• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.466-477
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• 2002

It was proposed that proper problem solving practice should improve students' questioning in physics. In the previous researches, improvement in students' questioning was observed after practice of making questions given the examples of desirable questions. In this study, the problem solving strategies used by experts were introduced to students in the form of step-by-step guide to follow in problem solving practice. The directions in the guide were concrete and operational for students to understand the expected behaviors explicitly. It was assumed that students could pinpoint the difficulty specifically through this guide, which would result in positive effects on students' recognition and expression of their own questions. The subjects in this study were college freshmen enrolled in the introductory physics for science or engineering major. The physics problems from the textbook were solved and practiced in the traditional way for controlled group. Worksheets designed to follow experts' problem solving strategies were used for the experimental group. Two groups were taught in the same way during lecture part of the class. Students were asked to describe the difficulties they had during homeworks or tests. Questions in this study means these descriptions written by students although they were not necessarily in the form of interrogative sentences. The questions were analyzed both in quantity and quality. Quantitatively, more students spontaneously turned in their questions in the experimental group than in the controlled group. Regarding the quality, there were more students in the experimental group than in the controlled group who described their difficulties in detail or recognized the need for the procedural knowledge.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.109-128
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• 1992

Elementary science textbooks are the major instructional materials which contain sceientific objectives to be acquired by students. The purpose of this study is to analyze the development system, to evaluate the inquiry activity in current elementary science testbooks, and to make suggestions for the improvement of them. The questionnaires were administered to 116 subjects that participated in development of the 5th elementary science textbooks, and 86 of the subjects responded. Based on the data gathered and analyzed in this study, the major findings are as follows. First, regarding the analysis and evaluation of elementary science textbooks. 1. The instructional objectives in elementary science textbooks are analyzed. The proportions of comprehension objectives is 38%, scientific inquiry process objectives 21%, experimental skills objectives 7%, scientific attitudes and interests objectives 4%. 2. The science concepts in elementary science textbooks of the 3rd grade required the preconcrete operational level(82%) and of the 6rd grade required the postconcrete operational level (73%) by J. Piaget 3. The inquiry activities in elementary science textbooks are emphasizing gathering and organizing results and evaluation, and hypothesizing and designing an experiment Inquiry index of the elementary science textbooks is 76. This is significantly higher than 35${\sim}$50 of America and U.K.. 4. The number of questions per class hour is mostly three, and most of them require the students to explain phenomena in nature or in experiment Second, regarding the development system of elementary science textbooks. 1. The budget for and the period of the development of elementary science textbook should be expanded. 2. For the improvement of elementary science textbooks, more abundant resources and time should be used for the basic study and the field trial of textbooks. 3. The elementary science textbook must include the affective objectives as well as the scientific knowledges and scientific inquiry skills. 4. It is not desirable to assign equal number of pages to the content of physics, chemistry, biology, and earth science. 5. Closer cooperation system is needed among the ministry of education, development research center and the field trial schools.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.393-405
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of Semantic Network Program (SNP) instruction on learning achievement and motivation in high school biology classes. For this study, a SNP was designed by applying the recommendations in regard to student attention and satisfaction factors in Keller's ARCS theory. SNP instruction was conducted with an experimental group and a control group, each consisting of 62 high school biology class student. A pretest-posttest control group design was employed. The pre-test was used to analyze the learning achievement test, learning motivation test, and semantic forming test. For 4 weeks the experiment group was instructed using the developed SNP which centered on Keller's attention and satisfaction factors, and the control group was instructed via teacher-centered lectures based on the textbook. It was found that SNP instruction efficiently increased students' biology learning achievement (p<.001). It was also discovered that SNP instruction was effective in increasing Keller's motivation strategies on attention and satisfaction factors (p<.001). In addition, SNP instruction positively affected students' semantic formation (p<.001) and learning content retention (p>.05) in the heredity unit by aiding students in the area of active multimedia learning. An in depth interview with students in the class using SNP instruction showed that material learned via this method in biology had longer retention of problem-solving methods. Consequently, SNP instruction according to motivation strategies may high school biology teachers with meaningful teaching-learning methods strategies for the unit on heredity.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.47-62
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• 2024

