Elementary Students' Epistemological Views on the Nature of Scientific Measurement

측정의 본성에 대한 초등학생들의 인식론적 견해

We investigated the elementary students' epistemological views on the nature of scientific measurement. The Views About Scientific Measurement (Ibrahim, 2005) was administered to 117 sixth graders. The analyses of the results indicated that there was an inconsistency in their epistemological views depending on the contexts of the measurement. They also had some difficulties in understanding a distribution of the data, which is needed to understand the necessity of repeating measurements, choosing a best representative value, and comparing data sets. They were found to have some naive views on scientific measurement which influenced negatively for fostering modern epistemological views on the nature of scientific measurement. The results suggest that the nature of scientific measurement should be emphasized explicitly in the national curriculum, and an effective method which improves elementary students' epistemological views on the nature of scientific measurement also be developed.