This study aimed to analyze the degree of concern and satisfaction of elementary students about school science lesson. For this study, the survey was carried out on 660 primary school students in the 4th, 5th and 6th grades. The results of this study are as follows; The degree of concern and satisfaction of primary school students about school science lesson was higher than usual label. And the degree of satisfaction was higher than the degree of concern. This means that school science lessons are sufficient to the expectations of the students and are desirable. The correlation of the degree of concern about school science lesson and the degree of satisfaction about school science lessons was an affirmative interrelation. This means that the more the degree of concern about school science lesson is higher, the more the degree of satisfaction about school science lesson is higher. The students who were younger, had higher interest in science showed a higher degree of concern and satisfaction about school science lessons, but there were no differences when it came to sex. This means that students are provided the experience in which they are able to do the various scientific activities and they are able to study science joyfully. Consequently, teachers should teach students well by grasping the degree of concern and satisfaction of primary school students about school science lessons.

This study investigated pre-service elementary school teacher's perception of science curriculum use in Korea and Japan. Ninety four pre-service elementary teachers in Korea and fifty three pre-service elementary teachers in Japan are participated in this study. As the result, four patterns were revealed. First, science isn't perceived as an important or interesting subject by the pre-service elementary teachers in both countries. Second, the perception of Korean pre-service teachers about the objectives of science subject is relatively negative. Third, in the case of Korea, the perception about the effectiveness of science subject content and level, and the amount of learning is shown to be more negative than those of Japan. Finally, in both countries, the science majors and the non-science majors have negative perceptions about the inclusion of the perspectives and methods of assessment and the preparation of teaching and learning plan in curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to examine the instructional effect of problem-based learning on creative problem-solving skills and academic achievement in elementary science classes. Based on the literature review, six stages for problem-based learning were applied: Orientation, Presenting problems and the process of learning, preliminary problem solving, problem solving, sharing results, and wrapping up/evaluating. The subjects were 74 students in two six-grade classes in Gyeonggi province. As a result, the following findings were given: First, the students who were engaged in problem-based learning showed better progress in creative problem-solving skills. Second, science academic achievement of experimental group were better than traditional group. Educational implications were discussed.

We have examined the perception of teachers and students in elementary schools toward the frontier science and analyzed corresponding contents in science textbooks in Korea and the U. S. in order to promote a good guidance for the frontier science education. We prepared separate questionnaires for teachers and children, respectively, and analyzed the responses obtained from 244 teachers and 1,000 students in five elementary schools. For the analysis of how to introduce the frontier science, we investigated textbooks such as Science, Society and Practical Arts of Korean elementary school, and an American science textbook published by Scott Foresman. This study revealed that teachers are well aware of the importance of the frontier science, however, they are inactive in conducting the subject in class rooms because of their insufficient scientific knowledge and poor environment for teaching. It has been found that children had strong interest in the frontier science, however, opportunities to learn the topic are not properly provided. The frontier science m the American science textbook turned out to be more systematically introduced than that in Korean ones.

The revised curriculum in 2007 includes open inquiry approach to increase students' interest in science and to build up creativity. So teachers and pre-service teachers should be equipped with the ability of open inquiry performance. In order to investigate pre-service teachers' readiness to perform open inquiry tasks, we analyzed reports written as homework by a group of 71 juniors in a national university of education. The investigation tool was composed of four domains: topic selection, the inquiry process, the conclusion, and reporting. Each domain had three or four sub-domains. By using the framework, four raters scored the students' inquiry reports. The findings reveal that the pre-service elementary school teachers have difficulty in the domain of 'topic selection' and the 'conclusion' compared with the other domains. Under the topic selection domain, they showed weaknesses in 'creativity' and 'scientific topic' and under the conclusion domain, they had difficulty in 'recognizing limits' and 'value of conclusion'. The finding suggests that pre-service teaching program should provide with opportunities to perform open inquiry continually.

