• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.249-258
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to identify the type of thinking and generating processes of causal questions which were generated in preservice elementary teachers' observing activities. To find the generating processes of causal questions, 4 observing tasks, the task of grapes in soda, the candlelight, the celery, and the rock tasks, were administered to 7 preservice elementary teachers majoring in science education. The results of this study were as follows: The types of thinking in generating explicans exploration questions were classified as 8 types and explicans verification questions were classified as 9 types. The generating processes of explicans exploration questions were classified as 6 steps and explicans verification questions were classified as 5 steps. The results of this study may be used as a teaching strategy for guiding the direction and the method of scientific questions and developing the teaching-teaming programs that help student to generate scientifc questions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.1018-1027
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to identify and compare the types of scientific questions which were generated by elementary students and preservice teachers on the tasks of scientific observation. To identify the types of scientific questions, 4 observing tasks, dry grapes contained in soda pop, candlelight, celery, and a rock were administered to 40 sixth elementary students and 20 elementary preservice teachers. And then, the types and frequency of scientific questions generated by them were compared. The results showed that the types of scientific questions were classified into conjectural questions, causal questions, predictive questions, methodical questions and applicative questions. Further more, subordinate questions to the above questions were classified into object exploration questions and object verification questions, explicans exploration questions and explicans verification questions, result exploration questions and result verification questions, example exploration questions and example verification questions. Subordinate questions did not come out from the methodical questions. The types of scientific questions generated by elementary students and preservice teachers were identical, however, there were differences in frequency. This study supports that elementary students also have cognitive capability to generate various scientific questions. The results of this study may be used as a teaching strategy for the guidance of the direction and the method of scientific inquiry.