• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.387-394
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• 2005

We have analyzed the science-gifted educational program (year 2002) at the Seoul National University in terms of its educational objectives, scientific models, and cognitive processes in scientific inquiry in order to provide insights into developing and improving science-gifted educational program. We assumed the following items as important factors for teaching scientifically gifted students: higher-order thinking skills involving synthesis domain in the educational objectives, highly abstract nature and complexity in the scientific models, cognitive processes of planning experiments in the cognitive processes in scientific inquiry. According to the analyzed results, the program has the following characteristics: (1) the rates of both higher and lower-order thinking skill domain in the educational objectives are similarly high, but the rate of synthesis domain is relatively low; (2) in the case of the scientific models, the rate of the multiple concepts and/or processes model is relatively low, while the level of the abstractness is relatively on average (3) cognitive processes of authentic scientific inquiry is not thoroughly reflected in the scientific inquiry activities, and very few cognitive processes of planning experiments factor is reflected. Therefore, we conclude in the synthesis domain in the educational objectives, multiple concepts and/or processes model, and cognitive processes of planning experiments should be especially reflected more on the science-gifted educational program in order to serve the needs of scientifically gifted students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.337-348
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to examine epistemic thinking in middle school students in an argument-based inquiry science class. Participants of the study were 93 9th grade students from four classes of a middle school in a metropolitan city. Observations were made over one semester during which argument-based inquiry lessons on five subjects were conducted. Data was collected from argument-based inquiry activity worksheets and student questionnaires. After analysis of epistemic thinking in the written reflections, students were found to have the highest frequency of epistemic metacognitive skills, followed by epistemic cognition, epistemic metacognitive experience, and epistemic metacognitive knowledge. While investigating the effects of an argument-based inquiry science class on student epistemic thinking and after analysis of the reflections written for the first ABI activity and the fifth ABI activity, we found that all of the sub-elements of epistemic thinking have increased. The rate of growth for epistemic cognition is greatest, followed by epistemic metacognitive knowledge and epistemic metacognitive skills. Assessed for epistemic thinking, the level of epistemic thinking improved over the course of the argument-based inquiry science class. The results of the survey show that students actively participating and being recognized for their active participation in the argument-based inquiry science class are helpful in understanding scientific knowledge. Therefore, an argument-based inquiry science class is a teaching and learning program that allows students to understand and experience the epistemic nature of scientific knowledge and its construction through collaboration and agreement.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.487-494
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• 2003

In this study, the effects of science achievement faculties improvements upon students' logical thinking, science inquiry skills, experiment attitudes, manipulated skills and inquiry process skills were investigated in high school inquiry chemistry experiments. For this purpose, the participants were 150 students taking the course of high school chemistry class in Anyang-city. Logical thinking and science inquiry skills' data were collected from written tests, inquiry process skills' data were collected from reports and experiment attitudes and manipulated skills' data were collected from classroom observations. As the results of this study, students' inquiry process skills, experiment attitudes and manipulative skills were very low. But other parts except inquiry process skills were significantly increased. And the science achievement of students were improved when continuously inquiry chemistry experiment were applied to students.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.731-738
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• 2004

Secondary school science teachers' preception on inquiry learning was investigated by using questionnaires. According to these results, science teachers, who are participants of the current Korea National Science Curriculum, responded that raising the 'interest in science' was the most important objective of science education, and using practical scientific subject matters in class will do such. More than 72% of science teachers have used reconstructed materials. When reconstructed textbook contents were used, teachers through that the most important object is the 'acquirement of scientific knowledge'. Most science teachers perceived inquiry leaning as a student centered open investigation. Among factors that disturb inquiry leaning, critical ones were 'entrance examination', 'lake of teaching-leaning materials', 'little understanding of inquiry leaning', and 'lake of student's will to inquiry'.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.64 no.1
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• pp.38-48
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to analysis characteristics and changes of epistemic thinking in middle school students on class-argument activities in an argument-based inquiry(ABI) science class. Data was collected from class recording video and activity worksheets of five subjects argument-based inquiry. Results of the analysis of student epistemic cognition characteristics show that experimental data was presented the most as evidence, and depending on the ABI activity, personal experience-based evidence and evidence based on scientific principles were used. As a result of analyzing the changes between claims made before and after class argumentations on five ABI activities in an argument-based inquiry science class, student claim modifications could be classified, according to reasons for the modification, into three types: correcting incorrect claims, clarifying unclear content, and expanding the concept.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.1204-1221
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• 2012

