• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.161-177
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• 2009

This study aims to explore how teachers construct scientific explanation during instructional practices to help students' scientific inquiry. Before investigating teachers' classroom practices, elementary school science curriculum was examined to identify scientific concepts, particularly in earth science. Then, a total of six teachers' scientific explanation in actual teaching practices was analysed focusing on a) explanation of scientific concepts; b) rationale for scientific explanation; c) connection between scientific explanation and everyday explanation. The findings are as follows. First, the science curriculum provides $1{\sim}2$ main scientific concepts per unit, which are mostly appeared in the unit title. Those concepts and sub-concepts are not explicitly described but embedded in students' inquiry activities. Second, the teachers explain scientific concepts and discuss the rationale behind the scientific explanation, but rarely connect scientific explanation to everyday explanation. Also, the level of scientific explanations is low remaining level 1 or 2, not reaching 3, the highest level. Based on the results, the study suggests a) teachers need to provide explicit and clear explanations about scientific concepts; b) teachers are required to connect scientific explanation and everyday explanation; c) the level of teachers scientific explanation should be elevated by using an evidence, reasoning and claim, the components of scientific explanation as well as introducing new scientific concepts and inquiry activities.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.149-160
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• 2007

This study was conducted to investigate the relationships between the patterns of elementary school teachers' explanations and the patterns of students' questions types on scientific phenomena. for the purposes of this study, we collected questions related to scientific phenomena from 255 $3rd{\sim}6th$ students in 2 elementary schools. Classifying the students' questions collected, 20 representative questions for each type were selected. Data regarding teachers' scientific explanation from 62 teachers of 3 elementary schools were also collected. The results of the analysis of the questions for each science field show that the students in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades have the most questions regarding biology, and those in the 6th grade have more questions regarding earth science. Regarding question types, object exploration questions and explican exploration questions formed the majority. Moreover, the higher the students' grades, a decrease in the number of conjectural questions and an increase in the number of causal questions were observed. As a result of the analysis of the teachers' explanation, the following explanation types could be discerned; conjecture, hypothesis, prediction, teleological explanation, information given to feed exploration questions, as well as verification and information supply fer verification purposes. There were 4 kinds of relationships between question types and explanation types. One was the explanation fitting to each question type, a second was the explanation with additional content than the question required, a third was where the explanation was inappropriate to the question, and a forth was where the teacher responded that they "don't know." This study, investigating the relationships between questioning as a scientific inquiry process and explanation, will help to promote discussion regarding science classes in elementary school.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.509-520
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• 2023

Scientific explanation is the main goal of scientists' scientific practice, and the science curriculum also includes developing students' abilities to construct scientific explanations as a major goal. Thus, clarifying its meaning is an important issue in the science education community. In this paper, the researchers identified three perspectives on 'scientific explanation' based on the scoping review method (Deductive-Nomological, Probabilistic, and Pragmatic explanation models). We argued that it is important to clarify and distinguish the meanings of 'scientific explanation' from other concepts used in science education, such as 'description', 'prediction', 'hypothesis', and 'argument' based on a review of the literature. It is also pointed out that there is a difference between 'scientific explanation' as a product and 'explaining scientifically' as communication, and several ways to revise achievement standard statements in the science curriculum are suggested, to guide students to construct scientific explanations and to help students to explain scientifically. By adopting the three scientific explanation models, the important factors to be considered were classified and organized, and examples of science learning activities for scientific explanation considering such factors were suggested. It is hoped that the discussion in this study will help establish clearer learning goals in science learning related to scientific explanation and aid the design of more appropriate learning activities accordingly.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.96-108
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate how prospective elementary school teachers perceived teacher's inquiryoriented teaching practice, with an emphasis on students' scientific explanations based on scientific evidence. For this study, 94 prospective elementary school teachers were participated. 14 among 94 participants had chances to intensively experience this particular teaching methods for 15 weeks. All of the 94 participants observed the intended science teaching practice for 4th graders in two different elementary schools, which utilized the science talks emphasizing students' scientific explanation activity. For quantitative data analysis, they were asked to provide their reaction to the science teaching methods after their classroom observation. For qualitative data analysis, 5 among the participants, who had relatively long term experience with this teaching practice, were chosen to interview in order to understand their individual reasons of the ways they perceived about the inquiry-oriented teaching methods boosting students' scientific explanation. The results show that the prospective elementary teachers generally thought the emphasis of students' scientific explanation based on scientific evidence could enhance young elementary students' science content understanding, stimulate their curiosity/interests, and further develop their ability to engage actively in scientific discussions. However, some prospective teachers tended to think that the science teaching. methods would not be effective in terms of managing science classes, though. This study concludes that the prospective teachers tended to hold an endemic dilemma. On the one hand, they had their clear preference to the inquiry-oriented teaching practice as the most ideal teaching methods. On the other hand, they also had their persistent hesitance in using these methods due to their fear that elementary students might not adequately grasp the important science content when engaged in scientific discourse through an inquiry-oriented class.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.367-377
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to see the influences of POE science class that emphasizes explanation on science research ability, motivation of science class as well as scientific attitude of elementary students. The results drawn from this analysis were as below. Firstly, positive relationship was found between science research ability and POE science class was shown among research group. This shows that science research ability was improved as POE science class encouraged the research activities of students. It indicates that POE science class emphasizing explanation is effective in improving science research ability of students. Secondly, positive relationship was found between motivation of science class and POE science class among research group and this means that POE science class that emphasizes explanation stimulates intellectual curiosity of students and improves their attitude by actively promoting research activities. Thirdly, there was a positive relationship between scientific attitude and POE science class among research group. This presents that POE science class emphasizing explanation is effective in improving students' attitude toward science by promoting research activities. Above results show that POE science class emphasizing explanation is highly effective for elementary students. It is considered that scientific writing, discussion and debate classes have positive influences on research ability, motivation of science class and scientific attitude of elementary students. Thus, it is needed to apply POE science class to current science class as it can promote wider scientific activities among students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.637-645
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• 2006