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of classes using AlgeoMath on fifth grade elementary students' mathematical problem-solving skills and mathematical attitudes. For this purpose, the 'cuboid' section of the 5th grade elementary textbook based on AlgeoMath was reorganized. A total of 8 experimental classes were conducted using this teaching and learning material. And the quantitative data collected before and after the experimental lesson were statistically analyzed. In addition, by presenting instances of experimental lessons using AlgeoMath, we investigated the effectiveness and reality of classes using engineering in terms of mathematical problem-solving ability and attitude. The results of this study are as follows. First, in the mathematical problem-solving ability test, there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the comparison group at the significance level. In other words, lessons using AlgeoMath were found to be effective in increasing mathematical problem-solving skills. Second, in the mathematical attitude test, there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the comparison group at the significance level. However, the average score of the experimental group was found to be higher than that of the comparison group for all sub-elements of mathematical attitude.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.514-525
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• 2005

The most important factor in providing education to gifted students as well as to students in general are the teachers themselves. However, at present in Korea, most of the teachers in charge of education for the gifted are educated by in-service training programs only for a short period of time. It is doubtful whether the teachers, who have taught ordinary students in general, can teach gifted students effectively only after completing such a short course. This research investigated the relationship between the teachers' beliefs about educating the gifted and the teachers' classroom practices in a Science Academy through case studies. The guiding questions for this study are as follows: First, what beliefs do the participating teachers have about education for the gifted? Second, how are the participants' beliefs reflected in their classroom practices? Of the five participants, two are physics teachers, two are biology teachers, and one is an earth science teacher. I observed and videotaped four classroom practices for each participant and conducted an in-depth interview with each participant. Further data were collected through e-mails with the participants. All data were carefully transcribed and analyzed. The results are as follows: Beliefs about education for the gifted do not exist independently, and form a belief system connecting with beliefs about teaching and learning, and subject matter. And the belief systems of participants can be divided into "student-centered," "teacher-centered," and "conflict chaos." In the classes of the participants who have "student-centered" belief system, students' questions or opinions played an important role and the participation structure in the classroom was determined by the students. On the contrary, participants who have "teacher-centered" belief system focused on teaching contents as much as possible in their classes. These teachers played a heavy role and formed a participation structure where students depended on their teacher's intellectual authority and therefore participated in their class passively. A participant who have "conflict chaos" belief did not form a firm belief system yet, and traditional beliefs about teaching and learning were reflected a lot in her classes. The research results imply teachers' beliefs play an important role in classroom practices and beliefs about teaching and learning and subject matter as well as beliefs about education for the gifted are important factors for teachers who guide gifted students. Additionally, I make some suggestions for the improvement of teacher education for the gifted.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.314-327
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate secondary science teachers' general perceptions of scientific and creative problem solving. The secondary science teachers responded to a survey. The results indicated that most of the teachers perceived enhancing scientific and creative problem solving skills as one of the most important goals in teaching science. However, they hardly implemented instructions for scientific and creative problem solving in their science lessons. They reported the absence of specialized teaching strategies and assessment tools for scientific and creative problem solving, and university entrance exam-oriented social and educational atmosphere as major barriers. In addition, the teachers tended to present limited understanding of scientific and creative problem solving, which is merely focused on creativity. Considering the results, it was thought that a guide to a clear conception of scientific and creative problem solving was needed. Also, many teaching strategies and appropriate assessment tools for adopting and scientific and creative problem solving were required.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.378-391
