• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.724-742
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to develop a scientific inquiry model that makes scientific inquiry accessible to science teachers as well as students. To develop a scientific inquiry model, we investigated the research process demonstrated by ten scientists who were working at academic research institutions or industrial research institutions. We collected data through scientists' journal articles, lab meetings and seminars, and observation of their inquiry process. After we analyzed the scientists' inquiry strategies and processes of inquiry, we finally developed the Scientist's Methodology of Investigation Process model named SMIP. The SMIP model consists of four domains, 15 stages, and link questions, such as "if, why", and "how". The SMIP model stressed that inquiry process is a selective process rather than a linear or a circular process. Overall, these findings can have implication science educators in their attempt to design instruction to improve the scientific inquiry process.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.213-223
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• 2012

This study explored practicing elementary school teacher's beliefs of scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching methods. Defining teacher's beliefs as a broad construct, we tried to examine the teachers' understandings about the scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching method. This study drew on interview data from 10 elementary teachers in busan and changwon area of korea. Conclusions of this study include; First, we found that elementary teacher's beliefs of inquiry were represented variously. And they considered that inquiry is the important goal of science education. They though that the goal of science education is development of Scientific inquiry skills, Scientific thinking skills, development of Creativity and problem solving ability, increasing interest about science, understanding of the basic concepts of science and apply of real-life. second, most of the teachers though that Scientific inquiry is scientists activities, they defined 'the process of creation of new knowledge', 'the process of deriving theory', 'solving process of intellectual curiosity', 'Problem-solving process'. third, they considered that teaching method of scientific inquiry is open inquiry activities. however, they thought that there are many difficulties to actually apply. Understanding teachers' beliefs has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development, with enhanced outcomes for engaging students in Science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.271-280
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to investigate how free inquiry activities affects the scientific process skills and scientific attitudes of 5th and 6th of elementary school students. For this study, 265 elementary students from 5th and 6th grade in Seoul were selected. In comparison group 130 students were implemented and to the experimental group 135 students who did not the free inquiry activities were implemented. The result of this study is as follows: First, curiosity was the most affective factor that motivate free inquiry activities and made them select their topics. Most of the students invested for the inquiry activity in less than 3 weeks. They had some help in every stages. Students became interested in free inquiry activities because they learned new facts and enjoyed doing experiments and they wanted to continue for the same reasons. Second, free inquiry activities had little effect on the basic science process skills of the experimental group, compared to the control group at the significant difference of p=0.05. Third, free inquiry activities had considerable effect on the integrative inquiry process skills of the experimental group, compared to the control group at the significant difference of p=0.05. Fourth, the result of the post-test of the experimental group showed that free inquiry activities had no effect on scientific attitudes at the significant difference of p=0.05. In conclusion, free inquiry activities will be much more effective in developing integrative inquiry process skills than in developing basic scientific process skills and scientific attitudes.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.759-767
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• 2008

This article arose from the previous studies, which suggested a synthetic list for the nature of science (NOS), discussed the relationship between the NOS and scientific inquiry and the development of the NOS in the context of scientific inquiry. In this article, for teaching scientific inquiry through the NOS, I proposed three teaching models - reflection, interaction, and the direct model -. Within these teaching models, understanding the NOS is viewed as a prerequisite condition for the improved performance of scientific inquiry. In the reflection model, the NOS is embedded and reflected in scientific inquiry without explicit introduction or direct explanation of the NOS. In the interaction model, concrete interaction between scientific inquiry and the NOS is encouraged during the process of scientific inquiry. In the direct model, subsequent to directly comprehending the NOS at the first stage of activity, students conduct scientific inquiry based on their understanding of the NOS. The intention of this present article is to facilitate the use of these models to develop teaching materials for more authentic scientific inquiry.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.221-232
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• 2019

