Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary gifted students' characteristics of observing and inferring in the inquiry activities. For this study, 40 students of the 4th and 5th grades participated in inquiry activities where the strata were developed well, Haenam Uhangri province. And we analyzed the outcomes of students' inquiry activities. The results are as follows. First, 119 units as observing results were obtained, but most of them showed that they were not focused on the portion of stratus, but that they were implicated in whole stratus as observing object. Second, 90 units were collected with reasoning results, but 4 units of them were wrong in constructing of inferring. Based on outcomes of students' inferring, elementary students preferred to apply deductive inferring method rather than use abductive inferring. Third, only 39 of 119 units acquired from observing were used for constructing inferring and 80 which were discovered from observing activities were discarded without applying of inquiry activities. Fourth, about 42% of students' inferring results were in accord with them of the geologists. But 58% views which didn't agree with geologists showed that they were applied to misconceptions among constructing inferring.

Keywords

• inquiry activity;
• observing;
• inferring;
• elementary gifted student