• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.210-224
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to analyze students' recognition of the free inquiry activity and to investigate what effect the free inquiry activity of the 2007 Revised Educational curriculum revision has on the science inquiry ability of middle school students. To conduct the research we worked with 262 female students, 8 classes of first graders in a middle school. Among them, 4 classes were taught in free inquiry activity and the remaining 4 classes were taught in the traditional way. The results of Likert-questionnaire indicate that students were learning about cooperative spirit through group investigation activities and discussions and did not take the free inquiry activity as a hard activity. Also they showed positive reaction agreeing that this activity is both a helpful method in learning science and interesting. However, it seemed that the investigation tends to flow between the leading 1~2 members of the group and showed difficulty in carrying out the investigation as a group after school hours. It showed there are few problems and obstacles in operating the free inquiry activity. The free inquiry activity did not give any meaningful influence on the improvement of science inquiry ability of students. Integrative inquiry process skills did not give a relevant influence, however, it showed a meaningful influence on the improvement of basic inquiry process skills. Especially, among the low-ranking element of basic inquiry process skills, it enhanced the capacity for prediction.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.129-140
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• 2011

As one of the casting plans to improve the scientific inquiry ability of the students, the aims of this study are to develop and apply a basic inquiry program for the inquiry subject of Seogwipo fossil formation, and analyze the basis inquiry ability of the students to show in the inquiry activity process actually. The results obtained in 5th grade 48 elementary school students of Seogwipo-city are as follows; Students executed observing activity using an appropriate senses such as senses of vision and touch, and showed the tendency which tries to observe the form overall rather than the partial form of the fossil formation. But the ability to utilize appropriately for predicting and inferring with the facts which could depend on observing activity was low. And we found out that the misconceptions influence on inquiry activity. Therefore, to help understanding deeper for the students' basic inquiry element, it is thought that a study of the various educational guidance ways is necessary to this. The teachers also have to study the various ways to induce the scientific conception through the application of proper teaching-learning for correction of misconceptions because misconceptions have an influence on inquiry activity together. If various inquiry programs considering the regional-specific characteristics are developed to cause students' interest, students would come to participate in inquiry activity aggressively a little more.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.19 no.2 s.30
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• pp.96-107
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• 2006

Inquiry has great value in environmental education(EE). Being able to see the world environmentally through 'inquiry-based environmental education' can be an important value and goal of EE. In this study, we intended to develop an EE program of measuring activity of dissolved oxygen(DO), based on the theory of 'inquiry-based EE'. Especially, we recognized the potential that DO meter can be used in 'inquiry-based EE', and we tried to develop a model of inquiry-based EE using DO meter. As a result of this research, we present specific models of inquiry-based EE about how to perform measuring activity of DO and how to use the DO meter in laboratories and streams from the perspective of inquiry of water environment. In the process of program development, we considered organization of the inquiry process, use of concept and knowledge, scientific inquiry and insightful inquiry, integration, sustain-ability, content components of 'Environmental Studies for EE', developmental level and in-forest of students. The developed EE model is a scientific inquiry model, pursuing 'explanation' based on data collection. Through this model, we tried to make students see water environment more deeply. The developed program can be applied to various water environments, like laboratories, streams, ponds, etc. It can be more effective inquiry activity if we perform measuring activities simultaneously with PH, electrical conductivity, and turbidity meters.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.8
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• pp.1367-1377
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• 2012

Inquiry activity is a major source of student investigation which both of the national curriculum standards strongly emphasize for achieving scientific literacy. The purpose of this study was to examine inquiry activities incorporated in high school biology textbooks used in China and Korea. The inquiry activities were examined with regard to inquiry level and science process skills. Bell's and a modification of Padilla's framework were used in these analyses. Results show that the Korean textbooks were more exclusively occupied by simple inquiry activities - None of them provided activity more complex than level 2 inquiry. In addition, the Korean textbooks had uniformly basic science process skills, whereas their Chinese counterparts gave students some challenges for higher level process skills. Therefore, it cannot be guaranteed that the activities in the Korean textbooks are helpful in guiding students toward a gradual progression to high-level inquiry. Implications for inquiry-based science education were suggested based on the results of the study.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.spc5
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• pp.465-475
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to develop a spider inquiry program for elementary school students based on the scientific-knowledge generating model. For the purposes of this study, we selected three species of snider (e.g. Pardosa astrigera, Argiope bruennichii, Nephila clavata) which were easily found in a school garden by elementary school students. The spider inquiry program was based on a model of the process of scientific-knowledge generation, and consisted of two sections: for students and teachers. The students' program was designed to generate scientific-knowledge, whilst the teachers' program was designed to guide the inquiry smoothly even in the case of teachers who lack experience in inquiry activities or possess limited subject knowledge on spiders. As a result, this program was found to have an influence on generating the scientific-knowledge of elementary students and the results further suggest that it may be helpful to teachers conducting an inquiry activity. Additionally, this program could be used as a selective activity lesson such as a science inquiry lesson, or as a biology inquiry class, as a weekend life experience study or as an activity on a science camp.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.449-463
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• 2020

