• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.43 no.2
• /
• pp.227-238
• /
• 2019

In this study, we investigated the perception of elementary school students on inquiry activities and collaborative problem-solving ability in data-based scientific inquiry. For this purpose, 20 data-based scientific inquiry classes were conducted in 26 elementary school students in Gyeongnam City. After selecting the inquiry problem, students conducted an inquiry process to collect data using digital inquiry instruments. The following results were obtained through questionnaires and interviews after the classes: First, students perceived the step on 'inquiry design and execution' as the most useful in the data-based scientific inquiry. Second, students perceived that their scientific ability and cooperation improved through data-based scientific inquiry, with the selection of inquiry problems being the most difficult. Third, students perceived positively the improvement of cooperative problem-solving ability. From the above results, it was found that data-based scientific inquiry is necessary to improve the elementary school students' scientific inquiry ability and cooperative problem-solving ability. Based on this research, we hope that the development and research of various inquiry activities will provide opportunities for inquiry that can cultivate various abilities needed for students living in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
• /
• v.5 no.2
• /
• pp.213-223
• /
• 2012

This study explored practicing elementary school teacher's beliefs of scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching methods. Defining teacher's beliefs as a broad construct, we tried to examine the teachers' understandings about the scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching method. This study drew on interview data from 10 elementary teachers in busan and changwon area of korea. Conclusions of this study include; First, we found that elementary teacher's beliefs of inquiry were represented variously. And they considered that inquiry is the important goal of science education. They though that the goal of science education is development of Scientific inquiry skills, Scientific thinking skills, development of Creativity and problem solving ability, increasing interest about science, understanding of the basic concepts of science and apply of real-life. second, most of the teachers though that Scientific inquiry is scientists activities, they defined 'the process of creation of new knowledge', 'the process of deriving theory', 'solving process of intellectual curiosity', 'Problem-solving process'. third, they considered that teaching method of scientific inquiry is open inquiry activities. however, they thought that there are many difficulties to actually apply. Understanding teachers' beliefs has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development, with enhanced outcomes for engaging students in Science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.8
• /
• pp.860-869
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study is to suggest an instructional direction for improving scientific inquiry problem-finding ability of the scientifically-gifted. For this purpose, this study has made an in-depth analysis of the scientific inquiry problems generated by the scientifically-gifted in Problem-Finding Activity in Ill-structured Inquiry Situation (PFAIIS) and Problem-Finding Activity in Well-structured Inquiry Situation (PFAWIS). The results of this study turned out to be as follows: First, most of the problems generated in PFAIIS and PFAWIS could be categorized into seven types (measurement, method, cause, possibility, what, comparison, relationship) according to the inquiry objectives, while the frequency of each type shown in each inquiry objective was a little different. Second, the frequency of scientific concepts stated in inquiry problem was more in PFAWIS than in PFAIIS. But the scientific concepts were shown more diversely in PFAIIS than in PFAWIS. Therefore, results of this study have the following educational implications. First, it is necessary to offer various opportunities of problem-finding activity under ill-structured scientific Inquiry situation. Second, it is needed to emphasize that a new inquiry problem can be found out even during general scientific experiment and frequently to discuss inquiry problems generated during an experiment. Third, it is needed to encourage the scientifically-gifted to generate a scientific inquiry problem based on at least more than seven types.

• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.44 no.2
• /
• pp.205-213
• /
• 2020

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of elementary school students' knowledge and information processing competence and collaborative problem-solving ability in scientific inquiry class using data measured with digital inquiry tools. To this end, three classes of 5th grade elementary schools in S-city, Gyeongnam were selected as experimental groups and three classes as control groups. The control group conducted traditional lecture-style classes, and the experimental group conducted scientific inquiry classes using scientific data. The following results were obtained through questionnaires after class. First, science inquiry classes using scientific data helped elementary school students improve their knowledge and information processing competence. Second, scientific inquiry classes using scientific data improved elementary school students' cooperative problem-solving ability. From the above results, it was found that scientific inquiry classes using scientific data are needed to improve the knowledge information processing competence and cooperative problem solving ability of elementary school students. Based on this research, it is necessary to study a specific teaching and learning environment that can activate scientific inquiry class using data measured with digital inquiry tools in the future.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
• /
• v.19 no.4
• /
• pp.29-52
• /
• 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 Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.289-310
• /
• 2013

