The purpose of this study is to develop an inquiry-learning program, try it in the classroom and to find out some expected changes in the students' scientific attitudes and so to provide some better ways for teaching and learning science. For the task...
The purpose of this study is to develop an inquiry-learning program, try it in the classroom and to find out some expected changes in the students' scientific attitudes and so to provide some better ways for teaching and learning science. For the tasks above, junior high school 1-st year science textbooks were studied closely, which was for sorting out the proper contents for the inquiry learning model, 17 topics being chosen. This program was tried on the 1st-graders in a junior high school for one year, the results of which were analyzed with SPSS/PC program.
1. The experiment group under the method of inquiry learning improved more in scientific attitudes. The students in the experiment group showed a statistically significant difference (p<0.5) as compared with the ones in the control group.
2. The extent of the change in scientific attitudes is different depending on gender. Boys' scientific attitudes were remarkably improved.
3. The experiment group under the method of inquiry learning got higher scores in the areas such as open-mindedness(2.3 points), objectivity(1.6 points), perseverance and endurance(1.5 points), cooperation(1.4 points), curiosity(1.2 points), readiness(1.1 points). In the remaining areas there was a slight improvement.
4. According to the analysis of how much improvement was made in each area and each gender, boys showed positive changes in open-mindedness, objectivity, cooperation, perseverance and endurance; girls, open-mindedness, perseverance and endurance, curiosity and readiness.
5. The lower categories of scientific attitudes showed a static correlation; objectivity .79, open-mindedness .76, critical-mindedness .72, perseverance and endurance .65. In some categories, the changes of scientific attitudes could be significantly predictable to some degree(objectivity 62%, perseverance and endurance 15%, open-mindedness 8%, critical-mindedness 5%).