• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.8
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• pp.1110-1120
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' perceptions of gender differences in students' mathematics and science learning ability. The sample included 289 elementary and secondary school gifted teachers. The teachers filled out the survey, asking their perceptions of gender differences in mathematics and science learning ability, as well as of the reasons of the differences. The results were as follows: 1) 65% of the teachers responded that gender differences existed in students' mathematics and science learning ability, 2) 63% of the teachers perceived that the differences began around higher elementary or middle school ages, 3) 57% of the teachers thought that gender differences existed in the high-achieving student group. Teachers perceived the reasons of differences were 1) differences in inborn ability, 2) the different expectation, and 3) the different ways of parental cares. Since teachers' perceptions of students' ability would impact teachers' attitudes on students, implications and suggestions were included in this article to provide teachers insights that promote students' better learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.519-531
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• 2021

This study investigates the science teacher identity of pre-service science teachers (PSTs) in the context of a teaching practice course. Twenty-two PSTs who took the 'Biological Science Lab. for Inquiry Learning' course at the College of Education participated in this study. Artifacts created during the course were collected, and the teaching practices and reflections were recorded and transcribed. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine PSTs, recorded, and transcribed. We found the science teacher identity was not well revealed at the beginning of the course. Authoritative discourse appeared in the early oral reflections of PSTs, indicating that the PSTs perceived oral reflection activities as 'evaluation activities for teaching practice'. This perception shows that pre-service teachers participate in teaching practice courses as students attending a university, performing tasks and receiving evaluations from instructors. After the middle of the course, discourses showing the science teacher identity of the PSTs were observed. In the oral reflection after the middle part, dialogic discourses often arose, showing that the PSTs perceive the oral reflection activities as a 'learning activity for professional development'. In addition, in the second half, discourse appeared to connect and interpret one's experience with the teacher's activity, indicating that the PSTs perceive themselves as teachers at this stage. In addition, the perception of experimental classes was expanded through the course. During the course, the practice of equalizing the authority of the participants, providing a role model for reflection, and experiencing various positions from multiple viewpoints in the class had a positive effect on the formation and continuation of the teacher identity. This study provides implications on the teacher education process for teacher identity formation in PSTs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1343-1353
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• 2013

It is necessary to teach science terminology in order to solve the problems induced from the fact that students have low comprehension in science terminology. The purpose of this study was to investigate science teacher's perception of teaching science terminology. The questionnaires consisted of perception of science terminology, science terminology for teaching, teaching of science terminology, and teaching methods for science terminology. As a result, science teachers had difficulty with science terminology and were not familiar with them as well as students were. Despite having perceived the necessity of teaching science terminology because it serves as a great influence on students to study science, they didn't have enough knowledge of the teaching methods for science terminology, so that they felt difficulties in teaching science terminology. Finally, science teachers hope to display new science terminology with explanations on each page of the science textbooks.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.901-917
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to develop the questionnaire on pre-service elementary teachers' recognition of self-understanding and change capacity for science education and to investigate their recognitions with it. At the beginning of the study, we made a tool to investigate the self-understanding and change capacity of pre-service elementary teachers through literature review and discussions. The former half of the questionnaire was related to self-understanding with factors such as 'self-concept clarity,' 'career identity' and 'self-efficacy:' 'self-understanding as a pre-service elementary teacher' (12 items) and 'self-understanding as a pre-service elementary science teacher' (12 items). Its latter half was about the change capacity with factors such as 'change sensitivity,' 'goal consciousness,' 'collaboration,' 'reflection,' and 'mastery.' It consisted of three parts: 'general change capacity,' 'change capacity as a pre-service elementary teacher' and 'change capacity as a pre-service elementary science teacher' with 17 items, respectively. With this tool, we surveyed 153 pre-service elementary teachers. The results are as follows: First, pre-service elementary teachers have a positive recognition about self-understanding and change capacity, but the recognition of self-understanding and change capacity as pre-service elementary science teachers were relatively less positive. Second, factors of self-understanding and change capacity as pre-service elementary science teachers have a significant correlation with each other. Especially, there was a high correlation between 'self-efficacy' of self-understanding and 'goal consciousness' and 'mastery' of change capacity. Based on these results, some implications for self-understanding and change capacity related to science education were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.472-479
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to develop an inquiry-based professional development program for in-service secondary science teachers and to investigate it's application. The inquiry-based professional development program was reconstructed based on SSCS problem-solving model, which is composed of 4 stages of search, solve, create, and share. The 28 science teachers' understanding of the SSCS program were investigated as implementing the program. As a result of this study, 8 SSCS modules have developed as the science teachers have searched, solved, created, and shared various situated problems. The science teachers found themselves to have positive perception of SSCS program. The SSCS program was effective in changing the learners' teaching/learning attitude and to develop individual scientific thinking. To make the SSCS problem solving successful and more effective, both science teachers' professionalism and pedagogical knowledge for selecting topic as the levels of learner should be considered.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.221-233
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• 2002