Despite the continuing emphasis on the importance of scientific inquiry, research studies have commented that authentic scientific inquiry is not implemented in school science classroom due to a lack of understanding of scientific inquiry by the teacher. The purpose of this study is to investigate understanding of scientific inquiry developed by beginning teachers through open-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview. They voluntarily set up the goal of inquiry-based classes, planned inquiry-based classes, shared and reflected their teaching experience in professional learning community for more than a year. It appeared that participant teachers understood scientific inquiry as 'what scientists do', 'process how students do science' and 'science teaching methods.' All teacher participants described scientific inquiry as 'what scientists do', and understood 'the process of doing scientific investigation to solve problems related to natural phenomenon' and 'the process of constructing scientific knowledge using scientific practice.' Two participant teachers seemed to understand scientific inquiry as a 'teaching method' based on the understanding of the process how scientists or students do science. Participant teachers had a limited understanding of scientific inquiry that it is the same as laboratory works or hands-on activities prior to engaging the professional learning community, but they developed an understanding of scientific inquiry that there are various ways to conduct scientific inquiry after engaging in professional learning community.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.379-393
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to analyze the complexity of scientific reasoning during open inquiry activities of pre-service elementary school teachers. In this study, 6 pre-service elementary teachers who participated in open-inquiry activities were selected. The data of scientific reasoning during their inquiry process was collected from the video recording of reporting about inquiry process and results, their reports and researcher's notetaking. CSRI Matrix (Dolan & Grady, 2010) was used to analyze the complexity of participants' scientific reasoning. The result showed that the degree of the complexity of their scientific reasoning varied in participants. Particularly the low degree of the complexity of scientific reasoning presented in posing preliminary hypotheses, providing suggestions for future research, communicating and defending finding. Also, The more pre-service teachers' epistemology of inquiry are similar to that of scientists, the more complex scientific reasoning represents. This results suggest that teachers should impress on students the importance of doing the precedent study and providing suggestions for future research, and provide a place for communicating and defending findings.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.509-524
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• 2007

The purpose of the study is to compare elementary school science textbooks ($3^{rd}$ grade) in Korea and the U.S., centering on the ways to present scientific concepts and inquiry process in the units of 'matter.' The analysis is focused on: a) general structure of the units; b) how to present scientific concepts in terms of its connections and complexity; c) how to present inquiry process in terms of its types and skills. The findings of the study are as follows. First, the contents of 'matter' units are scientific discipline-based in both countries. The general structure of the units in Korean textbooks is unrestricted compared to those in the U.S. Second, the connections among the concepts are poor and the level of complexity is low in Korean textbooks, which are contrary to those in the U.S. textbooks. Third, it is a common feature that the inquiry process is based on learners' everyday experiences with simple experiments in two countries' textbooks. However, the inquiry process in the U.S. textbooks is provided with detailed instructions while the process in Korea is presented with diverse activities without formal guidelines. Based on the results, the study suggests three recommendations to improve Korean textbooks: a) science contents should be linked to other disciplines in order to promote practical applications; b) scientific concepts are required to be tightly connected and provided with in-depth explanations; c) inquiry process is needed to be presented with specific guidance to facilitate scientific thinking.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.227-238
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated the perception of elementary school students on inquiry activities and collaborative problem-solving ability in data-based scientific inquiry. For this purpose, 20 data-based scientific inquiry classes were conducted in 26 elementary school students in Gyeongnam City. After selecting the inquiry problem, students conducted an inquiry process to collect data using digital inquiry instruments. The following results were obtained through questionnaires and interviews after the classes: First, students perceived the step on 'inquiry design and execution' as the most useful in the data-based scientific inquiry. Second, students perceived that their scientific ability and cooperation improved through data-based scientific inquiry, with the selection of inquiry problems being the most difficult. Third, students perceived positively the improvement of cooperative problem-solving ability. From the above results, it was found that data-based scientific inquiry is necessary to improve the elementary school students' scientific inquiry ability and cooperative problem-solving ability. Based on this research, we hope that the development and research of various inquiry activities will provide opportunities for inquiry that can cultivate various abilities needed for students living in the future.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.459-466
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• 2012

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of pre-service elementary teachers' understanding about scientific inquiry in terms of designing exploration and reasoning that is used to formulate explanations based on evidence. The research context was an open inquiry with using the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) template in which participant students were not provided with inquiry questions. As data, lab. 39 pre-service elementary teachers participated in this study while taking their science methods course. Analyses of the reports were framed by the cognitive processes of inquiry (Chinn and Malhotra, 2002) and each report was coded and analyzed by the framework of inquiry (Tytler and Peterson, 2004). Results showed that groups' works that utilized the SWH template encouraged the participants to interact each other about scientific inquiry. They came up with more relevant and testable questions for their scientific inquiry. It implicates that children will be able to have chances of testing their own questions more properly by using the SWH template in science classes just as the participants did in this study. The use of the SWH template would help pre-service teachers to teach appropriately how to test inquiry questions to their students in the future. Discussion was made to figure out the characteristics or Korean pre-service elementary teachers' understanding about scientific inquiry.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.237-253
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• 2001

This study examined the effects of the inquiry model on children's scientific thinking ability and processing skills. The experimental classroom of a kindergarten in Seoul was assigned the inquiry model while the control classroom was assigned general scientific education (N=48). Seventeen treatment sessions were applied to the experimental group. Tests to investigate the hypotheses included the Sink and Float Test and a new instrument developed by the researchers. Findings showed that preschoolers receiving the inquiry model of instruction gained higher scores in scientific thinking ability and processing skills than the preschoolers in the classroom using the general scientific education model. In sum, this study proved the superior effect of the inquiry model in developing children's scientific skills and ability.