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An Analysis of the Actual Processes of Physicists’ Research and the Implications for Teaching Scientific Inquiry in School

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Abstract

Investigation of scientists’ actual processes of conducting research can provide us with more realistic aspects of scientific inquiry. This study was performed to identify three aspects of scientists’ actual research: their motivations for scientific inquiry, the scientific inquiry skills they used, and the main types of results obtained from their research. To do this, we interviewed six prominent physicists about why and how they researched and what they obtained from their research results. We also analyzed their published papers. In the previous part of this study, types and features of the physicists’ research motivations were identified (Park and Jang, Journal of the Korean Physical Society, 47(3), 401–408, 2005). In this article, as the second part of the study, it was found: (1) Various inquiry skills including theoretical as well as experimental research skills and the social skills of scientific inquiry were used in physicists’ research. (2) New inventions, articulation of, and falsification of the previous findings were regarded as important research results. (3) Physicists’ research processes were often non-linear and cyclical. For each of these findings, implications for teaching scientific inquiry in schools were developed. Finally, we proposed a model of scientific inquiry process consisting of research motives, scientific inquiry skills, and results of inquiry.

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Notes

  1. They all are professors in top-class universities in Korea. They were awarded academic prizes, published prominent papers in international journals including ‘Nature’, or are performing co-researches internationally now.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics Education, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, 500-757, Korea

    Jongwon Park

  2. Donga Science, Seoul, 120-715, Korea

    Kyoung-Ae Jang

  3. Department of Science Education, Chungbuk National University, Chungbuk, 361-763, Korea

    Ikgyun Kim

Authors
  1. Jongwon Park
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  2. Kyoung-Ae Jang
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  3. Ikgyun Kim
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Correspondence to Jongwon Park.

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Park, J., Jang, KA. & Kim, I. An Analysis of the Actual Processes of Physicists’ Research and the Implications for Teaching Scientific Inquiry in School. Res Sci Educ 39, 111–129 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-008-9079-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-008-9079-8

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