• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.153-167
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• 2007

In this study, it is assumed that understanding the nature of science (NOS) would enhance students' performance of scientific inquiry in more authentic ways. The ultimate goal of this study is to suggest new models for developing scientific inquiry activities through understanding the NOS by linking the NOS with scientific inquiry. First, the various definitions and statements of the NOS are summarized, then the features of the developmental nature of scientific knowledge and the nature of scientific thinking based on the philosophy of science are reviewed, and finally a synthetic list of the elements of the NOS is proposed, consisting of three categories: the nature of scientific knowledge, the nature of scientific inquiry, and the nature of scientific thinking. This suggested synthetic list of the NOS is used to suggest a model of scientific inquiry through the understanding of the NOS. This list was designed to provide basic standards regarding the NOS as well as practical guidance for designing activities to improve students' understanding of the NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.759-767
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• 2008

This article arose from the previous studies, which suggested a synthetic list for the nature of science (NOS), discussed the relationship between the NOS and scientific inquiry and the development of the NOS in the context of scientific inquiry. In this article, for teaching scientific inquiry through the NOS, I proposed three teaching models - reflection, interaction, and the direct model -. Within these teaching models, understanding the NOS is viewed as a prerequisite condition for the improved performance of scientific inquiry. In the reflection model, the NOS is embedded and reflected in scientific inquiry without explicit introduction or direct explanation of the NOS. In the interaction model, concrete interaction between scientific inquiry and the NOS is encouraged during the process of scientific inquiry. In the direct model, subsequent to directly comprehending the NOS at the first stage of activity, students conduct scientific inquiry based on their understanding of the NOS. The intention of this present article is to facilitate the use of these models to develop teaching materials for more authentic scientific inquiry.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.749-758
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• 2008

Even though the importance of the nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry in science learning have been emphasized by many science educators and science curriculums, the link between the NOS and scientific inquiry has not been discussed sufficiently. In this article, I discussed that various aspects of NOS are already embedded in defining and characterizing the authentic scientific inquiry and that we need to have special concern about how the NOS should be treated and interpreted when introducing it into scientific inquiry. And I summarized two approaches to teach the NOS and scientific inquiry; teaching the NOS through scientific inquiry and teaching scientific inquiry through the NOS. Finally, some next studies based on this article are introduced.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.353-366
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• 2011

An alternative vision for science inquiry that appears to be important and challenging is model-based inquiry in which students generate, evaluate and revise their explanatory model. Pre-service teachers should be given opportunities to develop and use their mechanistic explanatory models in order to participate in the practice of science and to have a sound understanding of science. With this view, this study described a case of pre-service elementary teachers' scientific modeling in magnetism. The aims of this study were to explore difficulties preservice elementary teachers encountered while they engaged in a model-based inquiry, and to examine how their understandings of the nature of scientific models changed after the model-based inquiry. The data analysis revealed that the pre-service teachers had difficulties in drawing and writing their own thinking because they had little experience of expressing their own science ideas. When asked to predict what would happen, they could not understand what it meant to make a prediction "based on their model". They did not know how to use or consider their model in making a prediction. At the end of the model-based inquiry they reached a final consensus of a best model. However, they were very anxious about whether the model was the "correct" answer. With respect to the nature of scientific models, almost all of the pre-service teachers initially viewed models only as a communication tool among scientists or students and teachers to help understand others' ideas. After the model-based inquiry, however, many of them understood that they could create, test, and revise their "own" models "by themselves". They also realized the key aspects of scientific models that a model can be changed as evidence is accumulated and a model is a knowledge production tool as well as a communication tool. The results indicated that pre-service elementary teachers' understandings of the nature of scientific models and their previous school science experiences could affect their performance on a model-based inquiry, and their experience of scientific modeling could help them enhance their understandings of the nature of scientific models.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.57 no.1
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• pp.115-126
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• 2013

