Elementary and Middle School Students' Understanding of Observation, Prediction, and Hypothesis

초$\cdot$중학생의 관찰, 예상, 가설의 이해

The purpose of this study was to investigate the elementary and middle school students' understanding of observation, prediction, and hypothesis in everyday and science educational contexts. The questionnaires for testing understanding of three categories were developed, which obtained Cronbach alpha .91. It was consisted of 40 questions of 10 items related to observation, prediction, and hypothesis. Thy test was administrated to 868 subjects from grade 3 to grade 9. The results showed that the each level of their understanding of observation, prediction, and hypothesis ranged between $29{\~}58\%$, $43{\~}53\%$, and $10{\~}25\%$. The level of understanding of observation and prediction showed tendency to promote increasingly from grade 3 to grade 9, but the level of hypothesis did not.