• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.169-179
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• 2008

In this study, 46 teaching materials for understanding the nature of science (NOS) were developed based on the 42 statements describing the NOS. Each teaching material involves scientific knowledge and scientific inquiry skills as well as NOS statements. Teaching materials consist of students' learning worksheets and teachers' guides. Among the materials, 11 materials for understanding the nature of scientific thinking (NOST) were applied to 3 scientifically gifted students. As results, the degree of difficulty was appropriate and students showed interests in scientific thinking rather than new concepts or inquiry activities involved in the materials. It was expected that understating the NOST would be helpful for conducting scientific inquiry in more authentic way. And similarly to the Park's (2007) theoretical discussions about the relationship between the NOS and scientific creativity, students actually responded that undertrading the NOST could help their creativity. Therefore, it was expected that teaching the NOST would be plausible elements for teaching scientific creativity.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.211-226
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate science teachers' understandings about scientific argumentation in the classroom. Seven structured interview protocols were developed, asking the definition of scientific inquiry, the differentiation between scientific inquiry and hands-on activity, the opportunity of student argumentation, explicit teaching strategies for scientific argumentation, the critical example of argumentation, the criteria of successful argumentation, and the barrier of developing argumentation. The results indicate that there are differences and similarities in understandings about scientific argumentation between two groups of middle school teachers and upper elementary. Basically, teachers at middle school define scientific inquiry as the opportunity of practicing reasoning skills through argumentation, while teachers at upper elementary define it as the more opportunities of practicing procedural skills through experiments rather than of developing argumentation. Teachers in both groups have implemented a teaching strategy called "Claim-Evidence Approach," for the purpose of providing students with more opportunities to develop arguments. Students' misconception, limited scientific knowledge and perception about inquiry as a cycle without the opportunity of using reasoning skills were considered as barriers for implementing authentic scientific inquiry in the classroom.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.465-481
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• 2017

This study is a research synthesis analyzing how field geology education is conducted in domestic and foreign countries in the recent 20 years and how it reflects the characteristics of authentic geologic inquiry. For these purposes, we first drew five elements of inquiry in field geology (observation, representation, abductive reasoning, spatial thinking, and diachronic thinking) considering the field geologists' actual research method as well as its pedagogical significance in science education. We developed analysis criteria for field geology education. The 53 cases were analyzed based on each element of inquiry in field geology and its sub-elements, and also the tendency of overall elements. As a result, observation and representation were included in most cases, but there appeared less frequency in order of abductive reasoning, spatial thinking, and diachronic thinking. For observation, the ratio of purposive observation and autonomous observation is high. For representation, both visualizing and linguistic type of representation and free-form representation appear frequently. For abductive reasoning, the step of generating hypothesis is often included and the hypothesis tends to be about the geological formatting process. For spatial thinking, type of self-location and perception of the spatial configuration of the structure appear at a high rate. For diachronic thinking, type of stratigraphic sequence is the most frequent. The proportions of the cases including three or more elements of inquiry in field geology consist 87% of the total. We suggested implications for improving geological fieldwork as authentic science inquiry in the future.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.541-557
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• 2012

Interest is acknowledged to be a critical motivational variable that influences learning and achievement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the interest of the elementary students when free inquiry activities were performed through a brain-based evolutionary scientific teaching and learning model. For this study, 106 fifth grade students were chosen and performed individually free inquiry activities. The results of this study were as follows: First, after free inquiry activities, as to free inquiry science related attitude, a statistically significant difference was not observed. But they came to have positive feelings about the free inquiry. Especially students marked higher mean score in openness showed consistency in sub-areas of free inquiry science related attitude. Second, students had interests in various fields, especially they had many interests in area of biology. They chose inquiry subjects that seems to be easily accessible from surrounding and as an important criterion of free inquiry they thought the possibility that they could successfully perform it. And students who belong to the high level in the science related attitudes and academic achievement diversified more topics. Third, most of students failed to further their topics. However, the students who specifically and clearly extended their topics suggested appropriate variables in their topics. On the other hand, students who couldn't elaborate their topics were also failed to suggest further topics and their performance of inquiry was more incomplete. In conclusion, the experiences of success in free inquiry make the science attitude of students more positive and help them extend their inquiry. These results have fundamental implications for the authentic science inquiry in the elementary schools and for the further research.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.848-860
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• 2009