This study investigated preservice science teachers' understandings of philosophical foundations(i.e., ontological and epistemological beliefs) underlying constructivist notions of learning. The teacher education program these subjects participated in explicitly addressed philosophical notions consistent with different views of constructivism. For these preservice science teachers, the program provided them with the opportunity to reflect upon the implications that their ontological and epistemological commitments had for their role as a science teacher. Data from four in-depth interviews were used to explore changes in each preservice science teacher's ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments, and pedagogical preferences. Results indicated that ontological beliefs and epistemological commitments were not necessarily consistent with conceptions of science teaching and learning for these preservice teachers. While some students internalized idealist and relativist perspectives, they did not integrate these relativist epistemological views into their preferred instructional practices. Also, regarding the fallible and tentative nature of knowledge, data in this study indicated that participants' epistemological beliefs about scientific Knowledge did influence how they were thinking about their roles as science teachers. Implications for teacher education programs and research on preservice science teacher's philosophical beliefs are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.14-23
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate beginning earth science teachers' perceptions about Learning in Geologic Field Trip. The hundred and sixteen high school earth science teachers who were in the training for their promotion answered the questionnaire of Learning in Geologic Field Trip. It was divided into five parts: needs and educational values, teachers' experiences and their difficulties, and desirable teaching methods of Learning in Geologic Field Trip. Results indicated that the participants perceived Learning in Geologic Field Trip important in earth science education and responded positively to the educational values of Learning in Geologic Field Trip. Most of the beginning teachers had experience of geologic field trip, but did not learn how to teach it to their students during the geologic field trip in the pre-service training program. It was shown that only a few teachers had experience of geologic field trip and of teaching students in the outdoor of geologic fields after they became a classroom teacher. Most of the participants perceived that teaching students about the geologic field trip is difficult because of lack of their experience. In order to overcome the difficulty, teachers suggested that they need to learn how to teach the geologic field trip to students through their in-service training. leachers suggested that a desirable teaching method of the geologic field trip is to provide teachers with a teacher's manual including geological explanation and information about field trip sites before their visit so that they can scaffold it and facilitate the students' cooperative group activity during the field trip. As a follow up activity, the participants agreed that the presentation and discussion about the results should concur.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.224-238
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perception of integrated school education and education for sustainable development of secondary school science teachers, judging that the existence of a common science teacher qualification certificate is related to the expertise of the common science map. To that end, the survey was conducted for three months from June to August 2018 for secondary school science teachers, and multiple choice questions were analyzed as statistical processing and descriptive questions as topical modeling. According to the analysis, teachers with a common science teacher qualification certificate had a high awareness of integrated school education, and the response average was high in all areas of value, direction and success condition of integrated school education. In addition, the average response of teachers with a common science teacher qualification certificate was also found to be higher than those with a common science teacher qualification. There were no major differences in perception between the two groups on the strength of science education and ESD integration, but the difference was that teachers with a common science teaching certificate focused on science in all topics and recognized science as a medium for each topic compared to teachers who did not.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.625-634
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• 2014

This study has investigated the factors that make a science teacher effective by analyzing students' perception of teacher knowledge required in enhancing their science learning. The basic components of teacher knowledge identified by previous researchers have been confirmed through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Based on the findings of the EFA, the questionnaire has been further analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) by means of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). In addition, the differences in students' perception on the identified factors of effectiveness have also been analyzed in terms of gender and achievement level. The findings of the EFA showed that five factors of science teacher effectiveness were identified; namely, substantive knowledge, syntactic knowledge, knowledge of students' understandings, knowledge of instructional strategies, and knowledge of assessment. These five components have been divided into two categories of teacher knowledge, SMK and PCK. What we found from the CFA was the respective high correlation between substantive and syntactic knowledge, knowledge of students' understanding and instructional strategies and the low correlation between substantive knowledge and knowledge of instructional strategies. Students perceived substantive knowledge as the most effective factor, knowledge of assessment as the least effective factor. Also, there have been considerable differences in students' perception by gender and achievement level. We proposed, based on the findings, that SMK and PCK need to be integrated into a coherent manner for the effective science teaching practice. This study provides some implications for science teacher professional development and the improvement of science teacher preparation program.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.559-567
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• 2006

The purposes of this study were to investigate and compare the perception of students, their parents, and their teachers about students' scientific talent and interest, and to analyze if there is a difference among the perceptions of the three groups by students' gender. For the research, 592 Korean elementary and middle school students, their parents (N=592), and their teachers were sampled and investigated their perceptions, with the questionnaire for students, parents, and teachers developed by the authors and validated by science education experts group. The research results are; (1) in total, the perception scores of parents and teachers are higher than that of students' perception, and the average score of each group decreases by grade in every group; (2) among the students and parents groups, average perception score of male students' talents and interest was higher than that of female students, while teachers perceive averagely that there is no difference in students talents and interest by gender.