This study was performed to reveal the effects of a science experience class, in which children of low-income family(LIF) were involved. The children's science inquiry skills, science-related attitude, self-esteem and self-competence were investigated before and after the science experience class. Not only 61 children in LIF but also 75 ordinary ones participated in the class and the tests to collect the data, and interviews in which 9 children of each group participated were conducted as well. The results are as follows. First, through the science experience class, the children in LIF's average point of science inquiry skills increased meaningfully, but ordinary children's did not. Second, the science attitude's points of both increased meaningfully. Third, the children in LIF's average self-esteem point increased meaningfully, but the ordinary group's did not. Fourth, the children in LIF' self-competence increased meaningfully, but the other's did not. The children from both groups were influenced positively by the science experience class. Especially, compared with ordinary children, the children in LIF who have fewer chances of science experience than other children were more positively influenced m every aspect of this study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate what elementary teachers know about students' science misconceptions and how the teachers plan for and address their students' misconceptions in instruction. The sample included 61 teachers who participated in a teacher training program irrelative to science education. A questionnaire into which Gomez-Zwiep's semi-structured interview questions was transformed was used to examine the teachers' understandings of definition, origin, examples, and so on of science misconceptions, and their instructional strategies for addressing their students' misconceptions before and while instruction. The results showed that many teachers (about 60%) did not have appropriate understanding of students' misconceptions, that the majority of the teachers (about 75%) did not consider misconceptions at all before teaching science lessons, and that almost all the teachers (about 90%) did not know particular strategies specifically designed for misconceptions.

The purpose of this study is to make a preference and result analysis on the free inquiry method of pre-service elementary school teachers. Also, this study investigates how free inquiry activities effect the science-related attitudes and the self-directed learning characteristics of pre-service elementary school teachers. For this study 76, second year, science education pre-service elementary school teachers from Busan National University of education were selected. The inquiry examined the effectiveness of each of the following teaching methods: the IIM method, the PBL method, the PROJECT method, and the small group inquiry method. The students were divided into groups in which they incorporated the respective methods into their practice. In conclusion, the IIM free inquiry activities proved to be much more effective than the PBL method, the PROJECT method, and the small group inquire method in terms of developing self-directed learning characteristics and science related attitudes at the significant difference of p=0.05.

The purpose of this study was to explore preservice elementary teachers' perceptions on models used in science and science education. Participants were sixty-one undergraduate students who were enrolled in a science education course offered at a university of education located in a mid-sized city, Korea. Data were obtained from the participants at the beginning of the course when they provided their answers to a questionnaire about models. The analysis revealed that a large number of the preservice teachers perceived models as representative of physical realities. By contrast, a relatively small number of them viewed models as representations of ideas or things like theories or hypotheses. Lots of the participants were apt to define a model from the perspective of its functions and considered the purposes of models communication, teaching, and understanding as well as visualization, simplification, and clarification. Most of the preservice teachers believed that there could be multiple models for a single target, and all of them answered that models could be changed in science. It was therefore concluded that the preservice teachers perceived properly the multiplicity and variability of models. Nevertheless, they could not elaborate how a model is used and evaluated in the process of scientific inquiry, and just a few of them mentioned the detailed nature of models. The preservice teachers possessed teacher-centered views of using models in the science classroom, and a small number of them remarked that they were going to use models for students to develop their own models and perform scientific inquiry.

This study is to enquire about ideals on combustion and to propose of teaching program using the history a science in '5. Combustion and Extinguishing' unit of elementary school science textbook in 6th grade. For this purpose, investigation questionnaires based on preceding research and science textbook are developed. The reliability of the questionnaires is .784, and the questionnaires are applied to 247 students in T elementary school in Busan. Through the results of the investigation, scientific conceptions existed in some parts. But some misconceptions still existed especially (question 1), substance's changes (question 7), formation process of product (question 13), combustibles among requirements of combustion. The patterns of the misconception are similar to historical misconceptions about combustion. Besides, the discoveries and inventions of combustion have some points about correcting misconceptions. Thus the five step teaching programs on combustion which were applied to history of the science are suggested. The confidence of the developed programs was verified as being 'excellent' by specialists. This program will be applied to think deeply about combustion in elementary school lesson and useful to introduce the history of science.

