A number of studies have been conducted about school classes, because they are the most important part of school education. If the classroom was compared with ecology, it was natural to think that teacher and student are species and they are in the process of coevolution. Therefore, it is necessary to study about verbal interaction through coevolutional approach between teachers and students in science classes.
The purposes of this study were: (1) to analyze verbal interaction through coevolutional approach between teachers and students in science classes; (2) to identify the effects of the program designed to encourage teachers’ questions. The influences of teachers and students’ verbal interaction were measured by statistical method with SPSS 18.0K for windows and the evolution process was measured by changes of the number of verbal interaction type.
Classroom observations, program designed to encourage teachers’ questions, worksheets were collected from 28 science teachers of 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade and their 840 students for 1 year. And collected data were gone through transcription, coding, statistical method, making influence matrix,A thesis submitted to the Council of the Graduate school of Kyungpook National University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in June 2015.
drawing influence network using Social Network Analysis program(NetMiner 4, Demo version) and analyzed.
The results of this study were shown as following. First, in the case of all teachers and students, as time went in the number of verbal interaction type had been changed. Through influence network, the influences of verbal interaction between teachers and students were positive and those of teachers-teachers were negative in March, June, September, November. But after time went on, March-June, June-September, September-November, the influences of positive and negative were mixed between teachers and students. In the case of level of school, all school teachers and students’ number of verbal interaction type was changed and the number of verbal interaction type was higher in elementary school teachers and students than those in secondary school. In addition, as time went, positive effects of verbal interaction in elementary school teachers and students were higher than those in secondary school teachers and students. Second, the program encouraging teachers’ questions were effective in the part of the number of verbal interaction type and influence network but not effective in type of verbal interaction. In other words, the number of verbal interaction type of teachers participating program was higher than that of teachers not participating program. In social network of teachers participating program, it had more effective interaction between teachers and students and had more effective teachers’ questions to students’ responses. It means that the interaction of teachers and students was active and good.
This study contributes to compare influence through influence network between two groups. And it is also necessary to utilize the program to encourage teachers’ questions in teacher training process and real classroom. If teachers arrange questions before the class, ask questions in the class, and reflect questions after the class, verbal interaction between teachers and students takes place more frequently and it helps science classes to be more effective for students.