In the last few years, there has been a significant growth of interest in how the philosophy of science can be related to science education. Adequate understanding of the philosophy and history of science can promote understanding of the nature of science in teacher and student. The 6th curriculum in Korea has also placed emphasis upon understanding of the nature of science. From this point of view, to ensure effective school science education it is necessary to investigate how teachers and students are understanding the nature of science. To do this 45 secondary science teachers and 191 students of 7 schools in Seoul are administered Nott and Wellington's questionaire(1993). This questionaire is consisted of 24 Likert Scale statements and asks questions on 5 subscales of philosophy of science :Relativism-Positivism, Inductivism-Deductivism, Contextualism-Decontextualism, Instrumentalism-Realism, Thinking science education as a Process or a Content. The results of this study are as follows : 1. Teachers' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 2. There was no difference in teachers' conceptions on the nature of science according to experience and gender. 3. Students' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 4. There was no difference in students' conceptions on the nature of science according to schools level(middle vs high) and gender. But, female students exhibited higher score than male students on deductivism(p<.05). 5. Teachers' and students' conception of the nature of science was in agreement with each other.

The purpose of this study was to assess elementary student's ability of measuring length, area, and volume and reading metric scales. The findings of this study were as follows. All students were successful in measuring without scale, regardless of grades. But they were less successful in measuring the task using standard and nonstandard scales. Especially, in measuring area, lower grade students were not able to perform the task using nonstandard instruments, but higher grade students were able to perform the task. Measuring area using grade paper was least successful for sixth graders. In measuring volume, students under fifth grade read the upper scale when using graduated cylinder. In measuring by direct comparison, students were more successful in measuring length than in measuring area and volume using given material. The use of given nonstandard material was successful for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade students. In measuring using metric scale, lower grade students did not pay attention to the zero of the scale, but just read the end point. Higher grade students considered both zero and end points.

This study investigated the influences of the cooperative learning strategies upon students' achievement and their perceptions of learning environments in a middle school physical science course. Prior to instruction, the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking was administered, and its score was used as a blocking variable. Mid-term examination score was used as a covariate. For the treatment group with heterogeneous grouping, cooperative learning instruction (the Learning Together model) was used, which emphasized group reward, individual accountability, and role division. For the control group, traditional instruction was used. After instruction, an achievement test consisting of three subtests (knowledge, understanding, and application), and the perception questionnaire of classroom and laboratory environments, were administered. ANCOVA results revealed that there was a significant interaction between instruction and the level of logical reasoning ability although there were no significant differences in all three subtest scores of the achievement test. For the concrete operational reasoners, the treatment group performed better in the subtests of understanding and application than the control group. For students at the formal and transition levels, however, the treatment group scored lower than the control group. Significant interactions were also found in the perceptions of classroom environment and laboratory environment. For the concrete operational reasoners, the treatment group showed more positive perception than the control group. For the students at the formal and transition levels, the control group had positive perception than the treatment group. Educational implications are discussed.

Many students have misconceptions about the direction of force of moving objects, but development of teaching strategy for conceptual change is not easy because the direction of force of moving objects can not be observed directly. Therefore, we devloped demonstration using table tennis ball connected with spring in the water, in which a ball always move to the direction of force of moving objects. This study is to investigate students' responses on the demonstrations designed to generate cognitive conflict and to understand more deeply the process of conceptual change. To do this, five questions were administrated to identify students' preconceptions about force and motion, and interview was conducted using demonstrations, and the process of interview was recorded by video camera. About half of students changed their preconceptions by observing the demonstration. However about thirty percentage of students did not change their preconceptions even though they observed demonstration correctly, among these students, some students simply rejected the observation, doubted the process of demonstrations, or reinterpret the result of observation to preserve their own preconceptions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of categorizing activities in lessons on improving critical thinking to meet energy environment issues in every day situation, supposing that there are not only scientific concepts but also critical thinking ability in scientific literacy to meet social controversies related with science intelligently. Categorizing Activity Program was developed and applied to the 10th grades(n=51) in Seoul for about one month. The program was consisted of two domains. They studied science concepts of various aspects of science, technology and society related with energy and environment in the first and second domain repectively, in the while, two critical tasks which include articles from newspapers and magazines were assigned to them for the development and evaluation of critical thinking abilities. The scores of critical thinking ability, the cognitive element, and critical thinking inclination, the affective element, were increased meaningfully(p<.05). In conclusion, categorizing activity as a strategy of concept attainment was effective in improving critical thinking for seeing various aspects with various view points needed in controversial issues related with energy and environment.

