develop items to measure scientific core competency based on statements of scientific core competencies presented in the 2015 revised national science curriculum and to identify the validity and reliability of the newly developed items. Based on the explanations of scientific reasoning, scientific inquiry ability, scientific problem-solving ability, scientific communication ability, participation/lifelong learning in science presented in the 2015 revised national science curriculum, 25 items were developed by five science education experts. To explore the validity and reliability of the developed items, data were collected from 11,348 students in elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide. The content validity, substantive validity, the internal structure validity, and generalization validity proposed by Messick (1995) were examined by various statistical tests. The results of the MNSQ analysis showed that there were no nonconformity in the 25 items. The confirmatory factor analysis using the structural equation modeling revealed that the five-factor model was a suitable model. The differential item functioning analyses by gender and school level revealed that the nonconformity DIF value was found in only two out of 175 cases. The results of the multivariate analysis of variance by gender and school level showed significant differences of test scores between schools and genders, and the interaction effect was also significant. The assessment items of science core competency based on the 2015 revised national science curriculum are valid from a psychometric point of view and can be used in the science education field.

A Study on the Inquiring Experimental Assessment in Biology of Applicants for Entrance Examination to A Korean Private High School (고등학교 장학생 선발고사 응시생의 탐구적 생물실험 평가에 관한 연구)

  • Hong, Jung-Lim;Pak, Sung-Jae;Chang, Nam-Kee
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.17 no.2
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    • pp.201-207
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    • 1997
  • This study was performed to survey the achievements in problem solving by the inquiring experiment, which was done by the superior group in the traditional cocepts-centered written tests. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of inquiring experimental assessment by analyzing differences between concepts-centered written and inquiring experimental tests. The subjects of this study was 211 applicants. They are the superior group of the 9th grade students, and score in the top 1% of total achievements percentage in school. They also have passed the primary entrance examination. The inquiring experimental test was developed according to the curriculum in school, and is composed of 5 subcategories: problem-perception and formulating hypothesis, designing an experiment, carring out an experiment, recording data and drawing conculsion, and generalizing conculsions and communicaton. The checklists of each subcategory were made and testing methods were divided into observation and report. The major results of this study are as follows: 1. The achievements in each subcategory of inquiring experimental performance were very low in the superior group who took the concepts-centered written tests. 2. The results of factor and correlation analyses in this study confirmed the abilities measured by inquiring experimental assessment differed from abilities measured by existing tests. These results indicated that even students who achieved high in scientific knowledge, these abilities were not automatically transformed inquiry process which many other abilities were integrated into. Therefore, problem solving ability requires integrated abilities which are fostered by inquiring experimental tasks. This suggests that new instrument for assessment must be developed to measure integrating ability especially where scientifically gifted students are selected, or where entrance examinations to the science schools are administered.

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Research on Pre-Service Science Teachers' Understanding of and Problem-Solving Ability with Regard to Chemistry Concepts (예비 과학 교사의 화학 개념에 대한 이해도와 문제 해결 능력 조사)

  • Choi, Won-Ho;Yoon, Hyeo-Seon
    • Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.56 no.5
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    • pp.617-627
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    • 2012
  • We investigated pre-service science teachers' understanding of and problem-solving ability with regard to chemistry concepts in the high school curriculum. For this purpose, we used related certain items and analyzed the results. We found that in the case of all items, some pre-service science teachers, who do not have clear concepts, selected incorrect answers. The in-depth interviews we conducted with the participants revealed some of the causes for the results obtained. First, although pre-service science teachers have better concepts as compared to high school students, they have the same misconceptions as students with regard to some concepts. Second, although they are familiar with the general definitions or meanings of scientific concepts, they do not understand the specific content that is emphasized in the curriculum. Moreover, they tend to solve problems by the information visually conceived. Third, although they know the necessity of general concepts related to problem solving, they sometimes fail to apply inquiry skills and tend to suggest concepts from the higher education curriculum that are not helpful for solving problems.

Longitudinal Study about Science Process Skills Item Forms Transition before and after Scholastic Ability Test for College (과학(科學) 탐구능력(探究能力) 평가(評價) 문항(問項) 유형(類型) 변화(變化)에 관(關)한 종단적(縱斷的) 연구(硏究))

