Jiyeon You  Hunsik Kang

10.5012/jkcs.2025.69.6.319

Orientation toward scientific inquiry teaching Pre-service elementary teacher Elementary science inquiry education Experiential factor

This study investigated the effects of the “elementary science inquiry education” course on pre-service elementary teachers’ orientation toward scientific inquiry teaching and the factors of the teaching-learning experience of the course that affected the orientation. To do so, 45 second-year students (11 males and 34 females) taking the course at a university of education were surveyed about their orientation toward scientific inquiry teaching before and after taking the course. In addition, the experience factors that influenced their orientation toward scientific inquiry teaching were examined after the course, and individual in-depth interviews were conducted with some students. The results showed that before the course, the most common orientation toward scientific inquiry teaching was “scientific practice”, followed by “concept understanding” and “complex”. In particular, “complex” was mainly a mixture of “concept understanding” and “scientific practice”. “Process skills”, “activity driven”, and “engineering practice” were very rare. After taking the course, “complex” was the most common, followed by “scientific practice”. While “complex” was still dominated by a mix of “concept understanding” and “scientific practice”, there were some new mixes that did not appear before the course. “Concept understanding”, “activity driven”, “process skills”, and “engineering practice” were very rare. By type of change in orientation toward scientific inquiry teaching, “simple → complex” was the most common, and “simple → simple” was the second most common. Many pre-service elementary teachers selected “preparing for science class demonstration”, “mentoring from a professor in preparing for science class demonstration”, “conducting science class demonstration”, “mentoring from a professor after conducting science class demonstration”, “learning theories about science learning models”, “participating in science classes as a learner”, “peer discussion and feedback on science class demonstration”, “learning theories about process skills”, “learning theories about the nature of science”, and “analyzing science textbooks” as experience factors that influenced their science inquiry teaching orientation.