• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.83-92
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school students' understandings about scientific inquiry. Data were collected from 119 elementary students who are in the 4^th grade using the Views About Scientific Inquiry questionnaire for elementary students (VASI-E). We also conducted semi-structured interviews of 21 students from 119 students who responded to VASI-E. Students' responses were analyzed as naive, mixed, or informed views on each aspect of scientific inquiry that VASI-E includes. We found that, first, 53.8% of students have mixed views, and 30.3% of students have informed views, and 16% of students have naive views on the knowledge 'investigation begin with a question'. Second, 54.6% of students have naive views, 37.8% of students have mixed views, and 7.6% of students have informed views on the knowledge 'scientists use many methods to answer their questions.' Third, 47.9% of students have informed views, 34.5% of students have naive views, and 17.6% of students have mixed views on 'procedures guided by question asked.' Fourth, 55.5% of students have mixed views, 42% of students have informed views, and only 2.5% of students have naive views on 'conclusions must be consistent with data and explanations come from data and prior knowledge.' Based on the results, implications for teaching and learning scientific inquiry at elementary level in Korea were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.515-529
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• 2020

'Scientific inquiry experiments', which was newly created subjects in the 2015 revised curriculum, was expected in the aspect of learning science and developing core competences through science practices. Based on changed view of evaluation, assessments of a practice-centered subject 'Scientific inquiry experiments' should be try to conducted in various ways, but many challenges were reported. In this study, through analysis of current status of assessment of the subject, we intended to find the way of conducting and supporting 'Scientific inquiry experiments'. We collected assessment materials and explanatory description about them from 25 teachers who taught 'Scientific inquiry experiments' in 2018 and 2019. And we analyzed the cases with framework which were consisted with three main categories: elements, standards, methods of assessments. Also, we investigated how the results of assessment were utilized. For the validity, we requested verification of the results of our data analysis to experts of science education and science teachers. From them, we also collected their opinions about our analysis. As a result of the study, teachers assessed some elements of inquiry skills such as 'analysis and interpreting the data', 'conducting inquiry' more than others which were closely related to what subject-matter the teachers used to organized inquiry program with. In the aspect of domain of assessments, though cognitive domain and affective domain as well as skills were evaluated, we also found that the assessment of those domains had some limitation. In terms of standard of assessment, the goals of assessment were presented in most cases, but there were relatively few cases which had the specific criteria and the stepwise statements of expected performance of students. The time and subject of the assessment were mainly post-class and teachers, and others such as in-class assessments, peer-assessments were used only in specific contexts. In all cases, the results of assessments used for calculating students' grade, but in some cases, we could observe that the results used for improving teaching and feedback for students. Based on these results, we discussed how to support the assessments of 'Scientific inquiry experiments'.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.213-223
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to identify the types of essential inquiry activities presented in elementary science textbooks for grades 5-6, and to find out what difficulties teachers have in the actual teaching process. To this end, the essential research activities presented in the textbook were analyzed into six types: experimentation/observation, investigation/discussion and presentation, data interpretation, discussion/discussion, simulation activity, and expression. In addition, 108 elementary school teachers were investigated for the suitability of inquiry activity achievement standards, suitability at the student's level, student interest, and difficulty in teaching instruction. To summarize the research results, the most frequently suggested type was the experiment/observation type, followed by simulation activity type and data interpretation type. It was analyzed that there was no discussion/discussion type in the 5th grade textbooks, and the 6th graders did not present research activities that correspond to the research/discussion/presentation type and the expression type in the textbook. In the results of teachers' responses to the suitability of achievement standards for inquiry activities presented in textbooks and the suitability of the student's level, 5th graders showed lower average scores than 6th graders, and showed similar average scores in student interest and instructional difficulty. Also, it was confirmed that improvement was required for a total of 17 inquiry activities. Specifically, teachers responded that they had difficulty in guiding inquiry activities when the experimental results did not appear as intended in the textbook, when students' interest in inquiry activities was low, and when students and teachers had low understanding of related science concepts. Teachers pointed out practical problems such as difficulties in long-term observation in astronomy-related units, and students in upper elementary school not actively participating in dynamic play activities.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.367-373
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• 2003