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate the graph interpretation ability and perception of high school students and preservice secondary teachers in Earth science. We developed two different instruments; one was a graph interpretation ability inventory that consists of 9 graph types with 18 items, and the other one is two questionnaires to explore the participants' perception about Earth science-related graph. The results of this study are as follows: High school students and preservice secondary teachers demonstrated their remarkable ability in interpreting a line graph, but showed their limited ability with the graph of overlapped and directional change, which means the graph interpretation ability was affected by a graph type; two groups participated in this study revealed a considerable difference in the graph interpretation ability depending on the grade level; preservice teachers were superior to high school students in discriminating two graphs, the representation method, which are different with the same topic; and many participants in both groups considered that the property of Earth science graph was considerably different from that of other science subjects, especially in directional change graph, scatter graph, contour map, and domain graph. The results suggest that the effective graph instruction strategies be developed in Earth science learning.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.765-773
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to identify secondary chemistry teachers' abilities to carry-out experiment lesson successfully. As far as the research method is concerned, literature reviews, analyses of abilities to carry-out experimentation from science textbooks, and a survey of science teachers' perceptions of experimental ability were employed along with the progressive discussions among the authors. In order to identify secondary chemistry teachers' abilities to carry-out experimentation, we divided the experiment lesson into three stages of preparation, conduct and arrangement, and management of lab, and added the stage of safety. Each stage is classified into sub-areas, and the sub-area consists of subordinate elements. The safety stage was included separately to emphasize the importance of the safety issue in lab and experimental activities. The secondary chemistry teachers' abilities to carry-out experimentation are the abilities to perform experiments in person, presupposing the instruction of experiment, and can be featured with the use of reagent and measuring instruments, the preparation of sample, designing experiment, correct experimental habit and skillfulness, data processing, analysis and reasoning, and management of lab and safety.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.63 no.5
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• pp.376-386
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to explore the learning progression of logical thinking in acid and base chemical reactions and to evaluate its validity. For this purpose, we collected 387 participants in 9 schools of elementary, middle and high schools nationwide. The questionnaire developed in this study was composed of nine items. The questionnaire presented the acid and base reactants and products, and the students pictured their thoughts on how these substances change, and answered the reasons of their thoughts. Situation contexts of the questionnaire were divided into two groups: one kind of solute dissolved in a solvent, and two kinds of solute dissolved in a solvent. In this study, six levels of learning progression were assumed by combining material conservation logic, combination logic, proportion logic, and particle number conservation logic. By analyzing the data, Infit and Outfit values of Person reliability, Item reliability, MNSQ and ZSTD were obtained from the Rasch model. As a result of the analysis of data, it was found that lower levels of learning progression prevailed up to the younger grade students till $8^{th}$ grade. The higher levels of learning progression(Level 2~Level 5) prevailed up to the older grade students. However, higher levels of learning progression dropped sharply in Grade 12. The 5 level of learning progression was very low in all grades, and $9^{th}$ grade had highest percentage of students belonging to the 5 level. Interpretation of these unusual results suggests a future research related to explanation differences of textbooks.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.239-257
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• 2019

This study attempts to understand the context of shared learning in the trading zone formed by teachers from different backgrounds and the process in which this shared learning varies in the educational context, focusing on the case of 'Woodwork Science Education Study Group.' To do this, data was collected through in-depth interviews with eight teachers who participated in the 'Woodworking Science Education Research Group' and analyzed their responses based on grounded theory. As a result, the causal conditions of the teachers' research group were 'various contexts of entering the trading zone' and the central phenomenon was 'encounter with learning in the trading zone.' Contextual conditions affecting this phenomenon were 'woodwork as a boundary object and individual transfiguration experience,' and action/interaction strategy was 'various efforts and influences in the field.' The intervention condition was 'practical effort and experience in educational field.' Final result in this model is 'the new practice of learning shared in the trading zone.' In selective coating, it was found that the practice of the teacher's research group appears as four types of' 'Extracurricular creative experience type,' 'career education type,' 'curricula education type,' and 'school management type.' The results of this study suggest that the shared learning and antonymous practice among teachers in the teachers' research group as trading zone do not only meet their learning needs but also lead to various teaching practices in the individual teachers' context of education and improve the diversity and quality of education.