The purpose of this study was to analyze the 6th national secondary science curriculum and classroom practices to collect the basic data for developing secondary science program focusing on creative problem-solving ability. The creative problem-solvin...
The purpose of this study was to analyze the 6th national secondary science curriculum and classroom practices to collect the basic data for developing secondary science program focusing on creative problem-solving ability. The creative problem-solving ability was conceptualized as an active process of producing new solutions to problems and consisted of five components: general knowledge, domain-specific knowledge, motivation, divergent thinking and critical thinking. The research questions were generated as follows: (1) Whether creative problem-solving elements-domain specific knowledge(declarative knowledge and inquiry methods) were included or not in the 6th secondary science curriculum, textbooks and teacher`s guide? If so, how are they represented (2) Whether the teachers tried to enhance divergent and critical thinking of their students. Through content analyses, observations and interviews, these research questions were answered as follows: (1) Inquiry methods, which are important to develop creative problem-solving abilities in science, were underestimated in comparison with declarative knowledge. In other words, inquiry methods were regarded only as tools to understand the scientific concepts and principles. (2) It was hard to find the situations which teachers provided opportunities for divergent and critical thinking to their students. Based on these results, the followings were recommended: (1) Inquiry methods should be regarded as a goal not as a tool and be used to acquire inquiry methods themselves. (2) Teachers should not stick to the prescribed inquiry methods prescribed in the textbook, but to give opportunities for thinking various kinds of inquiry methods to improve divergent and critical thinking.