The purpose of the study is to investigate science process skills and suggest several considerations about developing scientific inquiries for secondary science gifted students. To do this, we analyzed scientific inquiries of science gifted programs and evaluated them on the quantity of problem perception, problem finding and inquiry planning that are regarded as high level science process skills, then revised each inquiry to include those high level skills. The result was that the first, there were differences in frequencies and types of science process skills among those inquiries. The second, there were very few problem perception and problem finding and were not many inquiry planning. The third, some of the revised inquiries showed those high level skills. From this, we would like to suggest we should construct scientific inquiries of science gifted program out of many and various themes. And there should be more high level science process skills such as problem perception, problem finding, and inquiry planning. For this, scientific inquiry developers should have intentions to involve such science process skills which is appropriate for science gifted student.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.13 no.2
• /
• pp.152-162
• /
• 1993

The high school students' problem solving patterns and their features in scientific inquiry, especially on controlling variables and stating hypothesis have been investigated. The 8 problems on controlling variables and stating hypothesis were selected out of the scientific inquiry area in the experimental tryout of Aptitude Assessment for College Education, and had been used to find the patterns and their features. The results of findings are as follows: There were seven patterns in the process of solving problems. Five of seven patterns were found in right answers and four patterns in wrong answers. Two patterns were found in both right and wrong answers. Some students could solve the problems even though they did not understand the elements of the scientific inquiry, controlling variables and stating hypothesis. The false application of physics concepts, misunderstanding about the elements of the scientific inquiry and using unrelated experience and conjectures were the features of students' wrong answers. On the other hand, the right application of physics concepts, understanding and applying the elements right, infering answers from the tables and figures on statements of suggested problems were the features of right answers. The further studies on this kind may helpful to find the higher mental abilities related to scientific inquiry and to develop tools for testing students' scientific inquiry thinking skills.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.194-204
• /
• 2004

The purpose of this literature review is to investigate what kinds of research have been done about scientific inquiry in terms of scientific argumentation in the classroom context from the upper elementary to the high school levels. First, science educators argued that there had not been differentiation between authentic scientific inquiry by scientists and school scientific inquiry by students in the classroom. This uncertainty of goals or definition of scientific inquiry has led to the problem or limitation of implementing scientific inquiry in the classroom. It was also pointed out that students' learning science as inquiry has been done without opportunities of argumentation to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed. Second, what is scientific argumentation, then? Researchers stated that scientific inquiry in the classroom cannot be guaranteed only through hands-on experimentation. Students can understand how scientific knowledge is constructed through their reasoning skills using opportunities of argumentation based on their procedural skills using opportunities of experimentation. Third, many researchers emphasized the social practices of small or whole group work for enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills through argumentations. Different role of leadership in groups and existence of teachers' roles are found to have potential in enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills to understand science as inquiry. Fourth, what is scientific reasoning? Scientific reasoning is defined as an ability to differentiate evidence or data from theory and coordinate them to construct their scientific knowledge based on their collection of data (Kuhn, 1989, 1992; Dunbar & Klahr, 1988, 1989; Reif & Larkin, 1991). Those researchers found that students skills in scientific reasoning are different from scientists. Fifth, for the purpose of enhancing students' scientific reasoning skills to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed, other researchers suggested that teachers' roles in scaffolding could help students develop those skills. Based on this literature review, it is important to find what kinds of generalizable teaching strategies teachers use for students scientific reasoning skills through scientific argumentation and investigate teachers' knowledge of scientific argumentation in the context of scientific inquiry. The relationship between teachers' knowledge and their teaching strategies and between teachers teaching strategies and students scientific reasoning skills can be found out if there is any.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.401-415
• /
• 2006

The science education reforms put the emphasis of scientific literacy, so that students can understand how scientific knowledge is constructed through scientific inquiry at schools. However, scientific inquiry at schools has a problem as a cookbook system without the opportunity of developing argumentation, where students could understand how they use evidence to support their theory or vice versa. Teachers are supposed to understand the basic elements, purpose, and definition of scientific inquiry to implement authentic scientific inquiry at schools, then develop the instructional strategies of providing the opportunity of scientific argumentation to meet its needs.

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