• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.163-172
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• 2019

This study explored elementary teachers' perceptions on the essential features of science inquiry, the appropriateness of inquiry activities to science inquiry, and the essential features of inquiry by inquiry activities. 85 elementary teachers' perceptions were investigated using Likert scale survey, and 7 teachers were interviewed. The results are as follows. First, the features that elementary teachers perceived the most essential were 'Engaging students in evaluating their explanations in light of alternative explanations' and 'Engaging students in communicating and justifying their explanations'. Second, The inquiry activities that teachers thought the most appropriate to science inquiry were 'experiment' and 'project'. On the other hand, the perceptions on 'discussion' and 'field trip' were relatively low. Third, the inquiry activity that showed the highest mean score of five essential features of inquiry was 'experiment' while the mean score of 'field trip' was the lowest. Educational implications about the science inquiry were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.204-217
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• 2008

This study analyzed the inquiry activities appearing in the astronomy sections of elementary, middle and highschool level science textbooks according to the five essential features of inquiry in the classroom as proposed by the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000), and SAPA (Science-A Process Approach). On the basis of this analysis, it is clear that the science textbook inquiry activities released the limitation to meet the goal of science education, namely scientific literacy, as it has been laid out by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum. This study revealed that the features of scientific inquiry which are most frequently used in the astronomy sections of science textbooks are 'data collection' and 'form explanation', whereas the features of 'oriented-question', 'evaluate explanations' and 'communicate and justify' rarely appeared. The analysis of inquiry activities by SAPA showed that the basic inquiry skills of 'observing', 'communicating' and 'manipulating materials' were used with increasing frequency according to grade level, and the integrated skills of 'investigating', 'creating models', 'interpreting data' and 'experimenting' were more emphasized in the textbooks. Therefore, it is suggested that students be provided with more opportunities to experience all the features of scientific inquiry and scientific processes as envisioned by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum in order to achieve the stated goal of scientific literacy. Science educators should be required to develop new lesson modules which will allow students to experience authentic scientific inquiry. It is crucial for science teachers to reflect upon and develop their understanding and teaching strategies regarding scientific inquiry through professional development programs in teacher education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1333-1344
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• 2012

This study aimed to enhance creative problem solving skill by using the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) learning model which was developed based on creative problem solving approach and five essential features of inquiry. The key strategy of the CPS learning model is using real life problem situations to provide students opportunities to practice creative problem solving skill through 5 learning steps: engaging, problem exploring, solutions creating, plan executing, and concepts examining. The science content used for examining the CPS learning model was "matter and properties of matter" that consists of 3 learning units: Matter, Solution, and Acid-Base Solution. The process to assess the effectiveness of the learning model used the experimental design of the Pretest-Posttest Control-Group Design. Seventh grade-students in the experimental group learned by the CPS learning model. At the same time, students at the same grade level in the control group learned by conventional learning model. The learning models and students' prior knowledge levels were served as the independent variables. The creative problem solving skill was classified in to 4 aspects in: fluency, flexibility, originality, and reasoning. The results indicated that in all aspects, the students' mean scores of creative problem solving between students in experimental group and control group were significantly different at the .05 level. Also, the progression of students' creative problem solving skills was found highly progressed at the later instructional periods. When comparing the creative problem solving scores between groups of students with different levels of prior knowledge, the differences of their creative problem solving scores were founded at .05 level. The findings of this study confirmed that the CPS learning model is effective in enhancing the students' creative problem solving skill.