In this study, we developed a explicit and reflective scientific inquiry learning program about nature of scientific inquiry, and compared its instructional influences with those of implicit scientific inquiry learning. We also compared students' perceptions of the program. Eighth graders at a middle school were assigned to the treatment and the control groups. The students of the treatment group participated in the program, while those of the control group participated in general scientific inquiry instruction. The analyses of the results revealed that the program was more effective in improving students' epistemological views on scientific inquiry than general scientific inquiry learning. However, there were no statistically significant differences in both test scores of science achievement and enjoyment of science lessons. The students of the treatment group perceived that group discussion on the nature of scientific inquiry was an advantage of the program. However, they still had difficulties in performing group discussion, understanding the nature of scientific inquiry, and writing and presenting their thoughts. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.336-344
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to analyse achievement of 'Scientific Inquiry and the Nature of Science' in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat (TIMSS-R), which was performed in 1999 with 38 nations participating. Korean 8th grade students' achievement of 'Scientific Inquiry and the Nature of Science' was compared to that of other countries and other content areas in science. Average percent correct of items in each subcategory - Scientific Method, Experimental Design, Scientific Measurements, Describing and Interpreting Data - was also analysed. Although 'Scientific Inquiry and the Nature of Science' topics were not included in intended curriculum in Korea, Korean students' average scale score of 'Scientific Inquiry and the Nature of Science' was significantly higher than international average and, in comparison with other science content areas, achievement of that area was relatively high. The reasons could be that the most students studied topics related to 'Scientific Inquiry and the Nature of Science' through the implemented curriculum and that the Korean teachers recognized the importance of inquiry. According to the results to analyze subcategories, the average percent correct of Korea were higher than 50% except the 'Scientific Measurements' subcategory. However, the international average percent correct were lower than 50%. Especially, the average percent correct of Korea was the highest in 'Describing and Interpreting Data' subcategory despite there were many students who were confused at observation, hypothesis and conclusion.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.83-92
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to develop the learning program using sharing nature that can be utilized in Korean elementary science classes and explore the its effects of science academic achievement, inquiry ability, scientific attitude of students after applying it. Sharing Nature used a playful and inspirational teaching strategy and was named after Flow Learning based on universal principles of how people learn. To examine the effects of Sharing Nature Learning Program this learning materials were applied to elementary science curriculum, and an experimental group and a control group were selected from 4th graders at a elementary school located in Icheon City, Gyeong-gi province. The results of this study found significant difference in the student's enhancement of the science academic achievement, inquiry ability, scientific attitude. In conclusion, Sharing Nature Learning Program is useful to develop the elementary school student's science academic achievement, inquiry ability, scientific attitude and had better be widely applied to science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.61-73
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• 1992

In response to epoch-making development in science and technology, the innovative curricular materials have been begun to develop since the late 1950s and early 1960s. However, the new inquiry-centered materials have failed to be successfully used in teaching/learning practices of science. Among the various reasons for the failure, the very nature of the inquiry approach has been identified as the most critical problem. Nevertheless, fostering inquiry faculties on the part of the students has been emphasized as one of the most important objectives of science instruction. Therefore this study was conducted for the purpose of developing a practical inquiry-oriented instructional method. In order to obtain this goal the nature of scientific inquiry was analyzed and the status quo of science education in which inquiry-oriented instructional strategies were applied was examined. The results of the study are described in this paper.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.273-288
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate the presentation of the Nature of Science (NOS) in integrated science textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum. The five integrated science textbooks published by the revised 2015 curriculum were analyzed with the conceptual framework of the four themes of the Nature of Science (NOS) (Lee, 2013) based on scientific literacy. The four themes of the NOS are 1. nature of scientific knowledge (theme I), 2. nature of scientific inquiry (theme II), 3. nature of scientific thinking (theme III), and 4. nature of interactions among science, technology, and society. The reliability of the textbooks analysis was measured between two coders by the Cohen's kappa and resulted in between 0,83 and 0,96, which means the results of analysis was consistent and reliable. The findings were as follows. First, overall theme II, nature of scientific inquiry emphasized on the integrated science textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum by devoting the contents over 40 % in the all five publishing companies' textbooks. Second, while the theme II, nature of scientific inquiry was emphasized on the textbooks regardless of the publishing companies, other themes of the NOS were emphasized in different portions by the publishing companies. Thus, the focus among other three themes of the NOS was presented differently by the publishing companies except that in theme II, nature of scientific inquiry was most emphasized on integrated science textbooks. Third, the presentation of the NOS was identified similarly across the topics of integrated science textbooks except on topic 4. Environment and Energy. The theme IV, nature of interactions among science, technology, and society was emphasized reasonably only in the topic of Environment and Energy of the textbooks. Finally, the presentation of the NOS in the integrated science textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum were more balanced among the four themes of the NOS with focus on the scientific inquiry compared to the previous curriculum textbooks.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.160-175
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• 2004

This study examined the knowledge and practices of scientific inquiry displayed by three student teachers and two beginning teachers at secondary levels. Observations using the instrument of OTOP designed by the research team of OCEPT (Oregon Collaborative for Excellent in the Preparation of Teachers) generalized similar teaching strategies of scientific inquiry between student and beginning teachers, such as using group work for students' first hand experience, using concrete materials for experimentation or visual tools for demonstration, using questions for factual knowledge mainly without opportunities to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed. Those scientific inquiry activities were very confirmative ones to follow the steps without opportunities of understanding nature of science or nature of scientific inquiry. However, all participants in this study hold knowledge of scientific inquiry envisioned by the National Science Education Standards [NSES] (NRC, 1996), where students identify their hypothesis, use critical and logical thinking, and consider alternative explanations through argumentation as well as experimentation. An inconsistent relationship between participating teachers knowledge and practices about scientific inquiry resulted from their lack of pedagogy skills of implementing it in the classroom. Providing opportunities for these teachers to reflect on their beliefs and practices about scientific inquiry was recommended for the future study. Furthermore, increasing college faculty interest in new teaching approaches for upgrading the content knowledge of student teachers and beginning teachers was recommended as a solution, since those teachers showed evidence of influence by college faculties at universities in their pedagogy skills.