Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education (한국과학교육학회지)

The Korean Association for Science Education (한국과학교육학회)
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Exploring Reasoning Patterns of Students' Scientific Thinking, Inquiry Activities in Textbook, and Examination Items

  • Published : 2003.08.30
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Abstract

Scientific reasoning is one of the main concerns in current science education. This study have tried to answer on the question whether Korean science education has the potential to help improve of students' ability to think scientifically. Therefore, the present study investigated the relationship between reasoning patterns evident in science textbook and science examination items, and students' scientific reasoning skills across grades in Korea. 1975 subjects (1022 females and 953 males) were administered in the Lawson's Test of Scientific Reasoning skills. Forty seven science textbooks and 240 assessment instrument were analyzed by several scientific reasoning keys. Scientific reasoning patterns were adopted from Lawson's classification which characterized the patterns as the empirical-inductive and the hypothetical-deductive. This study found that reasoning patterns evident in textbook analyses and assessment instrumental items do not evidentce the potential to stimulate the development of students' reasoning skill. In order to improve the students' abilities to think and achieve, higher levels of reasoning must be included in the science textbook and examination. Further, some of scientific reasoning processes, such as generating hypotheses, designing experiments, and logical prediction, were not found in science textbooks and test items in Korean secondary schools. This study also discussed the educational implication of these results and further studies about to develop student's reasoning ability.

Keywords

References

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