• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.375-388
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to develop the instrument for scientific attitudes in school, home and social situations and select the important elements of scientific attitudes. Looking into the elements of scientific attitudes in national and international research, the important elements of scientific attitudes students should have were selected as follows: Openness, objectivity, continuousness, criticalness, prudence, volunteerism, honesty, preparedness, collaboration, and curiosity. To develop the valid instrument of scientific attitudes, we moved forward with the step of making preliminary questions, the judgment step, and the validation examination step. Based on the elements of scientific attitudes and school, family, and social situations, the instrument of the scientific attitudes was developed. We discovered that Middle school students' scientific attitudes, according to their grade levels, appear to be significantly lower than those in the 7th graders and 9th graders. The scientific attitudes in school, home and social situation appeared high in order of society, home, and school. It appeared that there were no differences by gender.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.139-149
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable instrument for measuring scientific problem-finding ability for the scientifically-gifted student. On the basis of an operational definition of scientific problem-finding ability, this instrument consists of five sections(appropriateness, flexibility, originality, elaboration, and valuation) which are designed for measuring the ability of the scientifically-gifted. This instrument was checked the validity of content and evaluation criteria by the five experienced specialists in science education, and then was administered to 38 students of science high school. Because the validity of content and evaluation criteria, construct validity, inter-rater reliability, item difficulty, and item discrimination are suitable for the criteria of good test, this developed instrument in this study is considered valid and reliable.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.251-264
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• 1994

There are a considerable number of instruments in testing science process skills in Korea as well as America and Europe. However, it has been difficult to find the instruments encompass the wide range of scientific process skills. Most instruments developed and used in Korea were focused on a school level or a few components of scientific process skills. In this study, the researchers examined the whole body of scientific process and identified 10 component skills. Three items for each component process skills were developed and revised by two pilot tests. The final instruments showed moderate difficulty, discrimination index, reliability, and validity. The instrument was also tested the usability by finding differences of students' ability on science process skills by grade levels, sexes, and city size. The results showed that the instrument was proved to be useful to discriminates the differences.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.144-157
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to analyse the influence of mother's characteristics on elementary school students' attitudes toward science. Elementary school students (N=667) and their mothers (N=681) were selected from three other regions, big city, small city, and country. Attitudes toward science and supports for scientific activities were measured by two kinds of instruments. The instrument for the measurement of attitudes toward science includes three scales: cognition about value of science, affection toward science & science learning, and cognitive participation in scientific activities. And the instrument to measure parents' support for scientific activities includes two scales: indirect support and direct support. This research showed that mothers' various characteristics resulted in a difference in students' attitudes toward science. And there were positive correlations between students' attitudes toward science and their mothers' attitudes toward science and support for scientific activities. Also mothers' attitudes toward science and support for scientific activities affected students' attitudes. Especially, mothers' personal interest in science and her mental and physical supports for children's scientific activities had a close relation with students' attitudes toward science.

• 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.20 no.4
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• pp.680-692
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• 2000

An assessment instrument dealing with secondary students' views on the nature of science was developed in this study. The features in aspects of the nature of science are generally accepted as characterizing the scientific enterprise and we have focused on are: 1) the purposes of the scientific enterprise, 2) the nature of scientific enquiry, 3) the nature and status of scientific knowledge, and 4) the nature and functioning of the scientific community. The questionnaire is made of three sections; that is, "Scientific Question", "Experiment", and "Belief". The Scientific Questions probe was designed to examine the ways in which learners mark out science as a particular domain, and particularly the types of questions that they think are open to scientific investigation. The Experiment probe was designed to throw light on the ways in which learners may think about theories and their relationship to evidence in a range of contexts. A related aim concerns the sorts of activities that learners consider to be experiments, and their reasons for this. The Belief probe was designed to see whether students are able to articulate the grounds for their acceptance of a proposition and, if they are, to explore the nature of these grounds. The reliability of the instrument developed in this study was found to be 0.86.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.265-271
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• 1994

The purpose of this survey was to develop the scale for measuring scientific attitudes. This instrument was contain 37 items of five-point Likert format. This survey is designed to measure scientific attitudes of elementary school 3-6 grade. The main results of this survey are as follows: (1) The internal consistency(reliability) was estimated using Cronbach ${\alpha}$ coefficient. The ${\alpha}$ coefficient was 0.91. (2) Male students exhibited more positive attitudes than females according to 2-Way ANOVA. (3) The interaction effect of sex and grade is not significant in level ${\alpha}=.05$. (4) The constructed scale was administered to 343 childrens in grade 3 to 6 of 8 elementary schools in Seoul and Kyeung-gi province.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.367-370
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• 1996

Construction of the 'Two-degree Field' (2dF) instrument on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) is now virtually complete and commissioning is well underway. The key components are described. Several recent milestones are reported, including the first scientific results. Future prospects and plans are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.127-136
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• 1998

The purpose of this study was to develop, field test an instrument to assess secondary school students' conceptions of the nature of science. The instrument named Philosophical Perspectives Probe(PPP) is a pool of 24 multiple-choice items that address a wide range of philosophical topics of science. The statements and the choices of this instrument were derived from an analysis of various philosophical positions. The main philosophical systems of the instrument are inductivism, falsificationism, and relativism, respectively. Major distinctions depend on the issues of the criteria of demarcation, patterns of scienctific change, epistemological status of scientific knowledge, and the scientific methods. The researchers also offer teachers a new way of assessing and interpreting their students' conceptions on a wide variety of topics related to the nature of science.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.237-253
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• 2001

This study examined the effects of the inquiry model on children's scientific thinking ability and processing skills. The experimental classroom of a kindergarten in Seoul was assigned the inquiry model while the control classroom was assigned general scientific education (N=48). Seventeen treatment sessions were applied to the experimental group. Tests to investigate the hypotheses included the Sink and Float Test and a new instrument developed by the researchers. Findings showed that preschoolers receiving the inquiry model of instruction gained higher scores in scientific thinking ability and processing skills than the preschoolers in the classroom using the general scientific education model. In sum, this study proved the superior effect of the inquiry model in developing children's scientific skills and ability.