Student questioning is included in the priority of science literacy, to enable students to solve problems by exploring questions, communicating and constructing knowledge(AAAS, 1989). Also, the essence of student questioning in science lies in its fun...
Student questioning is included in the priority of science literacy, to enable students to solve problems by exploring questions, communicating and constructing knowledge(AAAS, 1989). Also, the essence of student questioning in science lies in its function as a link between thinking and learning. But educators did not pay much attention to students` questioning in Korea. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of science question enhancement instruction on students` science questioning level and achievement. Also, this study showed the effects of other variables(logical thinking, science achievement, interest, and gender) on students` science questioning level. The pretest-posttest control group design was used. The sample was consisted of 80 second grade middle school students in experimental group(Science question enhancement instruction) and 74 students in control group(Traditional learning). Students in both groups were received identical content instruction on the unit `Structures and functions of plant`. These groups were treated for 15 hours during 6 weeks. Students` questions were rated using the four levels described by the Middle School Students` Science Question Rating Scale(r=.96,)(Cuccio-Schirripa & Steinner, 2000). Science achievement data were collected using a 17 item multiple choice test(Cronbach a=.84). To investigate students` logical thinking ability, a abridged GALT(Cronbach a=.69) was used. Five-way ANOVA, ANCOVA, and multiple regression analysis were used to analyze the results. The results indicated that students who received instruction on researchable questioning outperformed those students who were not instructed on high-order questioning(p<.01). Results of correlations indicated that instruction(r=.640), science achievement(r=.311) and logical thinking ability(r=.212) was significantly and positively related with students` questioning level. But, interest and gender did not show any significant correlation with students` questioning level. Science question enhancement instruction was more effective on science achievement than the traditional instruction(p<.01).