• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.139-152
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to provide some suggestions for future improvement of scientific inquiry activities in Korean elementary science textbook. The modified framework of Lee(2005) and Millar et al.(1998) was used to compare inquiry activities in the Korean and Singaporean science textbooks. The results of this study are as follows: Korean text books have more activities than Singapore's, but both countries have similar time allotment for science classes. In the area of 'inquiry process skill', Singapore is more balanced in 'Basic inquiry process skills' and 'Integrated inquiry process skills' than Korea. Singapore's integrated inquiry rate is also higher than Korea's. Next the results of comparing leaning objectives to scientific inquiry activities shows that Korean text books tend to focus on 'contents objectives', while Singapore's text books focus on balancing 'contents objectives' and 'process objectives'. Korean science textbooks encourage students to communicate the results of experiments but in most case these communication activities are actually not performed. Lastly Korea and Singapore have low degree of openness in inquiry activities. Remarkably 'Suggest questions' are totally conducted by teachers. This study implies that Korean science textbooks should have lower amounts of inquiry activities to accomodate enough time for communication about results. Next we need to make balance not only 'Basic inquiry process skills' and 'Integrated inquiry process skills' but also 'Content objectives' and 'Process objectives'. Lastly we need to make student to be the leader in science classes through encouraging them to plan procedures for experiments and to discover results by themselves.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.68-79
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• 2010

This study utilized the What Is Happening In this Class (WIHIC) questionnaire to examine students' perceptions of their science learning environment. Data was collected from 587 middle school students in seven coeducation schools in Seoul. Higher mean scores occurred on the scales of Student cohesiveness, Task orientation, Cooperation and Equity in the WIHIC, whereas lower mean scores occurred on Teacher support, Involvement and Investigation. The effects of gender on students' perceptions of their science learning environment were not statistically significant overall, but girls perceived Student cohesiveness and Cooperation more positively than boys. Correlations between the WIHIC scales of the low-level group that perceived their learning environments negatively (10 percentiles) and the high-level group that perceived their learning environments positively (90 percentiles) were computed. Teacher support, Involvement, Task Orientation and Investigation were highly correlated with each other in the low-level group, whereas only Teacher support and Equity were correlated in the high group. Educational implications were discussed.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.105-112
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• 2010

The purpose of this research was to investigate relations between prior knowledge and primary grade science brilliant intellect's observation and inquiry. The subjects were selected 'Spider and cobweb' that self-regulation quest is available. Subjects were divided into two groups with one group having no prior knowledge about research subject. Compared observation method question type and level that appear between subject achievement to group. Target learning group are 5 ~ 6 school year 17 people for national university for the gifted center of local middle city. Researcher collected and analyzed data using summer vacation concentration education period. Source collection subject's research recording paper, subject's voice recording device, interview data etc. A data analysis tool took advantage of observation method that is studied in existing, question type, question level. Research was able to conclude : First, observation of prior knowledge happened than mass of students who many mass of students are few relatively vigorously. Second, primary grade science brilliant intellect students used more mainly manufacturing observation than simplicity observation that use senses regardless of relative quantity of prior knowledge. Third, prior knowledge expressed variety when many mass of students observe operation relatively.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.79-92
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to develop an inquiry-based argumentation task for use in science teachers' professional development by providing them with the substantial experience of argumentation. To do so, the study has developed an argumentation task by utilizing the experiment on the Charles' Law of gas and revised by applying to eight teachers three times. We have revised the questions by analyzing three issues that have been revealed throughout this process in ways that facilitated teachers' argumentation. The effects of revision have been confirmed by the improvements in teachers' argumentation pattern. Three issues have been identified in developing argumentation tasks for science teachers' professional development and they are as follows: determining the openness of the structure of a question, achieving cognitive conflict and convergence of opinions at the same time, and ways of utilizing various evidence. As the task has been revised in ways that enabled scientific approach to the inquiry topic and facilitated the convergence of various opinions, the participants' argumentation patterns have improved both quantitatively and qualitatively. Meanwhile, the inclusion of an actual experiment has not influence their argumentation, while the observation of experimental data has been used as the core evidence according to the character of the problem. Based on the study's result, we suggest practical implications for developing argumentation tasks for science teachers in more varying contexts.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.366-380
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences of reflective inquiry according to students' characteristics and interaction modes of small group in three contexts of the classroom and to obtain educational implications about using small group and teacher's intervention for an effective reflective inquiry. We transcribed and analyzed the students' conversation in inquiry activities of small group with frameworks of linguistic behavior and three contexts of the classroom. The result of the study indicated that individual and group reflective inquiry could be affected by the relationship with peers more than their own characteristics.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.487-500
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• 1999

