An Analysis of the Actual Processes of Physicists'Research and the Implications for TeachingScientific Inquiry in School

摘要

Investigation of scientists' actual processes of conducting research can provideus with more realistic aspects of scientific inquiry. This study was performed to identifythree aspects of scientists' actual research: their motivations for scientific inquiry, thescientific inquiry skills they used, and the main types of results obtained from theirresearch. To do this, we interviewed six prominent physicists about why and how theyresearched and what they obtained from their research results. We also analyzed theirpublished 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 PhysicalSociety, 47(3), 401-408, 2005). In this article, as the second part of the study, it was found:(I) Various inquiry skills including theoretical as well as experimental research skills andthe social skills of scientific inquiry were used in physicists' research. (2) New inventions,articulation of, and falsification of the previous findings were regarded as importantresearch results. (3) Physicists' research processes were often non-linear and cyclical. Foreach of these findings, implications for teaching scientific inquiry in schools weredeveloped. Finally, we proposed a model of scientific inquiry process consisting of researchmotives, scientific inquiry skills, and results of inquiry.