This study examined the characteristics of scientists' writing on the laboratory reports written in the authentic open inquiry, and explored the possibility that the class discussion after the inquiries could influence the laboratory report writing. The samples were 131 10th graders in a science high school in Seoul. The control group (n=45) practiced traditional school science inquiries, the experimental group 1 (n=43) practiced the authentic open inquiries, and the experimental group 2 (n=43) practiced the authentic open inquiries and the class discussion after the laboratory activities. Their laboratory reports were analyzed into three parts - prediction (prediction with background and apposite description), data analysis (data transformation and critical analysis), and conclusion (objective description based on evidence). The frequency of the characteristics of scientist's writing in the experimental group was higher than the control group. Particularly, the differences of the prediction with background (p<.01) and the critical analysis of data (p<.05) were statistically significant. However, the frequency of writing the conclusion based on evidence was very low in all of the three groups. The result from comparing descriptions of reports showed that the writing prediction in experimental groups were more elaborate, and the data transformation in experimental groups were more correct, and the evaluation to data in experimental groups were more critical than the control group. And the descriptions of the critical evaluation to data and the finding flaw in methods were found in experimental groups 2, indicating that the class discussion can stimulate students' scientific thinking.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1216-1234
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• 2004

School science practical work is often criticized as lacking key elements of authentic science, such as peer argumentation or debate through which social consensus is obtained. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent studies about the argumentation and to explore the conditions and the model of argumentative scientific inquiry, which is specially designed open inquiry in order to facilitate students' peer argumentation. For this purpose, a theoretical discussion for the argumentative scientific inquiry as the way of authentic inquiry in schools was developed. The conditions for argumentative scientific inquiry were found to be the following: multiple arguments, students' own claims, opportunities for oral and written argumentation, equal status of debaters, and community of cooperative competition. For these conditions, the argumentative scientific inquiry was organized into experiment activities and argumentation activities. During argumentation activity, students should be guided to advance written argumentation through writing a group report for peer review and oral argumentation through a critical discussion. Through the argumentation between groups and in group, the students' arguments would be elaborated repeatedly. The feedback from argumentation links experiment activities to argumentation activities. Hence, the whole process of this inquiry model is circular.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.235-253
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to compare by learner groups(K-12, geology-related majoring students, science teachers) how geologic fieldwork education cases in domestic and foreign papers for recent 20 years reflect the elements of inquiry in field geology. The total number of analyzed cases is 53(58 for double counting), and the analysis was conducted on the elements of inquiry in field geology and their sub-element. As a result, there was a clear difference between the cases of geologic fieldwork education for K-12 and college students majoring in geology-related disciplines, in the way of reflecting elements of inquiry in field geology. Because most of K-12 target fieldworks were designed based on the curriculum, it mainly included 2-3 elements of observations, representations, and/or abductive reasoning. On the other hand, because fieldworks for geology-related major students aim to train geologic experts, it diversely contained four or five of the elements of inquiry in field geology, including spatial thinking and diachronic thinking in a high proportion, and also frequently used activities that require specialized skills such as geological mapping. Fieldworks for science teachers were found to have mixed features of K-12 and geology-related major students. Considering the diversity of included inquiry elements, similarities with the activities performed by geologists, and the autonomy of learners, it was analyzed that geologic fieldwork for geology-related major students was more close to authentic geologic inquiry than fieldwork for others. Based on the results of this study, we suggested implications for improving geological fieldwork as authentic science inquiry.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.194-204
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• 2004

