Development & Application of Learning Programs to Improve Scientific Hypothesis Evaluation

The most important goals when teaching science are to improve scientific thinking and knowledge through the inquiry activities. The purpose of science education is to teach students the process of how to think like scientists. Students acquire knowledge through inquiry, but that is a far cry from the way schools teach science. Many science teachers frequently practice experimental and inquiry activities in the school but lean to the activities of acquiring practical information through textbooks. Science teachers need to teach the process of inquiry, such as observation, classification, measurement, generating questions, hypotheses, and hypothesis evaluation in order for a student to develop knowledge of how the scientific process operates. The aim of this study is to develop and apply learning programs to improve 6^th grade elementary students scientific hypothesis evaluation abilities. The objects of this research are four grade six classes in Seoul Elementary School. Two classes applied the improvement-learning program for scientific hypothesis evaluation, the other 2 classes are taught the same content as the traditional learning methods. We compared and measured the scientific interest between the two groups after applying the two different learning programs. The result of this research is that the quotient of first group applied learning program is significantly higher than other group. As well, the first group’s science interest is also higher. Scientific hypothesis evaluation is to make the students familiar with the features and the process, to generate scientific knowledge and to be able to think scientific. This learning program increased student interest in science; as well there was an increase in student participation. Consequently, we need to develop a learning program that highlights inquiry activities and apply it in schools to reach the essence of science education.