• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.29-52
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• 2023

Objective: This research aims to examine the effect of a young children's engineering-focused STEAM program based on the project approach - a program that constructs components aligned with children's interests in their play through an engineering design process - on their scientific inquiry ability, mathematical problem-solving ability, and creativity. Methods: In this research, 42 five-year-old children from a public kindergarten in S district, I city, were randomly divided into experimental and comparative groups, each with 21 children. The engineering-focused STEAM program was conducted from April 18 to June 10, 2022, with the experimental group exploring the 'car' theme and the comparison group focusing on a different theme. The study employed an independent sample t-test and analysis of covariance(ANCOVA), using the pretest as a covariate to control variables. Results: The children-selected 'cars' themed engineering-focused STEAM program was effective in enhancing their scientific inquiry ability, mathematical problem-solving ability and creativity. Conclusion/Implications: The engineering-focused STEAM program, which emerges from young children's interesting daily play, had positive effects on enhancing their scientific inquiry ability, mathematical problem-solving ability, and creativity. This research can serve as fundamental data for developing education programs focused on engineering within the STEAM framework, guided by children's emergent play.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.54-63
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• 2014

This study explored the effect of using the inquiry-based science writing heuristic approach in class on metacognition and scientific creativity to enhance the ability of solving problems in science classrooms of elementary students. The results of this study were as follows. First, the science writing heuristic had a positive influence on the usage of metacognition necessary for learners to solve the problem with science. Second, the science writing heuristic contributed to the improvement of scientific creativity. In the process of inquiry-based approach, learners used scientific knowledge to come up with ideas and produce outcomes, therefore they could seek sanswers to scientific problems for themselves. Third, the science writing heuristic produced a positive awareness of science process skill because learners had more opportunities to think on their own than an existing passive class. In conclusion, this study found that the inquiry-based science writing heuristic approach encouraged learners to do inquiring activities in school classrooms, therefore contributing to the application of metacognition and the improvement of scientific creativity.

• 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.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.82-94
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• 2012

In this study, epistemological views of middle school students on scientific inquiry were investigated. The Views of Scientific Inquiry Questionnaire was administered to 141 9th graders. The questionnaire consists of five open-ended items concerning the contexts of scientific investigation, the methods of scientific investigation, the interpretation of data, and the data and evidence. Analyses of the results indicated that their epistemological understanding of scientific inquiry were not adequate on the whole. Although the students suggested a variety of factors influencing scientists' decisions on the questions and the methods of investigation, many of the factors were minor. Only a few students specifically described the activities of scientists and the constituents of "scientific" activity, and students did not demonstrate adequate understanding of experimentation in science and multiple scientific methods. Moreover, the percentage of students who possessed the informed view that data can be variously interpreted was found to be low. The students also did not understand the distinctions between data and evidence. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.452-458
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• 1995

Science textbooks are very important materials in order to know elementary science learning in Japan and Korea. In this research the 5th grade science textbooks in Japan and Korea are analyzed by an analyzing category. The analyzing category is consisted of knowledge and scientific inquiry. Knowledge is divided by fact, concept, and rule. Scientific inquiry is divided by problem cognition, variable control, experiment planning, observing, measuring, categorizing, inferring, data transformation, predicting, correlation, cause and effect, result, communication, which are 13 subcategories. Analyzing methods are counting the frequency of each subcategory and tabulating the data. The results of this study are: 1. The frequency of scientific inquiry appeared in Korean 5th grade science textbooks is three times more than that in Japanese textbooks. 2. In scientific inquiry category, Japanese science textbooks emphasized observing, predicting, measuring and problem cognition; Korean science textbooks emphasized experiment planning, observing and problem cognition. 3. In knowledge category, fact subcategory is mostly emphasized in both countries.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.243-254
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• 2020