The marine accident investigation of Korean Marine Safety Tribunal does not keep up with the international rule and guideline. Also there is no manual for a proper investigation into the marine accident. This study analyzed the investigation system and manual of Korea. USA and Japan etc., and proposed the new investigation system and manual of KMST including the inquiry guideline according to the type of marine accident.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.239-254
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• 2015

The aims of this research were to analyze and compare verbs in the contents of the 7th, 2007, and 2009 revised national curriculum for elementary and middle school science. After the investigation of 1383 verbs in description of achievement standards and inquiry, we found that 'to know'(15.0 %) in elementary school and 'to understand'(24.2 %) in middle school were the most frequently used ones, totally in these three curriculums. In the 7th national curriculum, frequently used verbs in elementary school were ones related with inquiry such as observation, investigation and so on though 'to understand' had the most common verbs. Secondly, 'to explain' ranked top among verbs in the 2007 revised national curriculum. It showed some possibility of influences of the discussion-oriented situation at that time. Finally, however, in 2009 revised national curriculum, 'to know' and 'to understand' occupied the first and second portion of the verb distribution. In addition, 'to understand' and 'to observe' were used evenly through three curriculums but the portions of 'to know' increased through curriculum revisions. Some implications and discussions were also added with suggestions for further researches.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.720-733
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• 2011

Problem-based learning (PBL) is an effective teaching-learning strategy for enhancing students' motivation, problem solving ability, and creativity. Its educational values coincide with the aim of open-inquiry activity introduced in 2007 revised national curriculum. From this aspect we designed the PBL open-inquiry program and implemented to 202 first year middle school students in Gyeonggi provincial office of education for one semester. We developed an energy related PBL problem. The program was designed in four steps: 'understand the problem,' 'investigate information,' 'solve the problem,' and 'present and evaluate the result.' Through the program, students did such activities as 'make Know/need to know chart,' 'group discussion,' 'search information,' and 'preparation of group report.' After completing the program, a survey was conducted to understand the students' perception of the program. The results are as follows: First, 40.6% of students showed positive attitude toward the program. Especially, students responded that 'make Know/need to know chart' was very useful. However, some students responded that 'search information' and 'preparation of group report' were difficult to perform. Second, male students showed positive attitude toward the PBL program compared to female students. Also students had higher scores in attitude toward science, showed more positive attitude toward the PBL program. Third, there was a significant correlation between attitude toward science and perception of PBL steps. Based on survey results, some suggestions were made for teachers who were planning to implement PBL in open-inquiry program.

• Korean Educational Research Journal
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.167-188
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to suggest safety education on life science inquiry activity, which subjects on the exploration and autonomous research to the relevant topics, mainly done by the science high school students. Investigation was made on subjects of research activity proposed from Life science and autonomous research from science high school students by examine thoroughly 2009 revised education curriculum. To prevent school laboratory accidents, education of basic safety regulations and general precautions should be repeatedly notified by clear statements and expression to each topic. Expressing the safety factors considering the themes of autonomous inquiry and activities presented in the course of education should be done, so that students should not experience laboratory accidents by reason of ignorance. From the beginning of organization to performing research, safety rules about disposing chemicals and tools wastes occurring during research should be noticed and expressed in precautions following waste disposal system should be adopted. It is necessary to level up the accessibility of information about the laboratory safety rules to confirm to the every student, and also ensure the takeover of the clean-up and use of utilities at the time of search end in order to prevent the incidence of laboratory accidents during the thorough stages of biological inquiry activities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.760-774
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristic of the linguistic interaction according to leadership type of the leader in the scientific inquiry activity groups and examine how leadership factors affect the linguistic interaction within a group. In this investigation, leaders among 12 elementary school students were chosen by considering results of the leadership diagnosis that tested 3 leadership factors: vision and promotion, assignment responsibility, and decision-making. The members of the groups were organized according to scientific inquiry ability and academic achievement; the groups were assigned to perform scientific inquiry activities. The linguistic interaction was largely divided into the cognitive domain and the affective domain for analysis. According to the results, the frequency of linguistic interaction within a group sorted by leadership type is more influenced by the cognitive domain than the affective domain. The highest frequency of linguistic interaction appeared within the group that had vision and promotion type leader. Assumedly, the vision and confidence of the vision and promotion type leader produced such an outcome. While solving the assignments, linguistic interaction in all three groups had more cognitive domain than affected domain. Linguistic interaction in cognitive domain displayed only low level of linguistic interaction in relation to the experiment itself: high level of linguistic interaction barely occurred. In the case of affected domain, active participation appeared more frequently than maintaining the mood: Interactions related to restricting the group members actions to solve the assignment appeared more frequently than those for maintaining the mood.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.669-679
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated how 'Scientific Inquiry Experiment,' a newly introduced subject under the 2015 revised curriculum, was implemented to identify the difficulties that science teachers face in the process of teaching the subject and to explore how to support them through online survey and interview methods. A questionnaire of the survey, which consisted of environmental factors of class, preparation and execution of class, teacher self-evaluation of class, and direction for the subject, was developed, and the online survey was requested with a response from one teacher per school from 1674 high schools nationwide. We analyzed the results from 814 teachers who answered all required questions, and we also conducted interviews and online advisory discussions to ensure the validity of our analysis. In the results of the study, teachers complained of lack of time for preparation and execution of the subject, and they demanded laboratory assistants and quality teaching materials. In addition, in order to achieve the goal of the subject, they agreed the necessity of using the 'block scheduling' though they also agreed the difficulties of its implementation. Meanwhile, the alteration of guidelines for evaluation, which was changed from 9-grade system to 3-grade system, was positively recognized by teachers. As a result of this change, the percentage of performance assessment increased in 2019 compared to 2018, but there were no significant changes in the number of 'hands-on activity.' Finally, we proposed ways to support 'scientific inquiry experiment'.