This study reviewed and discussed the nature of scientific hypothesis described in philosophy, the philosophy of science, science, and science education. In these descriptions, a hypothesis was defined as one of five types: hypothesis as an assumption, hypothesis as a prediction, hypothesis as a tentative explanation, hypothesis as a tentative law, and hypothesis as a tentative causal explanation. Most scholars agreed that a hypothesis is a proposition or a set of propositions proposed as an explanation for an observed situation. In this view, a hypothesis is a possible answer to or an explanation of a question that accounts for all the observed facts. Also, it is a statement that explains why things happen in nature or an explanation for an observation that can be tested. In the five types of hypothesis meanings, a tentative explanation includes a tentative law and a tentative causal explanation. However, tentative laws are not explanation but description which are general statements drawn from specific experiences by way of a process known as induction. A number of studies also have distinguished hypothesis from assumption, tentative explanation, tentative law, and prediction. Therefore, a hypothesis is concluded to be a proposition or a set of propositions proposed as a tentative causal explanation for an observed situation.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.497-512
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• 2023

While scientific explanation is a fundamental component of science, teachers often lack familiarity with the formal structure of scientific explanations and the criteria for assessing their quality. Consequently, this study aims to clarify the concept of scientific explanation and proposes a tool for constructing scientific explanations. The primary objective is to explore the tool's impact on enhancing the explanatory skills of pre-service teachers when it comes to the phenomenon of condensation. The research findings indicate that many pre-service teachers initially operated at a description level during the pre-test. However, the implementation of the tool enabled them to advance their explanatory skills beyond the associative level. Notably, the tool was analyzed for its ability to provide pre-service teachers with a conceptual framework for explaining phenomena and guiding logical explanations and micro-level interpretations. This study holds significance in demonstrating that pre-service teachers can comprehend the formalities and criteria of scientific explanations and apply them to enhance their own explanatory abilities. Moving forward, efforts should be made to enhance the scientific explanation level among pre-service teachers across various topics and subject areas. Furthermore, pre-service teachers need classroom experiences that foster the construction of scientific explanations in authentic contexts.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.724-735
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to confirm correlation between elementary school students' VARK Learning styles test and Scientific Communication Skills through VARK questionnaire (version 7.3) for Youngers and Scientific Communication Skills Test. The subjects were 99 in 6th grade students of an elementary school located in Gyeonggi-do, Korea. The results of this study were as follows: 64% of the students had multiple learning styles, but only 36% of the students preferred a single mode of information presentation. Among students had a single mode preference, the aural ("A") was the highest unimodal preference. Among "V(visual)" mode, "A" mode, "R(read/write)" mode, and "K(kinesthetic)" mode, "A" mode was the commonest learning mode which students had. In Scientific Communication Skills Test, students' overall average was 26.19p [scientific explanation type (11.85p), scientific insistence type (14.34p)]. Girls' scores were higher than boys in scientific explanation type, but not in scientific insistence type. The scores by communication forms were Text (5.67p), Number (6.87p), Table (6.15p), and Picture (7.49p). Girls' scores were higher than boys in Text and Picture forms but not in Number and Table forms. In result of correlation analysis (Spearman's rho) between VARK Learning Styles and the types & forms of Scientific Communication Skills, there were common correlation in "Read/write (R) learning style-Scientific insistence type", "Read/write (R) learning style-Grounds of Scientific insistence", "Read/write (R) learning style-Description of Scientific explanation", and "R learning style-Text form".

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2018

Factors and causal structures of pre-service elementary teachers about the critical thinking and the scientific literacy competency were investigated in this study. The third grade university students and the first grade university students in the metropolitan city participated in this study. The factor analysis method and the structural equation modeling method were used for the data analysis, and the following results were obtained. First, the third grade university students and the first grade university students recognized 'inquisitive thinking' factor and 'reflective thinking' factor as factors of the critical thinking, and 'scientific explanation' factor and 'evidence-based conclusion' factor as factors of the scientific literacy competency respectively. Second, the third grade university students showed more the influence from 'reflective thinking' factor to 'scientific explanation' factor and from 'reflective thinking' factor to 'evidence-based conclusion' factor than the first grade university students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.634-649
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• 2003

The aim of this paper was to diagnose Korean sixth graders' understanding for scientific evidence and explanation. The instrument constructed by Jeong, Songer, and Lee (2002) was used to assess students' understanding for priority of scientific evidence, objectivity of data, relevance of evidence, data interpretation, coordination of theory and evidence, and repeated observation. Results showed that although many students recognized certain features of scientific inquiry such as objectivity of data, few of them understood why such features are valued and how to collect and use such data. In particular, students experienced difficulty in formulating explanation from evidence, not knowing, for example, that repeated observations are needed before making a general statement. The results of this study suggest that efforts to foster students' inquiry abilities need to be based on careful analyses of students existing inquiry skills and understanding.