This study analyzed the characteristics of "free inquiry" products for scientifically-gifted elementary school students. To do this, 5~6 graders (n=99) at a gifted science education institutes in Seoul were selected. The products (n=82) of "free inquiry" submitted by the students in 2018 and 2019 were analyzed according to their contents and method types. The analysis of the results showed that the free inquiry outputs of scientifically-gifted students tended to not include the scientific knowledge of the upper grades than the corresponding students. In the outputs, the scientific knowledge in different grades were often not linked. There were relatively many cases of convergence of knowledge in various science and/or non-science subjects and knowledge of 'physics', whereas knowledge of 'earth science' were the least. The outputs were more often aimed at "finding scientific facts" than "development and invention" and tended to target non-living things rather than living things. The scientifically-gifted students tended to conduct free inquiry using 'experimental-centered inquiry' by themselves rather than by group. They were also most likely to conduct experiments only once, and did not clearly write down the period of their inquiry. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1216-1234
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• 2004

School science practical work is often criticized as lacking key elements of authentic science, such as peer argumentation or debate through which social consensus is obtained. The purpose of this paper is to review the recent studies about the argumentation and to explore the conditions and the model of argumentative scientific inquiry, which is specially designed open inquiry in order to facilitate students' peer argumentation. For this purpose, a theoretical discussion for the argumentative scientific inquiry as the way of authentic inquiry in schools was developed. The conditions for argumentative scientific inquiry were found to be the following: multiple arguments, students' own claims, opportunities for oral and written argumentation, equal status of debaters, and community of cooperative competition. For these conditions, the argumentative scientific inquiry was organized into experiment activities and argumentation activities. During argumentation activity, students should be guided to advance written argumentation through writing a group report for peer review and oral argumentation through a critical discussion. Through the argumentation between groups and in group, the students' arguments would be elaborated repeatedly. The feedback from argumentation links experiment activities to argumentation activities. Hence, the whole process of this inquiry model is circular.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.61-73
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• 1998

This research suggests science inquiry play of analogy as a teaming method to help the students in concrete operational stage to develop scientific thinking skills and to understand abstract science conceptions. The research focuses on/considers the characteristics and merits of the science inquiry plays, and the learning method by analogical reasoning. This learning through the science inquiry play of analogy can be considered as a meta-model for scientific thinking skill. The learning has the following processes: 1) Students analogize the abstract science conceptions and facts into play-type activities including the concrete contents such as students themselves, their physical-sensory motions, concrete objects, play methods, and play rules. 2) Students as analogized objects play a role physically and sensuously according to the methods and rules analogized in the play. 3) Students find out the concrete contents included in the science inquiry play of analogy, draw the results, and deduce the new conceptions from the results by reflective thinking and analogical reasoning.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.24-43
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• 1990

This study investigated the effectiveness of teachers inquiry-discovery verbal interaction which was compared with expository-directive verbal interaction. Two teachers from two different kindergarten groups were trained and observed during conversation and science corner activities. Sixty children were observed during science corner activities and tested with a scientific achievement instrument. Teacher's inquiry-discovery verbal interaction had a more positive effect on children's scientific attitudes than teacher's expository-directive verbal interaction. Teacher's inquiry-discovery verbal interaction had a more positive effect on children's scientific achievement than teacher's expository-directive verbal interaction. Children's scientific attitudes and children's scientific achievement had a positive correlation.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.476-485
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of free inquiry lessons utilizing flipped learning with smart devices on digital literacy, $21^{st}$ century skills and scientific attitude of $5^{th}$ graders of elementary school. The subjects of this study were two different $5^{th}$ grade classes in J elementary school located in B metropolitan city. Free inquiry lessons utilizing flipped learning with smart devices were applied to experimental group, whereas comparison group was taught general free inquiry lessons using ordinary teaching materials. The results of this study were as follows: First, free inquiry lessons utilizing flipped learning with smart devices were statistically meaningful on students' digital literacy. Second, free inquiry lessons utilizing flipped learning with smart devices were not statistically meaningful on students' $21^{st}$ century skills. Third, free inquiry lessons utilizing flip teaching with smart devices were not statistically meaningful on students' scientific attitude. Fourth, free inquiry lessons utilizing flipped learning with smart devices caused an effectiveness on students' interests.