• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.425-443
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• 2013

We developed problem-solving type inquiry learning programs reflecting scientists' research process and analyzed the activities of science-gifted high school students, and the understanding and the effects of the programs after implementation in class. For this study, twelve science-gifted students in the 10th grade participated in the program, which consisted of three different modules - making a cycloidal pendulum, surface growth, and synchronization using metronomes. Diet Cola Test (DCT) was used to find out the effect on the improvement of the ability to design experiments by comparing pre/post scores, with a survey and an interview being conducted after the class. Each module consisted of a series of processes such as questioning the phenomenon scientifically, designing experiments to find solutions, and doing activities to solve the problems. These enable students to experience problem-solving type research process through the program class. According to this analysis, most students were likely to understand the characteristics of problem-solving type inquiry learning programs reflecting the scientists' research process. According to the students, there are some differences between this program class and existing school class. The differences are: 'explaining phenomenon scientifically,' 'designing experiments for themselves,' and 'repeating the experiments several times.' During the class students have to think continuously, design several experiments, and carry them out to solve the problems they found at first. Then finally, they were able to solve the problems. While repeating this kind of activities they have been able to experience the scientists' research process. Also, they showed a positive attitude toward the scientists' research by understanding problem-solving type research process. These problem-solving type inquiry learning programs seem to have positive effects on students in designing experiments and offering the opportunity for critical argumentation on the causes of the phenomena. The results of comparing pre/post scores for DCT revealed that almost every student has improved his/her ability to design experiments. Students who were accustomed to following teacher's instructions have had difficulty in designing the experiments for themselves at the beginning of the class, but gradually, they become used to doing it through the class and finally were able to do it systematically.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.307-320
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• 2020

This study explores how the positioning of two pre-service science teachers (PSTs) is reflected in their different epistemic understandings of inquiry-based lessons. We collected the PSTs' products during their design and enactment of an inquiry-based lesson and recorded their practices in the enacted lesson. Interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The results indicate that one PST, Dohyung was positioned as a subject of evaluation throughout the course and the other, Jinwoo, was positioned as a preservice teacher and a subject of evaluation. Their positions were reflected in their epistemic understandings of inquiry-based lessons, which were developed when designing these lessons. During lesson design, both PSTs showed a shared understanding; they explained inquiry-based lessons as students setting and evaluating hypotheses under teachers' guidance. However, as they faced unexpected situations during lesson enactment, they developed different epistemic understandings. To receive a good grade, Dohyung showed a strong preference for anticipating situations that could occur in class and planning responses to them. He understood inquiry-based lessons as ones in which students conduct experiments to produce results expected by the teacher. On the other hand, Jinwoo emphasized the reasoning process based on students' prior knowledge and explained inquiry-based lessons as ones in which students construct new knowledge through a scientific reasoning process based on their knowledge. The findings of this study will contribute to developing strategies to support PSTs' development of their epistemic understandings of knowledge construction in inquiry-based lessons.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.35-46
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• 1999

The most of elementary school science textbook contents are composed of observation and experiment activities. When students study natural phenomena, observation and experiment are st rongly emphasized to improve understanding of scientific concepts and inquiry abilities. The purpose of this study is deep understanding about experimental science classes. This ethnographic study is conducted by observations of experimental science classes in natural setting and interviews of teachers, students of the 5th grade. The conclusions of this study are as follows: First, the general process of the elementary science experimental classes is 'identifying learning purposes -1 planning experiments -1 predicting the results -1 experimenting-t summarizing the results.' The experiments are conducted by group activities and the teachers conceived that the me st difficult step considered by students is 'planning experiments'. Second, students like hands-on activities, but they feel difficulty on less guided experiments. Students perform results oriented-activities. Third, in group activities, students prefer to work with the same gender or collaborative peers.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.75-88
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to understand the factors affecting interactions as well as the students' learning process in small group activities. For this purpose, the changes and characteristics of students' interactions in scientific inquiry experiments were analyzed. This study focused on 2 homogeneous small groups of eighth graders. Students were involved in 13 inquiry experiments for one year and students' interactions in each experiments were observed and recorded using video/audio and the data recorded were transcribed. The analysis of data was based on the method of making a note by looking on and listening to the data repeatedly. Changes in the interactions of the two homogeneous groups differ remarkably. In small group A, owing to the conflicts of students' emotions, learning through social interactions became to be impossible. On the other hand, the interactions in small group B became more active. It seems that this changes are affected largely by the existence of peers who are able to mediate different opinions or feelings among group members. In general, middle school students were poor at receiving peers' opinion, cared a lot about writing reports. The less able students tended to be placed at a disadvantageous position in experiment lessons emphasizing social interactions. Four factors that affected the change of interactions were identified: Is the aim of experiments the understanding or completion of report? Is there any attitude towards peers' suggestions? Is there a disposition to care about peers? Is there any peer to mediate on peers' opinions or feelings? Educational implications of the progression of activities emphasizing interactions and the organization of grouping were drawn.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.146-161
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• 2005

This case study searched two secondary school science teachers' faiths on experiments in science classes. For this study, scaled questionnaires, open-ended questionnaires, structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Classroom activities were observed, and instructional plans and materials were collected. In addition, students of the two teachers' classes were interviewed with respect to their thoughts on the lessons. Data sources were analyzed inductively. The triangulation and the member checking guaranteed the validity of this study. As the results, the teachers' faiths on experiments were related to the constructivism, but the faiths were not in accord with their classroom practices. From these results, it was concluded that the teachers' misjudgments about the students' inquiry levels and unfit reorganizations of the experimental activities were the causes of the gap between the teachers' faiths on experiments and classroom practices.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.576-585
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• 2004