The purpose of this research was to identify the components of scaffolding in open inquiry and to explore the functions of teachers' scaffolding, which is necessary to support students' open inquiry. In order to identify scaffolding components, at first, we conducted a survey using a questionnaire on what students think about open inquiry on 110 students who performed open inquiry in two middle schools, and then carried out factor analysis based on the survey results. It was attempted to investigate students' perception through focus group interviews corresponding to scaffolding components that were identified through factor analysis. Also, we examined teachers' empirical view of scaffolding functions in open inquiry through in-depth interviews with four teachers. The results of exploratory factor analysis revealed that there were five scaffolding components of open inquiry: motivation, planning, strategy, environment and participation. The results of focus group interviews showed that students experienced difficulties in planning, strategy, environment and participation components, except for motivation component. In particular, students asked for support to strengthen the participation component, which means recognizing their role, active participation and collaboration with peers. Meanwhile, the results of in-depth interviews with teachers showed that teachers' empirical views of scaffolding function in open inquiry were categorized as cognitive (conceptual, metacognitive), emotional (motivational, arbitrative) and strategic. Interviewed teachers preferred the strategic scaffolding and cognitive scaffolding to the emotional scaffolding. Based on the results, we also discussed the implications for performing open inquiry effectively.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.59 no.5
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• pp.434-444
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• 2015

Inquiry-based experiments provide opportunities to understand scientific knowledge and acquire nature of science. In this study, the difficulties which pre-service teachers experienced in inquiry-based experiment class were investigated and analyzed. Twenty-two pre-service teachers attended course designed as ‘ill-structured inquiry’ for 13 weeks, and researchers investigated their difficulties by questionnaires and interview. They showed difficulties mostly in designing experiment and interpretation and also in understanding inquiry purpose, lack of prior knowledge, confidence in inquiry performance, and understanding of experimental instruments and facilities. As a result, it is necessary to provide opportunities to engage in inquiries and environments to properly instruct pre-service teachers the inquiry ability in college of education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1245-1255
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable evaluating instrument for elementary school fifth and sixth graders. The instrument is developed through R&D procedure, which includes two checks of science specialist and two field trials of the instrument. Evaluating items are content-free for each science inquiry skill. Each science inquiry element is based on SAPA and the 7th curriculum. This study has selected 10 science inquiry skills(observing, classifying, measuring, predicting, inferring, recognizing of a problem, controlling variables, interpreting data, drawing a conclusion, designing an experiment), formulated a clear definition of the elements of science inquiry skills, and established the objectives of evaluation. The content areas are divided into three categories, material and energy, life and environment, and the earth and circulation. Each category contains 10 items. So the instrument consists of 30 items. The content validity of items, objectivity of the scoring keys, and clarity of the items has been checked twice by specialists in science education. At the same time, two field trials were performed to produce the reliability of the instruments, discrimination index, and item difficulty index. The instrument has the content validity is 91.6%, reliability 0.79, objectivity 93.3%, discrimination index 0.30, and item difficulty index 66.1%.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.617-626
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• 1998

Inquiry approach in teaching science has been widespread in Korea since the Third National Curriculum in 1970's. But the effect of the approach has never been evaluated systematically in Korea, so the science educators do not know if the inquiry approach really works and if any critical problems inhibit the effect of the approach. In this context, the NAEP of the Unied States and the APU of the United Kingdom were model programs for assessing the effect of the inquiry approach in teaching science. The purpose of this study is to develop an assessment system for evaluating the effect of inquiry teaching in elementary and secandary schools. For this purpose, an assessment framework and 240 test items were developed and tried with a sample of 8,906 students. The results say that the developed tests are reliable. The average Cronbach $\alpha$ reliability coefficient of the tests was 0.69. The discrimination index(point-biserial correlation coefficient) ranged from 0.39 to 0.54 with a mean of 0.49, which indiate they are excellent in discriminating students in terms of their inquiry achievement. The test items were also analyzed by "item response theory." The results also say that the items are successfully developed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.275-290
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• 2010

In this study, reliabilities of holistic scoring method and analytic scoring method were analyzed in performance assessments of middle school students' science investigation activity. Reliabilities of 2, 3, and 4~7-level rubric ratings for analytic scoring methods were compared to figure out optimized numbers of rubric ratings. Two trained raters rated four activity sheets of 60 students by two rating methods and three kinds of rubric ratings. Internal consistency reliabilities of holistic scoring methods were higher than those of analytic scoring methods, while intrarater reliabilities of analytic scoring were higher than those of holistic scoring methods. Internal consistency reliabilities and intra-rater reliabilities of 3-level rubric rating showed similar patterns of 4~7-level rubric ratings. But students' discriminations, item difficulties and item-response curves showed that the 3-level rubric ratings was reliable. These results suggest that holistic scoring method could be adapted to increase internal consistency reliabilities with improvement in intra-rater reliabilities by rater's conferences. Also, the 3-level rubric rating would be enough for good reliability in case of adapting analytic scoring methods.