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(Gyeongin National University of Education)
The purpose of this study was to explore North Korean immigrant elementary students' cognitive and affective characteristics related to science education. A total of 68 North Korean immigrant students enrolled in 3 to 6 grades and 133 South Korean students in 4 and 6 grades in 3 South Korean elementary schools participated in the study. A short version of Group Assessment of Logical Thinking(GALT) was used to investigate the students' levels of logical thinking, and the Enjoyment of Science Lessons Scale(ESLS) of the Test of Science Related Attitudes(TOSRA) was administrated to examine their attitudes towards science lessons. The statistical analysis of data revealed that the level of logical thinking of the North Korean immigrant elementary students was very low and that this was also the case for the South Korean students. Especially, the mean score of logical thinking of the North Korean immigrant 6 graders was much lower when compared with that of the South Korean counterparts. For both the North Korean immigrant students and South Korean students, the enjoyment of science lessons decreased as they progressed through higher grades. This decreasing trend, however, turned out to be more serious in the South Korean elementary students. Based on these results, suggestions were presented to help successful science learning of North Korean immigrant elementary students.