• Journal of Korean Theatre Studies Association
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• no.40
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• pp.307-344
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• 2010

Cultural Studies built on the critical mind of New Left exposes the relationship between culture and power, and investigates how this relationship develops the cultural convention. It has achieved the new perspective that could make us to think culture and art in terms of political correctness. However, the critical voices against the theoretical premises of Cultural Studies have been increased as its heyday in 1980s was nearly over. For instance, Terry Eagleton, a former Marxist literary critic, declared in 2003 that the golden age of cultural theory is long past. This essay, therefore, intends to show the weak foundations on which the approaches of cultural studies to theatre rest and to clarify the general problem of their introduction to theatre studies. The approach of cultural studies to theatre takes the form of 'top-down inquiry' as it applies a theory to a particular play or historical period. In other word, from the theory the writer moves to the particular case. The result is not an inquiry but rather a demonstration. This circularity can destroy the point of serious intellectual investigation as the theory dictates answers. The goal-oriented narrow viewpoint as a logical consequence of 'top-down inquiry' makes the researcher to favor the plays or the parts of a play that are proper to test a theory. As a result it loses the fair judgment on the artistic value of a play, and brings about the misinterpretation. The interpreter-oriented reading is the other defect of cultural studies as it disregards the inherent meaning of the text, distorting a play. The approach of cultural studies also consists of a conventionality as it arrives at a stereotyped interpretation by using certain conventions of reasoning and rhetoric. The cultural theories are fundamentally the 'outside theories' that seek to explain not theatre but the very broad features of society and politics. Consequently their application to theatre risks the destructive criticism, disregarding the inherent experience of theatre. Most of, if not all, cultural theories, furthermore, are proven to be lack of empirical basis. The alternative method to them is a 'cognitive science' that proves scientifically our mind being influenced by bodily experience. The application of cultural materialism to Shakespeare's is one of the cases that reveal the limits of cultural studies. Jonathan Dollimore and Water Cohen provide a kind of 'canonical study' in this application that is imitated by the succeeding researchers. As a result the interpretation of has been flooded with repetitive critical remarks, revealing the problem of 'top-down inquiry' and conventional reasoning. Cultural Studies is antipodal to theatre in some respect. It is interested chiefly in the social and political reality while theatre aims to create the fiction world. The theatre studies, therefore, may have to risk the danger of destroying its own base when it adopts cultural studies uncritically. The different stance between theatre and cultural theories also occurs from the opposition of humanism vs. antihumanism. We have to introduce cultural theories selectively and properly not to destroy the inherent experience and domain of theatre.