  • Woo, Jong-Ok;Lee, Hang-Ro;Goo, Chang-Hyun
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.16 no.3
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    • pp.314-328
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    • 1996
  • This study investigated the literature about science process skills' evaluation to analyse transition of evaluation objectives before and after a Scholastic Ability Test for College Entrance. In the literature survey the researcher established a 3 dimensional science assessment framework with X axis as science concept, Y axis as science process skills and Z axis as problem context. In order to analysis and compare each items the researcher selected 210 items from the 1st to the 7th trials and 138 items from the 1st to 4th Scholastic Ability Test for College Entrance and sampled 2873 science achievement test items from 10 high schools. In accordance with this taxonomy the researcher analysed and compared science process skills item forms. The following results were drawn : The items were evenly distributed in all the four areas(Earth Science, Biology, Physics and Chemistry) of the science concept domain, but they were heavily concentrated on data analysis and drawing a conclusion in science process domain. In the domain of problem context school context was the majority. In spite of distribution like this the ratio on science process skills measurement items and science achievement test items was increased after the Scholastic Ability Test for College Entrance was given. Also the ratio on item expression type was increased. Item form was almost 5 options selection type in the national level test. Although there were 4 options selection type, 5 options selection type, short answer type, essay type in school level test, rising from 33.1% to 65.5% on 5 options selection type is exhibited. This study showed that the school level item form was better various than the nation level. This point like this is the evidence for the improvement toward the science process skills test and influenced by Scholastic Ability Test for College Entrance. The ratio on the item which joined with the 3 axes had a mean of 99.3% in nation level test and mean 44.9% in school achievement test level. But the ratio in the school achievement test level increased after the Scholastic Ability Test for College Entrance was given. In view of this study we must furthermore study the item types which can evaluate valjdately science process skill's five stage each and evaluation method by the high school students' problem solving patterns and features in scientific inquiry on all science process skills elements.

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Research Trends in Science Gifted Education from 2011 to 2015: Literature Analysis vs Social Network Analysis (2010년부터 2015년까지 국내 과학영재교육의 연구동향 분석 : 문헌분석 대 사회네트워크분석)

  • Yoon, Jin A;Seo, Hae-Ae
    • Journal of Science Education
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    • v.40 no.3
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    • pp.267-286
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    • 2016
  • The study aimed to investigate a research trend in science gifted education of six years from 2010 to 2015 by utilizing literature analysis and Social Network Analysis (SNA) methods. In this study, 275 papers published in eight major academic journals of science education and gifted education were selected as research subjects. First, through the literature analysis, it was found that the most frequent research topics were cognitive characteristics (25.8%), curriculum/programs (22.6%), and social and emotional characteristics (20.2%). For the research method employed in research papers, the survey research (46.5%) was appeared as the most frequently employed method, and followed by experimental (18.8%), program development (10.6%), correlation (10.3%), and qualitative (6.4%) research methods. The most frequent research subject was appeared as middle school students (33.7%) and followed by elementary school (30.6%), and high school (12.7%) students. Second, the SNA method was utilized for producing keyword frequency, degree centrality and network analyses. It was appeared that the most common keywords over six years included 'science gifted', 'gifted education', and 'creativity' and frequent keywords were science gifted, gifted education, gifted, creativity, science inquiry, perception, (creative) problem solving, science high school, scientific attitude, and STEAM. Third, through 2-mode network analysis, it was found that the research papers about cognitive characteristics were mainly related to perceptions, thinking ability, scientific argumentation, science inquiry and so on. It was also found that the research papers about social and emotional characteristics were related to correlation, motivation, creativity-character, self-efficiency and so on. It was concluded that the SNA method can be performed with literature analysis together for better understandings and interpretations of the research trend of science gifted education in-depth.

Comparison of the Science Education Curriculum and the Environmental Education Curriculum for Promoting Environmental Education (환경교육 활성화를 위한 과학과 교육과정과 환경과 교육과정 비교)

  • Yoon, Jin-A;Nam, Younkyeong
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
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    • v.41 no.2
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    • pp.155-175
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    • 2020
  • The purpose of this study is to analyze the 2015 revised Science Curriculum and Environment Curriculum, and to provide implications for the correlation and complementarity between the two standards. For the analysis of the curriculum, the contents system of the two standards was reorganized based on the four categories of knowledge, attitude, inquiry, participation and practice, which are common literacy elements of science and environment, based on previous studies. Content Analysis was performed on content elements and detailed performance expectation. As a result of this study, there was a difference in terms of the core competencies and goals. The Environment Curriculum emphasized sustainable development and social participation while the Science Curriculum emphasized scientific inquiry and literacy. The contents system analysis results according to the four literacy factors are as follows. First, in terms of attitude, both standards deal with research ethics in common. However Environment Curriculum values learners' values and views on the environment more than Science Curriculum which emphasizes the science attitude as science investigators. Second, there was a serious problem in the knowledge linkage between two standards. In same grade groups, the level of content knowledge dealt in two standards was not consistent. Third, in the inquiry aspect, the Environment Curriculum deals with interdisciplinary topics in the purposefully designed inquiry unit, whereas the Science Curriculum presents various research activities based on related science concepts in every unit. Fourth, in the participation and practice aspect, the Environment Curriculum focused on participation and practice while the Science Curriculum focused on sustainable science and technology development and improvement, scientific interest and decision-making ability. This study provide implications for education for sustainable development(ESD) by providing the complementary potentials between Science Curriculum and Environment Curriculum.