This study was conducted to analyze the relationships between terms, learning concepts and inquiries in ocean unit, the National Common Basic Curriculum. The several science textbooks were selected to use for study, written in accordance with the 7 current national curriculum for the fourth grade of elementary school, the seventh of middle school and the tenth of high school. The higher the school level becomes, the frequencies of using terms related with ocean region get. The explanation of terms, however, has a tendency to be less frequent in the high school level. In the perspective of learning concept, there are more concrete concepts than formal concepts regardless of school level. Pure scientific context appears most often in inquiry contest through the whole course of every school level. In respect to inquiry process, the frequency of integrative inquiry process is on the increase as the school level gets higher. From the viewpoint of inquiry activity, there have been a lot of discussions, experiments and investigations in every school level, while high school does not the present any field study and project. Through these result, it is considered that the explanation of main terms is inevitable in the textbooks as basic educational material without regard to school level. In learning concept and inquiry context, a well-rounded learning is needed in relation to students' cognitive development and science-technology-society. Especially for the inquiry activity of earth science education, the educational effect is remarkable through field study; its appropriate application is required, accordingly.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.10
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• pp.1489-1501
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to search for effective strategies on teaching open-inquiry by comparing students' and teachers' recognition of its difficulties and helpful strategies. This study focused on the cases of science high school students and their teachers, who carried out open-inquiry to participate in KYPT. This research was conducted through participant observation, questionnaires, and interviews. The research findings were as follows: students stated that planning and doing experiments were the most difficult parts, whereas teachers viewed that their students had difficulties in analyzing data and making a conclusion. With respect to the effective strategy, students stated that they gained many ideas from peer discussions although they have had to carry out their individual tasks. On the contrary, teachers thought that reference materials and the discussions with teachers were most helpful. There were clear differences between students' and their teachers' recognition toward open-inquiry and the gap needs to be closed. Consequently, it would be useful to guide students to form teams and to spend more time in peer discussions especially when doing experiments and to encourage teachers to understand students' actual difficulties and needs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.355-366
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• 1999

In this study, the characteristics of science inquiry problem solving were analyzed in the interactions between science process skills and science concepts by each related its category. Nine types of problem solving, which were based on two elements and the thinking aloud were found largely by protocol analysis, but six types when integrated similar thinking processes. There were quite differences in the representative types between students who succeeded and failed when science inquiry items were solved in the abilities of recognizing problems and generating hypotheses or those of drawing conclusions and evaluating. But there were not complete differences in those types between students who succeeded and failed when they were solved in the abilities of designing and performing experiments or those of interpreting and analyzing data. The data were divided into independent variables: $D_1,\;D_2,\;D_3,\;D_4,\;D$ and $C_1,\;C_2,\;C_3,\;C_4,\;C$ and dependant variables; $E_1,\;E_2,\;E_3,\;E_4,\;E$. The former consisted of the content-free science process skill achievement levels by each category of science inquiry skill and the science concept achievement levels, the latter the science inquiry problem achievement levels by each category of science inquiry skill. The regression equations were acquired within the 0.05 significant level by regression analysis: $E_1=0.03+0.16D_1+0.29C_1,\;E_2=-0.203+0.21D_2+0.45C_2,\;E_3=-0.32+0.13D_3+0.47C_3,\;E_4=0.61+0.09D_4+0.29C_4,\;E=-1.41+0.13D+0.47C$(E : the achievement of science problems, D : the achievement of science process skills, C : the achievement of science concepts).

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.80-93
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• 2010

The scope of this study is: (1) to review or summarize the theoretical explanations of diffusion; (2) to investigate the preservice teachers' understanding of diffusion utilizing the inquiry experiment of diffusion that was developed in this study. The data was collected through questionnaires given to 41 preservice teachers in 3 universities and interviews with 20 subjects from this population, who conducted the inquiry experiment. During the experiment, the data was collected from the students' reports and 3 small groups' audio/video recordings. To understand preservice teachers' conceptions, reports, audio/video recordings, questionnaires and interviews were analyzed and discussed with co-workers. The results follow: (1) The differences between effusion and diffusion as well as equal-pressure experiment and equal-flux one on diffusion were discussed; (2) Most preservice teachers understood effusion and diffusion connected to Graham's law of diffusion by rote and have misconceptions about the diffusion process; (3) They observed two kinds of diffusion experiments (equal-pressure and equal-flux) by inquiry experiment, but the majority of them failed to find conceptual differences between these experiments. After the inquiry experiment, about 40% of the samples modified their conceptions about diffusion.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.203-218
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of reflective thinking-based laboratory report on learners' metacognition and inquiry skills. In a general physics experiment class consisting of 11 experiments, 20 college students used reflective thinking-based laboratory report, and then the changes of their metacognition and inquiry skills were compared with those of who used general laboratory report. The opinions of students used reflective thinking-based laboratory report were surveyed. The results showed that their metacognitions were increased more than those of comparison group that used common experiment report. Their inquiry skills also were increased as much as comparison group's. According to the survey results, they recognized that reflective thinking-based laboratory report helps to improve their performance, metacognitions, and inquiry skills.