• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.63 no.4
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• pp.280-288
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to draw implication for scientific inquiry study by investigating level of understanding and actual state regarding the elementary school teachers' scientific inquiry. The survey was conducted toward 42 elementary school teachers who work at the D city by using questionnaire of Views About Scientific Inquiry. Actual state of understanding of scientific inquiry was investigated by categorized the responses to the level of understanding of the eight aspects of scientific inquiry in three levels (informed, mixed, naive) based on analysis criteria. And analyze whether the characteristic of the subjects affect to level of understanding about aspect of scientific inquiry. As a result of the analysis, the two aspects among the eights aspects of scientific inquiry; 'Inquiry procedures are guided by the question asked' and 'Research conclusions must be consistent with the data collected' were appeared to have high rates of informed level of understanding. In the remaining six perspectives, most of elementary school teachers had naive and mixed level of understanding, so informed level of understanding took a relatively low proportion. It implies that elementary school teachers who teach inquiry in the field have limit to understand about scientific inquiry. These results indicated that experiences that have taught students and science related training courses that open sofar have a little influence to increase comprehension about scientific inquiry. Therefore, it is required to reinforce the teachers' understanding about scientific inquiry and to formulate different form of plan unlike existing way of teaching for teaching scientific inquiry.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.273-290
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate tenth graders' understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI). A total of 100 public school students participated. A questionnaire of Views about Scientific Inquiry was used to assess their understanding of the NOSI, and data were collected using qualitative research methods such as open-ended questionnaires and, when necessary, semi-structured interviews. By employing a constant comparison method to analyze their responses, five students were consistently categorized as the group with informed views regarding all the eight aspects of the NOSI. The rest of the students showed different levels of understanding regarding each aspect. A large portion of the students represented a group with mixed views about four aspects and informed views about three aspects, whereas naive views about one aspect prevailed among them. The results showed that many students comparatively lacked understanding of the aspect related to the scientists' process of constructing explanations and formulating theories. This study discusses the relationship between its results and the current science curriculum and presents implications for the overall enhancement of students' understanding of the NOSI. Finally, it encourages the acquisition of scientific inquiry ability and makes suggestions to promote further studies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.375-386
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• 2004

Creative thinking alone can not lead to scientific creativity. Scientific knowledge and scientific inquiry skills are needed for scientific creativity. Focused only on cognitive aspect, I suggested a cognitive model of scientific creativity (CMSC) consisting of 3 components: thinking for scientific creativity, scientific knowledge contents, and scientific inquiry skills. Recently, many researchers have emphasized the various thinking for creativity as well as divergent thinking. Therefore, I suggested three types of creative thinking - divergent thinking, convergent thinking, and associational thinking - and discussed its rationale. Based on this model, an example of activity material for the scientific creativity was suggested. In the further research, based on CMSC, various activity types related to scientific creativity and concrete learning materials for scientific creativity will be developed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.441-450
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of elementary gifted students' argumentation and examine the special features of argumentation founded in scientific inquiry. 28 students were selected in the special education center for the gifted in K National University. They were organized 8 groups of 3~4 students and engaged in scientific inquiry activity. The researcher wasn't involved in students' inquiry activity and argumentation except for the guiding and introducing their activity. In the first session, each group carried out the experiment 'Putting a heated can in the water' and then, the students discussed to probe their experimental results and build their explanation. In the second session, each group presented their experiment results and evidence from their experiment justifying their claims, and had questions from other groups. The protocol data during 8 groups' argumentations were analyzed using 'Rubric for Scientific Argumentation Assessment' (Yang et al., 2009) in three domains- the form, content and attitude. As a result, in form domain, almost groups were rated 2 points due to their argument without rebuttal on the subcategory of 'composition', but they got a good grade above 3 points in subcategory such as 'claim', 'ground', and 'conclusion'. In content domain, almost groups got points above 3 points. In attitude domain, there were some striking contrast between each groups. Six groups got good score more than 4 points on the subcategory of openness, but two groups, they alleged and got score below 3 point. While the 6 groups of all got 4 points in the aspect of participation, 3 groups got 3 points lower than because they only just asserted and not interact with other groups. Throughout the argumentation, two features were found that; as time goes by, arguments were refined; Students tended to use their prior to knowledge rather than evidence such as experimental data in making claims and conclusions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.515-529
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• 2020

'Scientific inquiry experiments', which was newly created subjects in the 2015 revised curriculum, was expected in the aspect of learning science and developing core competences through science practices. Based on changed view of evaluation, assessments of a practice-centered subject 'Scientific inquiry experiments' should be try to conducted in various ways, but many challenges were reported. In this study, through analysis of current status of assessment of the subject, we intended to find the way of conducting and supporting 'Scientific inquiry experiments'. We collected assessment materials and explanatory description about them from 25 teachers who taught 'Scientific inquiry experiments' in 2018 and 2019. And we analyzed the cases with framework which were consisted with three main categories: elements, standards, methods of assessments. Also, we investigated how the results of assessment were utilized. For the validity, we requested verification of the results of our data analysis to experts of science education and science teachers. From them, we also collected their opinions about our analysis. As a result of the study, teachers assessed some elements of inquiry skills such as 'analysis and interpreting the data', 'conducting inquiry' more than others which were closely related to what subject-matter the teachers used to organized inquiry program with. In the aspect of domain of assessments, though cognitive domain and affective domain as well as skills were evaluated, we also found that the assessment of those domains had some limitation. In terms of standard of assessment, the goals of assessment were presented in most cases, but there were relatively few cases which had the specific criteria and the stepwise statements of expected performance of students. The time and subject of the assessment were mainly post-class and teachers, and others such as in-class assessments, peer-assessments were used only in specific contexts. In all cases, the results of assessments used for calculating students' grade, but in some cases, we could observe that the results used for improving teaching and feedback for students. Based on these results, we discussed how to support the assessments of 'Scientific inquiry experiments'.

