• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.207-218
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• 2010

The revised curriculum in 2007 adds an open inquiry approach to increase students' creativity and interest in science. Because it is the first time for elementary students to perform the open inquiry due to the national curriculum, it is essential that teachers give students' successful experiences in order to build a positive impression about inquiry activity. The purpose of this research is to develop and apply the open inquiry program. The research findings are as follows: First, we analyzed the students' traits of open inquiry ability during the program. The third and fourth grade students showed weakness in operating and inquiring abilities. They also feared failure and were unable to concentrate in classes which were based on explanation or discussion. When students had unexpected results, however, their inquiring abilities and creativeness increased considerably. Additionally there were some students who were stressed during the science-inquiry activity, due to no interest in science and an inability to think scientifically. Second, we developed an open inquiry program for elementary students. The program was modified, reflected upon the students' traits during open inquiry in class. Through repeated feedback like this, we completed the program. Third, for those who studied in the lessons there was a meaningful change in students' science inquiry abilities and abilities to perform 'formulating a hypothesis' and 'the control of variables'. These students' level of self-inquiry performance improved steadily. Moreover, they obtained a strong attachment to their inquiry and understood the method of quantitative experiments.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.404-414
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• 2009

The revised curriculum in 2007 includes open inquiry approach to increase students' interest in science and to build up creativity. So teachers and pre-service teachers should be equipped with the ability of open inquiry performance. In order to investigate pre-service teachers' readiness to perform open inquiry tasks, we analyzed reports written as homework by a group of 71 juniors in a national university of education. The investigation tool was composed of four domains: topic selection, the inquiry process, the conclusion, and reporting. Each domain had three or four sub-domains. By using the framework, four raters scored the students' inquiry reports. The findings reveal that the pre-service elementary school teachers have difficulty in the domain of 'topic selection' and the 'conclusion' compared with the other domains. Under the topic selection domain, they showed weaknesses in 'creativity' and 'scientific topic' and under the conclusion domain, they had difficulty in 'recognizing limits' and 'value of conclusion'. The finding suggests that pre-service teaching program should provide with opportunities to perform open inquiry continually.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.1199-1213
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difficulties in engaging in open-inquiry activities - especially finding inquiry topics for student themselves. Data were collected from in-depth interviews with 11 middle school students and their open-inquiry worksheets from 4 months of activities. The investigation tools were composed of three domains for topic choice: selecting subjects, making 10 questions, and choosing a topic with the 10 questions. The study revealed that middle school students have difficulties in the domain of 'object selection' and 'finding inquiry topic.' Under the object selection domain, they showed burden of selection of unlimited subject, lack of knowledge on the science object, and lack of interest in object. Under the domain of finding inquiry topic, they have difficulties from their selected topics that were non-scientific, focus only on interest, lack of background information or those that could be resolved by short answers. Each student has difficulty in doing open-inquiry with relatively different seriousness. The findings suggested that an open inquiry program should be provided along with a systematic guide program on finding inquiry topic for open-inquiry activities to be a successful and continual performance gauge.

• 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.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.647-667
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• 2009

This study intends to analyze open-ended inquiry activities of elementary science-gifted students in terms of how similar they are to authentic science inquiry and suggest desirable ways to make more effective programs for the gifted. For this study, we selected a small group with five elementary science-gifted students who had participated in the open inquiry program of summer camp held in the Institute for Science Gifted Education and collected data through recording and video-taping their discussion and performance from planning to coordinating inquiry results. The data was analyzed in terms of epistemological features and cognitive process in authentic science inquiry. The results is as follows. In terms of epistemology, students' inquiry methods were theory laden and they constructed knowledge in collaborative groups. For example, the students often discussed about performing the thought experiment and scientific concept related to inquiry task or their opinion. And in terms of cognitive process, their designing inquiry was similar to authentic science inquiry especially selecting variables, planning procedures, controlling variables, planning measures.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.261-277
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• 2013

This study aims to investigate the effect of a scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program on pre-service elementary school teachers' attitudes toward science and scientific inquiry in the class of elementary school science educational theory at education university. As for research subjects, this study selected 141 pre-service elementary school teachers who were in the third year of education university. The results of this study can be summarized as below. First, it was found that the scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program improved pre-service elementary school teachers' attitudes toward science and helped them realize it important to have knowledge about science, further making them find it more enjoyable to teach science at school in the future. Second, it was found that the scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program had positive effect on pre-service elementary school teachers' attitudes toward scientific inquiry. In other words, they came to think of inquiry-based learning styles as an important course of science class. Third, as a result of carrying out open-ended questions about what would be helpful in an actual education site through the scientific inquiry worksheet-making class program, this study found out that most of the research subjects responded it would be helpful when applying a class model, and thought it would be helpful for elementary school students to have scientific knowledge and understand the process of inquiry.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.spc5
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• pp.522-531
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• 2007

