小学校理科教育における帰納的 : 演繹的方法の適用

In science education it is necessary to develop not only the pupils' scientific knowledge but scientific thinking as well. Therefore, in our daily science classrooms, we should take into consideration the teaching methods most appropriate for developing scientific thinking of the pupils.
It is generally said that logical and abstruct thinking are developed from the fifth and sixth grade of elementary schools. In this research we are undertaking, we are trying to study whether scientific thinking can be developed in the sixth grade pupils and also to find the most effective method in teaching.
In order to study further, we set up three experimental classes as follows:
1. Usual classroom method : To teach mainly with concentration on the pupils' knowledge and his understanding of s cience
2. Deductive method : Propose their own hypothesis and work out experiments
3. Inductive-Deductive method : Through heuristic approach by experiments. After putting into practice the unit of "the Mechanism of Machines" which was thought to be the most effective, we obtained analysis of several data from this study and by which we were able to compare the three methods.
Sufficient data was not available to show the final results but we were able to find the following tendency from this study:
1. By looking at the results from the pupils' knowledge of science or understanding of the problem through their paper test scores, we found that Inductive-Deductive method is inferior to the Usual or Deductive methods.
2. The Inductive-Deductive method is superior to the Usual or Deductive methods in the ability to perform experiments precisely. The pupils in the Deductive methods class were not precise and were apt to record their findings inaccurately.
3. The pupils of Usual method and Deductive method classes were hasty in obtaining results when working on an experiment.
4. On the attitude to perform experiments, the pupils in the Inductive-Deductive method class were superior compared to the Deductive method class.
5. In solving a problem, the Inductive-Deductive method class started from the first step but in Deductive method class many of the pupils tried to formulate a conclusion from the start.