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary gifted students' characteristics of observing and inferring in the inquiry activities. For this study, 40 students of the 4th and 5th grades participated in inquiry activities where the strata were developed well, Haenam Uhangri province. And we analyzed the outcomes of students' inquiry activities. The results are as follows. First, 119 units as observing results were obtained, but most of them showed that they were not focused on the portion of stratus, but that they were implicated in whole stratus as observing object. Second, 90 units were collected with reasoning results, but 4 units of them were wrong in constructing of inferring. Based on outcomes of students' inferring, elementary students preferred to apply deductive inferring method rather than use abductive inferring. Third, only 39 of 119 units acquired from observing were used for constructing inferring and 80 which were discovered from observing activities were discarded without applying of inquiry activities. Fourth, about 42% of students' inferring results were in accord with them of the geologists. But 58% views which didn't agree with geologists showed that they were applied to misconceptions among constructing inferring.

Since the term, 'scientific literacy' was introduced by P. D. Hurd in 1958, it has been used as a term, representing major goals in science education. In Korea, the term 'scientific literacy' was used in the statement of the summative objective of the 2007 science reformed curriculum. But in various educational contexts m which teachers and researchers works, the definition of the term has not been used consistently. This phenomena would be interpreted as showing limits of the term describing the goals of science education. This study examined the historical change in the meaning of the term in purpose of trying to anchor the definition. In this study, the changing period was divided into before introducing the term and after. The after era was divided into the period of confusing and anchoring in the meaning, and the period of expanding the meaning. Especially, after science as intellectual ability was conceptualized in science education communities, the meaning of scientific literacy was partially confused. In current time, as the concepts of language in cognitive science influenced the use of language in science education, the trends of expending the meaning of scientific literacy has been grasped in science education community.

The purposes of the study were to examine the effect of 'Hands-on Science Class at School' program on students' scientific attitude and interest, and to investigate the satisfaction differences by students, lecturers, and local operating organizations respectively. For this study, 1,054 students from 1st to 6th grade participated in the national-wide survey, while they engaged in the program activities during 3 months. 496 students participated in scientific attitude test and 558 students answered to scientific interest test. For the program satisfaction survey, 689 out of 1,054 students, 363 lecturers and 55 local operating organizations also participated. The data show that 'Hands-on Science Class at School' program gave positive influences on students' scientific attitude improvement. The program also had considerable effects on increasing students' interest toward science as well. The satisfaction survey results showed that students' satisfaction with the program was significantly higher than lecturers'. The educational implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of verbal analogy activities on science achievement and science attitude of elementary students. Students consolidated lessons by making short sentences with core words that a teacher gave for scaffolding instruction. Many researches about analogies have been conducted in science education. However, most of them considered analogy as learning tools, whereas this research considers analogy as a cognitive process. To see the effects of verbal analogy activities, two groups were selected from 6th grade elementary school students; one was an experimental group working with the student-generated verbal analogy and the other was a control group with teacher-centered and textbook-centered activities. Science achievement, scientific attitudes, attitudes toward science and retention were tested after the treated lessons.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of social interaction on metacognition, learning motive and academic achievement in elementary science learning. The science lessons emphasizing social interactions that is applied to this study was comprised of 5 stages, 'introduction', 'inquiry activity', 'small group emergent activity', 'large group emergent activity', 'conclusion and assessment'. The results of this study were as follows: First, applying the learning model emphasizing social interaction to the experimental group led to a significant difference between the result of the pre- and post-test, regarding metacognition, especifically those of declarative knowledge. And meaningful difference was drawn from the results of all elements in the lower category of regulation of cognition between the experimental and comparison group. Second, a significant difference was found between the pre- and post-test regarding learning motive, especially those of attention, relation, and self-confidence. Third, after applying the learning model emphasizing social interaction to the science classes of the experimental group, students' academic achievement improved significantly in the post-test, compared to the results of pre-test.