A Science Camp Program was developed and applied as an intensified course for gifted students. The implications for the development and implementation of out-of-school science activities were also deduced through the analysis of the preliminary application results. The key point of the science camp program is to boost students' science inquiry skills through self-directed activities. Several positive effects in terms of interest and participation in the program were observed and some implications were derived as follows; (1) The program should provide the students with more opportunities for discussion and debate in group activities. (2) The tasks need be divided into two parts; basic tasks and optional tasks in order to ensure that the students engage in fewer tasks more intensively. (3) Each activity needs sufficient orientation taking consideration of the possibility that not all students may be ready for the inquiry. (4) The use of real examples of scientific research processes can help the students develop open inquiry skills and problem posing skills.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.53-65
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• 2022

In the application and composition of learning content, the field trip learning of scientific inquiry could provide a positive effect. Also, it can arouse an experience of various inquiry activities through open thinking. In addition, it could take a positive effect by providing the diversity and specificity of wildlife experience for the living organism. The biology inquiry program of the field trip is a necessary process to acquire ecological experiences in the learning context. However, there is some problem to solve before the performance of field trip learning as professional knowledge of the outdoors inquiry. Therefore, this study developed a field trip inquiry program for the plant in a coastal dune using artificial intelligence to assist professional knowledge. The researcher carried out literature reviews and analysis related to studies and programs to investigate learning steps, content, and strategy. Also, this study investigated the effects of the program on the affective domain of gifted elementary science students. According to the results of this study, the program can provide a positive effect on motivation, task commitment, and attitude level. Consequently, the field trip learning program for plant in the coastal dune using artificial intelligence developed in this study can arouse a positive effect on the affective domain. Therefore, additional study is necessary related to inquiry programs of the field trip for various students and sites.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.903-927
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• 2012

The study aimed to analyze middle school students construction of physics inquiry problems for open inquiry from the viewpoint of variable isolation and clarification, and investigate students' difficulties during the processes of variable isolation and clarification to get implications for teaching and learning strategies for small group open inquiry activities which have been included in the 2007 national curriculum. The participants were 4 students who had attended an outreach program for the science gifted run by a university institution located in Seoul area. They performed an open inquiry on egg drop for 13 lessons for 30 hours. Level descriptions for variable isolation and clarification have been developed and applied to analyze students' inquiry problems and variables included by the problems. Students iterated inquiry processed 5 times and the inquiry problem showed progress gradually. Dependent variables have been isolated ahead and the levels of variable isolation and clarification showed higher than the independent variables. Many kinds of independent variables isolated extensively and the independent variables and control variables have been mingled. One of the reasons why students had some difficulties in isolation of independent variables could be the absence of theoretical models. The realities of school lab could restrict the variable isolation and clarification as well as topic selections. Some sensory or extensive variables such as broken eggs and drop height seem to be salient to be focused on as core variables. Lack of background knowledges could be one of the reasons for students' difficulties in variable clarification, such as theoretical definitions and operational definitions. As a result of lacking background knowledges, students could not construct theoretical models even though they could isolate and clarify variables as scientific lexical definitions. Some perceptions of inquiry as trial and error or reckless establishment of causal relations between variables could be accounted as one reason.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.573-584
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• 2015

Inquiry has been consistently emphasized in science education as a crucial element for learning. Although many researchers came to agree on the importance of scientific inquiry, authentic inquiry activities are hard to be actualized in an educational context. Therefore it is required to critically examine what teachers have difficulty in teaching inquiry. In this article, we looked into inquiry-based science activities in a small group setting where pre-service science teachers faced dilemmas between cognition and practice of inquiry. A case study was conducted on eight undergraduate students who are majoring in science education. The participants attended a weekly science program for middle school students in low SES as teaching assistants and mentors, and took full care of his/her mentees during open-inquiry activities. The results were drawn by analyzing participants' personal and group interviews, participant observations, self-reports, and others. The pre-service teachers viewed the knowledge and procedure of science as an essential factor in inquiry activities along with student's spontaneous attitude. However, in the process of performing inquiry, they faced several dilemmas between ideal cognition and real activities. The aspects of dilemmas could be summarized in three pairs of opposing concepts: 'diverging inquiry or converging science', 'interest-centered inquiry or learning-centered inquiry', and 'student as the subject or student with the insufficient expertise.' We discussed ways of resolving dilemmas and alternative perspectives on scientific inquiry.