A Study of the Kinds and Frequency Characteristics of Descriptors in the Articles Related to Scientific Literacy

과학적 소양 관련 논문에서 서술자의 종류와 빈도 특성 연구

This study analyzed the kinds and frequencies of descriptors in 154 articles in ERIC data base on the 4th day of January in 2010. The titles of the articles includes the words, 'scientific literacy'. As each descriptor is constituted of two words and over, in this study the first word in the descriptor was defined as 'restrictive word' and the rest word(s) as 'target word(s)'. The results are as follows. First, the descriptors which show high frequencies of target words are the traditionally important themes of scientific literacy education. Target words which show relatively high frequency are 'education', 'literacy', 'instruction' and 'countries'. Low frequency word is 'curriculum', which has various restrictive words and represents wide differentiation. Second, among the descriptors which show low frequencies of target words, relatively high frequency descriptors are '(and)society', 'change', 'secondary education', 'concepts', and 'biology', which have been given more attention in scientific literacy research than the rest descriptors. Third, the number of the descriptors that shows largely distributed pattern A, which happens over 15 years continuously, is over the half of all analyzed descriptors, which shows that they have been the major objectives in researches about scientific literacy. Most descriptors of pattern A shows normal distribution of frequency or the trends of increasing frequency as the time is nearer. Fourth, The descriptors are divided into four groups according to the time span. Each research trends are as follows. In later 80s, the research which emphasizes the importance of the sociality and technology in all level school science curriculum. In later 90s the research for educational change of inquiry-centered science curriculum which considers technological literacy in social contexts. In earlier 2000s the research that scientists and science teachers develop science curricula mostly related to scientific principles and thinking in chemistry and biology especially. In later 2000s case studies which relates teaching methods and science process activities to students' attitudes, scientific concepts and curricula.