• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.753-763
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• 2018

The image of scientists that learners have has an important impact on science learning and on science-related career choices. The image of the scientist was mainly analyzed using the drawing analysis method. Drawing analysis has limitations on drawing, mainly analyzing the external image of scientist. Science teachers' images of scientists and their perception of science-related careers are important factors in students' science learning and science-related career choices. However, research on science teachers is lacking. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the usefulness of measurement tools by developing and applying a scientist image measurement tool through the semantic analysis method, and to discuss the educational implications of the research by investigating the image of scientists and science-related professions of secondary pre-service science teachers. The subjects of the study were 79 male and 55 female for a total of 134 students in the 2nd and 3rd grades majoring in science education at a teachers college. The results of the research show that the image measurement tool consisted of four components: 'ability,' 'evaluation,' 'activity,' and 'emotion,' in 24 items. As a result of applying the developed measurement tool to the secondary pre-service science teachers, the image of the 'evaluation,' 'ability,' and 'activity' elements of the scientist were high, but 'emotion' was low. There was no statistically significant difference according to gender. It is found that science-related career perceive them as 'hard,' 'professional,' 'smart,' and 'complex.' In particular, male students perceive themselves as 'hard and difficult' while female students perceive it as 'challenging and complicated'. Finally, we discussed the usefulness of using the image measurement tool of the scientists, the image of the scientists of the secondary pre-service science teachers, and the educational implications on science-related career.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.64-81
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyse middle school students' images and perceptions about scientist, technician and engineer and to compare the images of male students with those of female students. Fralick et al.(2009)'s "Draw a scientist at work and draw an engineer at work" was modified and administered to 110 middle school 3rd grade students (43 male students, 67 female students) from 5 middle schools. They drew the figures at work and took explanation of what the person was doing in a drawing. The results of this study were as follows; First, the representative image of scientist was the man with glasses and lab gown performing the chemical experiment. There were no significant differences between the male students and female students in terms of the scientist images. Second, the representative image of technician was the man who was fixing a car and working with his hands. The technicians were illustrated as working with tools such as wrench, hammer and so on. There were no significant differences between the male students and female students in terms of the technician images. Third, the students involved in this study frequently perceived male engineers as working indoors. But perceptions about performance of engineers were significantly different between male students and female students. A majority of male students recognized that engineers should design, invent and create the products, however many female students perceived the engineers as car mechanics. Fourth, the students perceived differently the scientists' task compared with the technicians', but they had difficulty in distinguishing the scientists' task from the engineers' task.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 2024

Knowing the learner's image of a subject-related occupation is good data for determining the direction of a teacher's teaching and learning. Existing drawing image analysis tools have the limitation that it takes a long time to analyze images and drawings of a scientist's appearance. The semantic differential method is a widely used method to analyze images of specific objects. However, research using the semantic differential method has the limitation of failing to reflect terms or factors that change over time by using the adjective pairs used in the initial study as they were in accordance with the research content. In this study, we use the semantic differential method to develop a tool to measure middle school students' scientist image and apply it to middle school students to discuss educational implications regarding the usefulness of measuring scientist image.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.719-730
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school students' perceptions about science, engineering and technology and their images of scientists, engineers, and technicians. In order to investigate students' images of scientists, engineers, technicians and student's perception of science, engineering, and technology, we used the tools "Draw a scientist at work, Draw an engineer at work, and Draw a technician at work". We have revised the tool DAST (Draw a scientist test), which was used in Fralick et al.'s study (2009). Subjects were 209 6th grade students sampled from an elementary school in G-city in Korea. According to the results of this study, the students' representative image of a scientist was similar to stereotypical scientist image in previous studies, but the students perceived science as a field of research with various professionals. The students' representative image of an engineer was a man with short hair, no beard or mustache, wearing ordinary clothes but no glasses. The engineer was designing or constructing a ship, a robot, a computer, and an airplane. The students' representative image of a technician was a man with short hair, wearing protective goggles and a mask for welding. The technician was fixing a car, a robot, a rocket, etc. and working with wrenches, hammers, screw drivers, welding machines, etc. Many students didn't perceive engineering and technology as fields of research. Also, many students didn't variously perceive engineering and technology as fields and ways of study.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.469-478
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• 2014

To provide students an alternative image of science and scientist, we developed five lesson plans that include scientists' joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure in their life. Through the 10 hour lessons with the five topics, we investigated the effect of our program on students' image change toward scientists, their science learning, and their career development in science field. Twenty high school students participated in our program and five of them were analyzed. The qualitative data included opinionnaire survey before and after the program, field note, video recording, students' worksheets, and interview. The science episode lessons that reflect the human side of scientists were designed in five steps. The first step is the one about imaging of scientists, the second step is the one about reading scientists' episode in their life, the third step is the one about investigating human side of scientists, the fourth step is the one about feeling sympathy in scientists' context, and the last step is the one about judging human side of scientists. Students participated in this program got to feel familiarity in scientists as well as confidence in science. By obtaining the alternative image of scientists after the class, it is expected that students will play roles of well-prepared supporters with scientific literacy.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.293-304
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• 2018

