• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.327-345
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• 2013

This study aims to investigate how pre-service elementary school teachers understand 'something scientific', 'being scientific', 'scientific events' and 'scientific questions' through semantic network analysis. To achieve this purpose, this study carried out a central analysis of the frequency and density of words and the degree of connection between key words, a concentric analysis, a click analysis and a common network analysis through text semantic network analysis by using NetMiner 4.0 Program. Based on the results of these analyses, this study came to the following conclusions. Firstly, in perceiving 'something scientific', pre-service elementary school teachers recognized 'verification', 'objective' and 'experiment' as most important words. In other words, they perceived that main grounds for something scientific should be provided through clear facts, possible to be verified and accompanied by an exact and logical theoretical system. In regard to 'being scientific', they perceived 'explanation', 'objective' and 'verification' as most important words, while having a traditional point of view that science is a set that can be explained objectively. Secondly, in regard that the term, 'observation', is contained in 'scientific events', they showed a high rate of understanding it as a scientific event. In regard to scientifical reasons, they showed the highest frequency of 'observation', and for unscientific reasons, they showed the highest frequency of 'behavior'. In perceiving 'scientific questions', they showed the highest frequency of determining bacteria-related questions as scientific. As a reason why they thought as scientific, they mentioned 'observation' most frequently like 'scientific events', while mentioning 'value judgement' as a reason why they thought as unscientific most frequently. From the results of integrated network analysis, this study found out that words pre-service teachers commonly used in stating scientific events or scientific questions were overlapped with words they mentioned for scientific events or scientific questions. As a result, it was found there were many pre-service teachers having interpreted scientific words without clearly distinguishing scientific events or scientific questions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.1018-1027
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the types of scientific questions which were generated by elementary students and preservice teachers on the tasks of scientific observation. To identify the types of scientific questions, 4 observing tasks, dry grapes contained in soda pop, candlelight, celery, and a rock were administered to 40 sixth elementary students and 20 elementary preservice teachers. And then, the types and frequency of scientific questions generated by them were compared. The results showed that the types of scientific questions were classified into conjectural questions, causal questions, predictive questions, methodical questions and applicative questions. Further more, subordinate questions to the above questions were classified into object exploration questions and object verification questions, explicans exploration questions and explicans verification questions, result exploration questions and result verification questions, example exploration questions and example verification questions. Subordinate questions did not come out from the methodical questions. The types of scientific questions generated by elementary students and preservice teachers were identical, however, there were differences in frequency. This study supports that elementary students also have cognitive capability to generate various scientific questions. The results of this study may be used as a teaching strategy for the guidance of the direction and the method of scientific inquiry.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.64-79
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• 2017

This study was to evaluate the suitability of scientific questions as qualification examination for high school graduation by content validity and item response with three examinees and two preliminary examinees. As a result, scientific questions were concentrated on two units of six units of total, and application appeared to be lacking problem area by 8% compared to understanding and application. Examinees and preliminary examinees chose correct answers most by hap or guess, sometimes by experience or common sense, and the least by scientific concept. In addition, they could chose correct answers by hap or guess because there were words that implied the correct answer in questions and answers, or because they could compared and/or analyzed questions and answers. With these results, two proposals were suggested as follows; (1) scientific questions of qualification examination for high school graduation should measure basic scientific literacy. (2) specific criteria for science literacy in qualification examination for high school graduation should be set.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.149-160
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• 2007

This study was conducted to investigate the relationships between the patterns of elementary school teachers' explanations and the patterns of students' questions types on scientific phenomena. for the purposes of this study, we collected questions related to scientific phenomena from 255 $3rd{\sim}6th$ students in 2 elementary schools. Classifying the students' questions collected, 20 representative questions for each type were selected. Data regarding teachers' scientific explanation from 62 teachers of 3 elementary schools were also collected. The results of the analysis of the questions for each science field show that the students in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades have the most questions regarding biology, and those in the 6th grade have more questions regarding earth science. Regarding question types, object exploration questions and explican exploration questions formed the majority. Moreover, the higher the students' grades, a decrease in the number of conjectural questions and an increase in the number of causal questions were observed. As a result of the analysis of the teachers' explanation, the following explanation types could be discerned; conjecture, hypothesis, prediction, teleological explanation, information given to feed exploration questions, as well as verification and information supply fer verification purposes. There were 4 kinds of relationships between question types and explanation types. One was the explanation fitting to each question type, a second was the explanation with additional content than the question required, a third was where the explanation was inappropriate to the question, and a forth was where the teacher responded that they "don't know." This study, investigating the relationships between questioning as a scientific inquiry process and explanation, will help to promote discussion regarding science classes in elementary school.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.287-296
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• 2012