• 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.29 no.2
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• pp.189-203
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• 2008

Microcomputer Based Laboratory (MBL), by offering accurate and effective data collection and real-time graphs, enables students to reduce experiment time and, thereby, have deeper discussions concerning experimental results. This helps to emphasis the essential aspect of scientific inquiry; the process communication. Therefore, this study examined secondary school earth science MBL lessons with regards to the five basic aspects of scientific inquiry: "Asking", "Evidencing", "Explaining", "Evaluating" and "Communicating". It then investigated the level of argumentative communication between the students and teachers and also among the students themselves. For this study, three classroom activities were observed and videotaped, and teaching materials, textbooks and students' notes were collected. The transcribed data were analyzed from the perspective of scientific inquiry level and argument frames. The results showed that the scientific inquiry levels of the three classes were similar, except for the "Communicating" aspect, which appeared in only one episode. "Asking" was carried out by the teacher and then students were directed to collect certain data in the "Evidencing" stage. Furthermore, students were given possible ways to use evidence to formulate explanations and connections through the "Explaining" and "Evaluating" stages. In the argumentation analysis, most argumentative communication was identified as being associated with a given procedure, rather than with any scientific phenomena. In only one episode, did "Communicating" relate directly to any scientific phenomena. It can be concluded, that although MEL places emphasis on communication for authentic scientific inquiry, the environment required for such inquiry and argumentative communication can not be easily created in the classroom. Therefore, in order for authentic inquiry to take place in the MBL classroom, teachers should provide students with the opportunity to develop meaningful argumentation and scaffolding abilities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.83-92
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school students' understandings about scientific inquiry. Data were collected from 119 elementary students who are in the 4^th grade using the Views About Scientific Inquiry questionnaire for elementary students (VASI-E). We also conducted semi-structured interviews of 21 students from 119 students who responded to VASI-E. Students' responses were analyzed as naive, mixed, or informed views on each aspect of scientific inquiry that VASI-E includes. We found that, first, 53.8% of students have mixed views, and 30.3% of students have informed views, and 16% of students have naive views on the knowledge 'investigation begin with a question'. Second, 54.6% of students have naive views, 37.8% of students have mixed views, and 7.6% of students have informed views on the knowledge 'scientists use many methods to answer their questions.' Third, 47.9% of students have informed views, 34.5% of students have naive views, and 17.6% of students have mixed views on 'procedures guided by question asked.' Fourth, 55.5% of students have mixed views, 42% of students have informed views, and only 2.5% of students have naive views on 'conclusions must be consistent with data and explanations come from data and prior knowledge.' Based on the results, implications for teaching and learning scientific inquiry at elementary level in Korea were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2013

20 preservice teachers at college level participated in this study and interacted with students at elementary and middle school levels during science camp offered by science center in Taiwan. Preservice teachers displayed moderate (above the average, 4 point out of 5) understandings about scientific literacy and scientific views in all aspects of the nature of science before the camp. Then, the researchers designed science camp programs which were expected to promote students' scientific literacy; scientific knowledge, inquiry skills for experimentation as well as for argumentation, affective domain such as the attitude toward science and the understandings about nature of science and the relationship among STS (Science-Technology-Society), all of which were embedded in the programs. Preservice teachers seemed to perceive scientific literacy pretty well (over 4 point) before the camp, however, preservice teachers' understandings about scientific literacy were not much scored (around 3 point, but still moderate scores of average) as expected after concrete inquiry activities. The reasons why this happened could be that preservice teachers were not trained to employ theory into the context to be more practical or the researchers did not develop camp program which included the aspect of scientific literacy successfully. The discussion and implication were made in teacher education in that preservice teachers must be prepared how to bridge theory into practice, and informal science education in that educators at science centers must be trained to be experts in providing the envisioned educational programs to meet the goal of science education, scientific literacy.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.390-399
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine university students' understanding of the nature of science, an aspect of scientific literacy, which is the goal of modern science education. To accomplish this, the differences and similarities by gender and major. on college students' understanding of the nature of science were investigated. 'Understanding of the Nature of Science' developed by Lee (2003) was implemented for this study. The instrument has three sub-scales; a scientific world view, scientific inquiry, and scientific enterprise. The instrument is only expected to give, and provides meaningful information on student understanding of the nature of science. A total of 120 college students, majoring in science education, liberal arts, and physical exercise participated in this study. Science education major students were verified to have a better understanding of the nature of science followed by liberal arts students and then physical exercise students. Moreover, men revealed slightly more comprehension that of women. More than 80% of students, majoring in science education, answered 11 out of 23 questions, approximately 50%. In the area of scientific inquiry, both science education and liberal arts students showed more comprehension that those in physical exercise. All participants showed relatively lower comprehension of the definition of scientific contribution than other subjects, but displayed a greater comprehension of the ethics of science. On the other hand, most students have relatively low apprehension in the contribution of science, while higher apprehension in the ethics of science.