생명 현상에 대한 가설 검증 방법의 고안 과정에서 나타나는 초등 예비 교사의 두뇌 활성 - fMRI 연구

The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural responses associated with the invention of hypothesis-testing methods and examine the brain activation patterns of the four sub steps of this process, such as recognition of hypotheses (ROH), representation of relations of variables (RRV), representation of experienced situations (RES), and construction of hypothesis-testing methods (CHM). To measure pre-service elementary school teachers’ brain activities during the invention of hypothesis-testing methods, experimenters developed 3 task sets and administered them to 10 participants. Each task set contained four types of tasks corresponded with four sub steps of the process of the invention of hypothesis-testing methods. BOLD signals of the participants’ brain were measured by a 3.0 T fMRI system. In comparisons of the ROH task versus baseline resting condition, left and right hippocampus, right parahippocampal gyrus, left and right precuneus, FEF region, pariel lobe and left hippocampus were activated. In the case of RRV, DLPFC regions, parietal lobe and right hippocampus were activated. Brain activation areas of RES were inferior frontal gyrus and bilateral hippocampus. Finally, in the case of CHM, left middle frontal gyrus was particularly activated. These results suggested that the process of the invention of hypothesis-testing methods is extremely complicated process and each sub step of this process is involved in specific neural-network circuit. We are considering that these results could be applied on the construction of brain-based science education curriculum.