The purpose of this literature review is to investigate what kinds of research have been done about scientific inquiry in terms of scientific argumentation in the classroom context from the upper elementary to the high school levels. First, science educators argued that there had not been differentiation between authentic scientific inquiry by scientists and school scientific inquiry by students in the classroom. This uncertainty of goals or definition of scientific inquiry has led to the problem or limitation of implementing scientific inquiry in the classroom. It was also pointed out that students' learning science as inquiry has been done without opportunities of argumentation to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed. Second, what is scientific argumentation, then? Researchers stated that scientific inquiry in the classroom cannot be guaranteed only through hands-on experimentation. Students can understand how scientific knowledge is constructed through their reasoning skills using opportunities of argumentation based on their procedural skills using opportunities of experimentation. Third, many researchers emphasized the social practices of small or whole group work for enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills through argumentations. Different role of leadership in groups and existence of teachers' roles are found to have potential in enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills to understand science as inquiry. Fourth, what is scientific reasoning? Scientific reasoning is defined as an ability to differentiate evidence or data from theory and coordinate them to construct their scientific knowledge based on their collection of data (Kuhn, 1989, 1992; Dunbar & Klahr, 1988, 1989; Reif & Larkin, 1991). Those researchers found that students skills in scientific reasoning are different from scientists. Fifth, for the purpose of enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed, other researchers suggested that teachers' roles in scaffolding could help students develop those skills. Based on this literature review, it is important to find what kinds of generalizable teaching strategies teachers use for students scientific reasoning skills through scientific argumentation and investigate teachers' knowledge of scientific argumentation in the context of scientific inquiry. The relationship between teachers' knowledge and their teaching strategies and between teachers teaching strategies and students scientific reasoning skills can be found out if there is any.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.109-122
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• 2015

In National Curriculum of Science revised in 2007, free inquiry was newly introduced to increase student's interest in science and to foster creativity by having students make their own curiosity questions and find answers by themselves. The purpose of this study is to analyze elementary school students' perceptions on free science inquiry activities applying a brain-based evolutionary approach. For this study, 106 the fifth grade students participated, and then completed a questionnaire on free inquiry activities according to a brain-based evolutionary science teaching and learning principles. The students performed a series of steps of the Diversifying, Estimating-Evaluating-Executing, and Furthering activities in each of Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive domains (ABC-DEF approach) and constructed their own free inquiry diary, then the observations by the researcher and interviews with the students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major results of the study were as follows: First, the majority of the students perceived the each domain and step positively although a few of them perceived negatively. The reasons perceived as negatively were categorized into two; preference dimension of like or dislike and ability dimension of metacognitive or self-reflective capacity. Also, they perceived the free inquiry experience in the form of ABC-DEF as helpful to understand the nature of scientists' scientific activities. Based on these findings, implications for supporting authentic inquiry in school science are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.573-584
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• 2015

Inquiry has been consistently emphasized in science education as a crucial element for learning. Although many researchers came to agree on the importance of scientific inquiry, authentic inquiry activities are hard to be actualized in an educational context. Therefore it is required to critically examine what teachers have difficulty in teaching inquiry. In this article, we looked into inquiry-based science activities in a small group setting where pre-service science teachers faced dilemmas between cognition and practice of inquiry. A case study was conducted on eight undergraduate students who are majoring in science education. The participants attended a weekly science program for middle school students in low SES as teaching assistants and mentors, and took full care of his/her mentees during open-inquiry activities. The results were drawn by analyzing participants' personal and group interviews, participant observations, self-reports, and others. The pre-service teachers viewed the knowledge and procedure of science as an essential factor in inquiry activities along with student's spontaneous attitude. However, in the process of performing inquiry, they faced several dilemmas between ideal cognition and real activities. The aspects of dilemmas could be summarized in three pairs of opposing concepts: 'diverging inquiry or converging science', 'interest-centered inquiry or learning-centered inquiry', and 'student as the subject or student with the insufficient expertise.' We discussed ways of resolving dilemmas and alternative perspectives on scientific inquiry.