• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.64-81
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze elementary science gifted students' characteristics of the thinking in the problem solving process through a MEA(Model Eliciting Activity)activity. The subjects of this study are 40 elementary science gifted students who passed the first screen for the admission to the science gifted education institute in P university in 2018. The MEA activity was 'Coffee cup challenge', which is to find the best way to place cup side and bottom to save paper in a given material. Three drawings from each student and explanations of each drawing through out the design process were collected as the main data source. The data were analyzed by statistically (correlation coefficient) and qualitatively to find the relationship between; 1) the intuitive thinking and visual representation and 2) analytical thinking ability and communication skills that reflect MEA activities. In conclusion, first, intuitive thinking plays an important role in the ability of visual representation through pictures and the whole problem solving process. Second, the analytical thinking and elaboration process which are reflected through reflection on the arrangement of the drawings have a great influence on the communication skills. Therefore, this study investigated that MEA activities are useful activities to stimulate both intuitive and analytical thinking in elementary science gifted students, and to develop communication ability, by organizing their own ideas and providing learning opportunities for various solutions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.161-176
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• 2022

This study developed an MEA program to which the invention technique was applied and analyzed the conceptual change of students. The MEA activity applying the invention technique (TRIZ) was composed of the topic of making a paper electric circuit in the section 'Using electricity' presented in the 6th grade textbook. As a way to materialize ideas for problem solving, among the TRIZ techniques, division, integration, multi-purpose, overlapping, subtraction, and converse techniques were extracted and applied. The devised program consists of examining invention techniques (1st session), problem-solving (2nd and 3rd sessions), and expressing the problem-solving process (4th session). As a result of applying to 6th grade elementary school students, it was confirmed that the scientific concept of the experimental group participating in the MEA class to which the invention technique was applied was improved compared to the control group participating in the general class. As a result of calculating the scientific concept improvement index, the control group showed a low educational effect of 0.15, and the experimental group showed an intermediate educational effect of 0.69. This study is meaningful in that it suggests a specific way to graft invention education into science subjects.