This study was to analysis teaching strategies, types of inquiry activities and the relationship between science concepts and inquiry activities presented in science textbooks. As a result of the study, first, the inquiry-based teaching strategies presented in science textbooks were experiment, simulation, demonstration, and field study. Second, there were 53 inquiry activities presented in 8 units related to the earth science area of science textbooks, and the types of inquiry activities were experimental observation (EO) 18, mock activity (SA) 20, investigation discussion and presentation (IP). It was analyzed as 12, data interpretation (ID) 2, and express (EX) 1 piece. Third, the relationship between inquiry activities and science concepts presented in science textbooks was analyzed. As a result of the analysis, out of a total of 42 inquiry activities, 21 inquiry activities corresponded to EA (explicit activities), in which the result of inquiry activities was directly and explicitly linked to science concepts. And IA (implicit activities), which is an implicit inquiry activity in which science concepts must be inferred using the results of inquiry activities, were analyzed as 21. In particular, IA (implicit activities), which is an implicit inquiry activity, can be said to be the result of reflecting the characteristics of earth science areas where many simulated activities (SA) are used. This is considered to be a matter to be considered in the process of developing various elementary science textbooks in the future.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.57-63
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• 1984

An inquiry approach in teaching science has been advocated by many science educators for the past few decades, and most elementary and secondary science curricula have incorporated it in varying degrees. It has been proven in recent studies, however, that there exists considerable discrepancy between the expectation of outcomes of the inquiry approach and the actuality. This in part implies that there is a somewhat urgent need for the systematic evaluation of the approach in teaching science. The purpose of this study is to develop a comprehensive instrument for evaluating inquiry teaching approaches embedded in science curricular materials. To develop a more valid and reliable instrument a set of empirical data was used in the developmental procedure, and most of the previous studies regarding inquiry teaching method and inquiry evaluation were consulted. The inquiry evaluation method developed in this study, called the Scientific Inquiry Evaluation Inventory (SIEI), is composed of three parts: (1) analyzing and coding each science process task of inquiry activity; (2) evaluating each inquiry activity as a whole; and (3) evaluating each science laboratory curriculum as a whole. The first part of the instrument consists of twenty science process categories and thirty subcategories grouped into four sections: (1) gathering and organizing data; (2) interpreting and analyzing data; (3) synthesizing results and evaluation; and (4) hypothesizing and designing an experiment. The science process categories are arranged according to the level of difficulty, psychological level of thinking, degree of creativity demand, and the model of the process of scientific inquiry, which is also developed in the study. The second part of the instrument contains four evaluation scales of inquiry activity: (1) competition/cooperation scale; (2) discussion scale; (3) openness scale; and (4) inquiry scope scale. And the last part consists of three methods for evaluating a science laboratory curriculum as a whole: (1) inquiry pyramid; (2) inquiry index; and (3) difficulty index. The instrument is designed to be used by teachers, science curriculum developers and science education evaluators for the purpose of diagnosing the nature and appropriateness of scientific inquiry introduced in secondary science curricular materials, especailly in laboratory work and field work.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Environmental Edudation Conference
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• 2002.12a
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• pp.79-85
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• 2002

Inquiry activity contents presented at a chapter on natural environment and our lives in 6 science textbooks of the middle school were analyzed based on kinds of the inquiry Loaming classified by textbook. The number of inquiry activity subjects showed severe variation as mean value was 8.3${\times}$3.7 ranged from 4 to 15. Moreover, textbooks had little common point among each other as the percentage of subjects appeared together in the textbooks more than 3 kinds, 50% of total ones investigated, was just 26.3%. Data interpretation occupied significant position in the inquiry activity as 42% of total activity contents, whereas observation and experiment (or survey) did slight part of the activity as 10% and 16%, respectively even though they are main factors of science education. A model for field education based on the reasonable common subjects was prepared in the Gildong ecological park located In the eastern fringe of Seoul as a plan in order to solve the problems.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.528-541
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• 1999

In order to obtain data for developing an ideal science curriculum. four kinds of General Science textbooks based on the 6th curriculum were analyzed. Particularly inquiry activities were analyzed by Scientific Inquiry Evaluation Inventory(SIEI). The results are as follows: 1) The average number of inquiry activities in four kinds of textbooks is 115.5. And the number in each textbook is very diverse: textbook A contains 94 inquiry activities, textbook B 147. textbook C 100 and textbook D 121. 2) As for the number of inquiry activity scopes in four kinds of textbook. observation comes to 22, experiment 117, interpreting data 196, investigation 64, discussion 51, classification 4 and prediction 8. And then the conceptional inquiry activity is about 2.3 times as many as the inquiry experiment. 3) According to the analysis of each inquiry task by SIEI. textbook A has 268, textbook B 328, textbook C 207 and textbook D 304. 4) In the analysis of the structure of inquiry activity, the evaluation of the competition and cooperation scale shows more emphasis on common tasks. no pooled results(87.1 %). The discussion scale mostly consists of activities without discussion required among students(83.5%). The evaluation of openness scale shows more emphasis on activities with problems, procedures and answers presented(58.3%). In the evaluation of inquiry scope scale, the inquiry scope scale mostly has the activities to demonstrate or verify the contents of the text(66.9%). 5) As for the analysis of inquiry activities as a whole. The inquiry pyramid in four kinds of General Science textbooks shows the type I that emphasizes the inquiry activities in low level such as gathering and organizing data. The inquiry index in four kinds of textbooks is average 47.8, shows very high level (above 35).

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of science-play activity that isn't easily completed in a course of study, put in practice an development activity class on the scientific inquiry skills and the scientific attitude of elementary school students. For this purpose, the general activity was applied for the comparative group (40 students), the science-play activity was applied for the experimental group (34 students); they are composed of 5th and 6th graders elementary school students of 74, a class of an hour during a week. The results were analyzed by means of comparing between groups as well as within groups. The results of this research is as follows: Firstly, the science-play activity as an development activity was effective in the improvement of the scientific attitudes of elementary school students. Secondly, the science-play activity as an development activity was effective in the improvement of the scientific inquiry skills of elementary school students.