In this study, a conceptual change model for effective laboratories was developed and its instructional effect on students' achievement, the acquisition of scientific conceptions, and the attitudes toward science was investigated. Considering several conceptual change models in literature and Korean educational situations, the conceptual change model was developed. The model consists of 5 stages; preliminary, prediction, exploration, consolidation and reconstruction, and application. The treatment and control groups (2 classes) were selected from a middle school in Seoul, and taught about the changes of states, density, and dissolution for three weeks. Prior to instruction, the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking and the Learning Approach Questionnaire were administered, and their scores were used as covariate and / or blocking variable. To examine students' alternative conceptions before the instructions, a pre-conceptions test was also administered. After the instructions, students' achievement, the acquisition of scientific conceptions, and the attitudes toward science were measured with a researcher-made achievement test, a post-conceptions test, and the subtests of the Test of Science-Related Attitudes, respectively. The results indicated that the score of the treatment group was significantly higher than that of the control group in the post-conceptions test. The students in the treatment group had also less alternative conceptions than those in the control group. However, there were no significant differences for the achievement and the attitudes toward science. Educational implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the misconceptions and the understanding of students on diffusion and osmosis, and to examine the shifts in concept development that result from maturation and additional instruction. In addition, the textbooks were assessed for the sources of the misconceptions. The subjects of this study were 195 students in middle school, 191 students in high school and 195 students in university in Seoul. And the multiple-choice test developed by Odom and Barrow(1995) was used. The results were analyzed by two-way ANOVA in the statistical packages SAS. The major findings of this study are as follows. 1. The mean score of the understanding on the concepts of diffusion and osmosis of junior high school students was 31, that of high school students was 51 and that of university students was 67. In this study, the higher grade students got the higher scores, and it showed significant difference(p<0.01). 2. The mean score of girls was higher than that of boys in all grades. And the difference of the score according to gender showed great difference in high school(p<0.01). 3. An analysis of the patterns of misconceptions about diffusion and osmosis indicated that certain misconceptions prevail across grade levels. 4. An analysis of the contents of textbooks indicated that textbooks may be the source of students' misconceptions about diffusion and osmosis.

This study was performed to survey the achievements in problem solving by the inquiring experiment, which was done by the superior group in the traditional cocepts-centered written tests. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of inquiring experimental assessment by analyzing differences between concepts-centered written and inquiring experimental tests. The subjects of this study was 211 applicants. They are the superior group of the 9th grade students, and score in the top 1% of total achievements percentage in school. They also have passed the primary entrance examination. The inquiring experimental test was developed according to the curriculum in school, and is composed of 5 subcategories: problem-perception and formulating hypothesis, designing an experiment, carring out an experiment, recording data and drawing conculsion, and generalizing conculsions and communicaton. The checklists of each subcategory were made and testing methods were divided into observation and report. The major results of this study are as follows: 1. The achievements in each subcategory of inquiring experimental performance were very low in the superior group who took the concepts-centered written tests. 2. The results of factor and correlation analyses in this study confirmed the abilities measured by inquiring experimental assessment differed from abilities measured by existing tests. These results indicated that even students who achieved high in scientific knowledge, these abilities were not automatically transformed inquiry process which many other abilities were integrated into. Therefore, problem solving ability requires integrated abilities which are fostered by inquiring experimental tasks. This suggests that new instrument for assessment must be developed to measure integrating ability especially where scientifically gifted students are selected, or where entrance examinations to the science schools are administered.

In this study, the images of science education illustrated in the books written by six major modern philosophers of science (K. R. Popper, N. R. Hanson, T. S. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, P. Feyerabend and J. Ziman) were investigated. In this article, the parts, from the books investigated, which have direct relevance to science education are quoted and the discussions by the researchers on them are added. Particularly, the learning by trial and error (of Popper), the role of context in scientific thinking (of Hanson), science education through the history of science (of Lakatos), science education appreciating individualities and voluntary curiosity (of Feyerabend) and the social aspect of science as a source of its rationality (of Ziman) appear to be the main points which have direct relevances and meaningful implications to science education but which have not been considered or discussed in detail in science education.