In spite of a growing number of recent studies that indicate students are coming to view scientists with more varied images, the stereotypical image of scientists remains in many students' minds. In this study, the authors explore how college students change their perceptions of science and scientists through the use of a documentary that focuses on scientists' daily lives, including laboratory life, and their emotional ups-and-downs. We analyzed 109 college students' essays on perceptions about scientists after watching the documentary. As a result, 64.2% of the college students declared that there was a change in their perception of scientists. The students' new perceptions of science and scientists are as follows: 1) scientists undergo emotional ups-and-downs just like any normal person; 2) scientists experience numerous failures while researching; 3) science does not have a fixed answer and scientists undertake research with creativity; 4) scientists conduct research in collaboration, but also in highly competitive environments; 5) scientists are often frustrated with their socio-economic status. The students' previous perceptions on science and scientists were mainly stereotypical ones that have been reported in previous studies. In addition, of the other college students who did not change their perceptions, the majority declared that they have new perceptions such as 1) - 5). Only a small percentage of students (7.3%) had unchanged stereotypical perceptions. These results are interpreted as that college students relatively easily change their stereotypical images of scientists after watching the documentary but, alternatively, the results can be interpreted that the most stereotypical images of college students are not perceptions that form a deep impression, but rather they are simply depictions of representative images of scientists given from outside sources (e.g. the mass media and school).

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.715-729
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perception on science and scientists of the teachers who are engaged in the special education for the scientifically gifted, science-gifted students and their parents. For this study, 34 teachers, 222 students and 107 parents answered the questionnaire of the perception on science and Draw-A-Science-Test (DAST). The result showed that the three groups generally had a sound recognition but the score of recognition about a 'nature of science' was lower than other domains. The science-gifted students had less cognition about 'science and society' than their teachers and parents, but they had more positive perception about 'science learning' than their parents significantly. All of the three groups had the stereotyped image of scientist. About the internal images of scientists, three groups had a similar perception, and they showed higher scores in the cognitive aspect than emotional or ethical aspects. And the science-gifted students showed the significantly higher scores than their teachers and parents in diligence, imaginative power, concern about other people, respect for other's opinion, humor, artistic sense, respect for human, desire for peace. Three groups turned out to be influenced by movie, science journal, and biography as a source of scientist's image, but their contribution was different among groups.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.327-341
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to obtain science high school students' perceptions of scientists and their work before and after the Green Investigation program with scientists. This study also attempts to determine whether the program affected the participants' perceptions of scientists and their work. A modified DAST was carried out with 64 high school students. Findings revealed that Korean science high school students had normal perceptions of scientists, such as images of 20 to 30 year old males wearing laboratory coats and working alone in research labs with test tubes, flasks, and several machines in the background. After the intervention, students drew fewer typical items representing scientists and had significantly different perceptions of their work places between the pretest (M=1.69, SD=1.14) and posttest (M=1.96, SD=1.24, t=4.43, p<0.001) with the eta squared statistics (.24). These findings reflect the need for continued efforts of developing green investigation programs with scientists for students. Some future studies based on this study are also introduced.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.490-498
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• 2002

This study investigated the effects of the 'Meeting With Scientists' program on children's stereotypical images of scientist. To do those, 36 children of a fifth grade class participated in the program for one month. The program consisted of two main activities:(l) participating in scientists' lectures and exchanging e-mail with them; and (2) visiting web sites about scientist and science, and exchanging e-mail with scientists at the sites. The results of the study can be summarized as follows: First, after participating in the program, children showed the significant decrease of several stereotypical items, such as facial growth of hair(bald hair beard), symbols of research, and age of the scientist. Second, the most popular source of the images was the visual media at the pretest but the source was changed to the visiting and participating scientist's lecture, and internet at the posttest. The latter items appeared a significant difference between the pretest and the posttest, The results indicate that the program is effective to decrease of children's stereotypical physical image of scientist.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2002

This research was designed to verify the effects of reading materials about scientists on the attitude toward science and images of scientists. The studies have been conducted for students in the tenth grade science class. In experimental group, students were instructed to read the reading material regarding the role models of five female scientists in class, while a control group were furnished with those of male scientists. Before and after instruction, the pre- and post-test about attitudes toward science and images of scientists were administered. In general, it was found that they successfully cast away the stereotyped images of scientists with the aid of the reading materials. There were significant differences between two groups in gender of a scientist (p = .000). Namely, more students in the experimental group had drawn the pictures of female scientists than those in the control group. In addition, test score in attitude toward science have shown significant differences between pre- and post-test (p < .001). And, the experimental group score is higher than control group (p < .05). Accordingly, this research has verified that the reading materials about scientists, especially of female scientists, can have favorable influence on the attitudes and images of scientists.