Observation is one of the important aspects in science and science education. However. observation has so many varieties that the purpose and the meaning of scientific observations used in science education are different in persons, contexts, and subjects. In this study, we tried to understand the natures of scientific observation and investigated students' observational activities using four observation tasks: candle, double pendulum, iron filings around bar magnet, two electric bulbs connected in series. We required the subjects to observe the given tasks and described what did they observe. Based on students' observational descriptions, students' observational activities could be classified in four categories: primitive, interpretive, operational, and interfered observation. Also, we could find that some of the descriptions were non-observational activities such as predicting and questioning and so on. Finally, implications for the teaching of observation in science education are suggested.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2009

Science field trip is a comprehensive learning activity in which students can solve problems by themselves, whose importance is emphasized in learning for the gifted. But because not much study has been done yet on this, and convergent activities such as solving too many problems or requesting given answers have generally been done, it has been criticized for not being enough to develop the abilities of gifted Students. Therefore, this study attempted to analyze the activity process of the gifted through field trip to which open inquiry is adapted so that the demands of the gifted can be met, and the abilities of the gifted can be brought out. The study focused on 18 gifted elementary science students at Institute of Science Gifted Education, Cheongju National University of Education, and in the field trip process of the students, analyzed the types of establishment of inquiry problems and inquiry process, and the behavioral characteristics of gifted science students shown during field trip activity through field trip proceedings, transcript contents, poster materials, questionnaires, etc. As a result, more inquiry problems were established after than before inquiry, and the level of inquiry problems was also higher after inquiry. The solution process for inquiry problems of the gifted science students were done in the following order: planning, inquiring, follow-up inquiring and consolidating. But it proceeded to open inquiry process, the next stage being decided according to circumstances. Also, in the inquiry that the students did, diverse factors were revealed such as basic and integrative inquiries, and especially, the students were competent in analyzing the results after transforming and interpreting them. And the analysis of the interaction among the students showed many behavioral traits of talented science students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.16-24
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to compare student-student verbal interaction from two type's experiments; problem-solving and task-solving. For this study, five 3rd grade middle school students were selected and their verbal interactions recorded via voice and video; and later transcribed. The student-student verbal interactions were classified as questions, explanations, thoughts, or metacognition fields, which were separated into deep versus surface learning approaches. For the problem-solving experiment, findings revealed that the number of verbal interactions is more than doubled and in particular, the number of verbal interactions using deep-approach is more than quadrupled from the point of problem-recognition to problem-solution. As for the task-solving experiment, findings showed that verbal interactions remained evenly distributed throughout the entire experiment. Finally, it was also discovered that students relied upon a more deep learning approach during the problem-solving experiment than the task-solving experiment.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.267-275
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to estimate the ability of inquiry performance for students gifted in science in elementary school. 56 sixth graders were included in this study. Initially, a question 'How does the dust effect on human health?' was posed to students. Then, an assessment framework for analysis of the inquiry report was developed. It is composed of 5 domains: data collection, prediction, the inquiry process, results, conclusion and presentation. The findings reveal that the students achieved high scores in the domain of 'data collection' and followed by prediction, inquiry process, results, conclusion and presentation. The results of our study are as follows : first, in spite of high scores obtained in basic inquiries such as data collection, students needed to improve their skills in prediction, the inquiry process, results, conclusion and presentation. Second, the reason why students were outstanding in data collection is that they have improved their ability to handle data in a know-ledge-based information society. Third, even though students were good at citing and applying some information, they didn't fully understand the meaning of data and exhibited weaknesses in arguing their own opinions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.694-708
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• 2011

In this study, we developed tasks including cognitive scaffolding for students to explain scientific phenomena using valid evidences in science classroom and sought to investigate how tasks influence the development of small group scientific argumentation. Heterogeneous small groups in gender and achievement were organized in one classroom and the tasks were applied to the class. Students were asked to write down their own ideas, share individual ideas, and then choose the most plausible opinion in a group. One group was chosen for investigating the effect of tasks on the development of small group argumentation through the analysis of discourse transcripts of the group in 10 lessons, students' semi-structured interview, field note, and students' pre- and post argument tests. The discrepant argument examples were included in the tasks for students to refute an argument presenting evidences. Moreover, comparing opinion within the group and persuading others were included in the tasks to prompt small group argumentation. As a result, students' post-argument test grades were increased than pre-test grades, and they argued involving evidences and reasoning. The high level of arguments has appeared with high ratio of advanced utterances and lengthening of reasoning chain as lessons went on. Students had elaborate claims involving valid evidences and reasoning by reflective and critical thinking while discussing about the tasks. In addition, tasks which could have various warrants based on the data led to students' spontaneous participation. Therefore, this study has significance in understanding the context of developing small group argumentation, providing information about teaching and learning context prompting students to construct arguments in science inquiry lessons in middle school.