This research analyzed elementary teacher's scientific questioning during science teaching. This research studied 4 elementary school teachers in Gyeongnam were observed and the classes were videotaped. all teacher's questioning and student's answering were transcribed. Teacher's questionings were categorized into 2 types such as simple questions and productive questions. The findings of the research were as following. First, in the teaching-learning activities of the science subject, teacher-student conversation was used 202 times on average, and questions asked by the teachers were 72 times on average. The teachers use productive questions more than simple questions. Second, in the type of simple questions, management questions were used the most, and the next were simple confirmation questions and rethink questions in order. Third, productive questions used by the teachers in the class were mostly the attention-focussing questions, but the type of higher level questions such as problem-posing questions, comparing questions, action questions and reasoning questions was rarely adopted.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.537-548
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• 2015

This study aims to identify and compare the patterns of scientific questions generation among elementary science-gifted and general students when conducting observational tasks. The pattern in generating scientific questions, which is distinguished from other types of scientific questions, is the manner that students generate a variety of types of questions in an inquiry process. To analyze the patterns in generating scientific questions, the task of observing dry grapes in soda pop, candlelight, and dyed celery were selected as suitable tasks. The subjects were 26 science-gifted students participating in a gifted education program and 27 general students in an elementary school in the same city. They were all sixth graders. The results of this study are as follows: First, the patterns of scientific questions generation among gifted students and general students during observational tasks were classified into five patterns: [Pattern 1] single, [Pattern 2] sequential, [Pattern 3] repetitive, [Pattern 4] circulative, [Pattern 5] repetitive, and circulative. Second, gifted students and general students presented all of the five patterns, but the frequency of the patterns indicated differences between the two groups. The gifted students primarily presented [Pattern 3] and [Pattern 5]. On the other hand, the general students mainly presented [Pattern 1], [Pattern 2], and [Pattern 3]. These results suggest that the ways of generating scientific questions are very much as important as the types of questions. Teachers can establish teaching-learning strategies for generating scientific questions appropriate to learner's characteristics.

• 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.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.455-465
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of 'strata-fossils' STEAM program with questions on the academic achievement, creative problem-solving ability and scientific interests of elementary students. For this purpose, the STEAM program with questions was developed and applied to the third and fourth graders in elementary school. As a result, the academic achievement, creative problem-solving ability and scientific interests of the group applying the program showed a significant improvement in the post-test than the pre-test. The result of learner satisfaction survey of the STEAM program was also high. This means that the STEAM program class with questions for 'strata-fossils' could be meaningful works to encourage students' academic achievement as well as their creative problem-solving ability and scientific interests. Therefore, it seems necessary to apply for other themes in elementary science continuously.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.89-101
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• 2011

The International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA) initiated by the Thailand Astronomical Society in 2007 is an annual competition for high school students. One of its aim is to enhance the development of international exchange in the field of school education in astronomy and astrophysics. This paper first provides the overview of the IOAA in terms of key regulations based on its statutes, history and current status. Secondly, the published syllabus of the IOAA is used for content analysis according to subject areas regarding the exam questions of the IOAA in theoretical, observational and data analysis parts from 2007 to 2010. Also, a scientific inquiry framework is applied to the same questions for assessment based on scientific inquiry in the cognitive aspect with two sub-classes of scientific knowledge and scientific reasoning. Among a dozen astronomy subject areas listed on the syllabus, the theoretical part of the IOAA makes more frequent use of the Sun, the solar system, properties of stars, and concept of time. In content knowledge, a factor of scientific knowledge, the IOAA questions, especially in the theoretical part have a lesser degree in difficulty than the IAO (International Astronomy Olympiad) exam questions for the same period whose degree in difficulty is comparable to college level. With regard to scientific reasoning, the IOAA questions tend to involve convergent rather than divergent thinking. Lastly, in light of these findings, discussions are given on the outcome of Korean participation in the previous IOAAs and ways to help better in preparing Korean students for future astronomy Olympiads.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.759-772
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to understand characteristics of eighth graders' conclusions presented in their self-directed scientific inquiry reports. We developed a framework, Analysis of Conclusions of Self-Directed Scientific Inquiry, to analyze students' conclusions. We then compared the conclusions with the inquiry questions students generated to find out whether the questions affected students' conclusions. In addition, we analyzed students' responses from the survey about their perceptions of drawing conclusions. According to the results, the conclusions were characterized into two categories, i.e., scientific basic assumption and scientific explanation. Almost half of the students' conclusions fall under the scientific basic assumptions. Most of the scientific explanations were deductive explanations and inductive explanations. Then, the kinds of conclusions were affected by the inquiry questions because the scientific explanations were made more than the scientific basic assumptions in answering the inquiry questions. Some students couldn't recognize differences between conclusions and experiment results.