Understandings about the Nature of Scientific Inquiry by Science Gifted Students at ASEAN+3 Science Camp

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate what extent science gifted students understand about the nature of scientific inquiry and how their understanding levels differ between Korea and other six Asian countries and among three science majors, physics, chemistry, and biology. For this end, 101 students (60.5%) from the 167 participants at ASEAN+3 science gifted students camp in January 2021 completed the questionnaire of VOSI (Views of Scientific Inquiry; Swartz et al., 2008). The quantitative data collected from the questionnaire were coded as two levels, naive and informed. And two paired items about each view were combined and coded as naive, transitional, and informed. For the results, science gifted students in this study showed that the average ratio of the three views on the nature of scientific inquiry was 42.8% for naive level of understanding and 57.2% for informed level. Among three views with five items, the highest rate of understanding as informed was for the view, ‘Inquiry procedures can influence results.’ while the lowest rate was appeared with the view ‘There is no single scientific method.’ Science gifted students of Korea showed higher rate of informed level about the view, ‘There is no single scientific method.’ than other six Asian countries. But the rest two views were opposite as the understanding ratio of the informed level by other countries were higher than those by Korea. There were distinct differences among three science majors and between Korea and other Asian countries. It was called that further research about scientific gifted students’ understanding of the nature of scientific inquiry should be conducted.