• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.903-927
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• 2012

The study aimed to analyze middle school students construction of physics inquiry problems for open inquiry from the viewpoint of variable isolation and clarification, and investigate students' difficulties during the processes of variable isolation and clarification to get implications for teaching and learning strategies for small group open inquiry activities which have been included in the 2007 national curriculum. The participants were 4 students who had attended an outreach program for the science gifted run by a university institution located in Seoul area. They performed an open inquiry on egg drop for 13 lessons for 30 hours. Level descriptions for variable isolation and clarification have been developed and applied to analyze students' inquiry problems and variables included by the problems. Students iterated inquiry processed 5 times and the inquiry problem showed progress gradually. Dependent variables have been isolated ahead and the levels of variable isolation and clarification showed higher than the independent variables. Many kinds of independent variables isolated extensively and the independent variables and control variables have been mingled. One of the reasons why students had some difficulties in isolation of independent variables could be the absence of theoretical models. The realities of school lab could restrict the variable isolation and clarification as well as topic selections. Some sensory or extensive variables such as broken eggs and drop height seem to be salient to be focused on as core variables. Lack of background knowledges could be one of the reasons for students' difficulties in variable clarification, such as theoretical definitions and operational definitions. As a result of lacking background knowledges, students could not construct theoretical models even though they could isolate and clarify variables as scientific lexical definitions. Some perceptions of inquiry as trial and error or reckless establishment of causal relations between variables could be accounted as one reason.