• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.37-49
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to classify the logical forms of scientific explanations provided by teachers in secondary earth science classrooms, to examine the characteristics of the scientific explanations in different forms, and to identify the roles of the teacher and students in discursive practices for scientific explanations. Data came from the earth science teachers who participated in overseas teacher in-service programs in the years 2003 and 2004. A total of 18 video-taped lessons and their verbatim transcriptions were analyzed. The result showed that deductive-nomological explanations occurred most frequently in earth science classrooms and that the deductive-nomological model was well-suited to those problems for which there existed firmly established scientific laws or principles to construct scientific explanations. However, abductive explanations were presented when the classes dealt with retrodictive tasks of earth science. The statistical-probabilistic and statistical-relevance models were also employed in explaining weather proverbs and unusual changes of weather, respectively. Most of the scientific explanations were completed through the teachers' monologic utterances, and students assumed passive roles in discursive practices for developing scientific explanations. Implications for science lessons and science education research were discussed.

• CONCEPT AND COMMUNICATION
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• no.23
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• pp.105-140
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• 2019

The received understanding that civilization was more or less synonymous with the achievements of the modern Western world showed signs of faltering during the 1920s. The ravages of World War I had prompted many to doubt the significance of historical progress towards civilization, and demanded a reconsideration of human nature and a reappraisal of what constitutes true civilization. The increasing pressure for social reforms and the burgeoning cultural movement led to the concept of 'culture' emerging as the core of the civilization discourse. The conceptual interconnections and semantic changes of the terms 'civilization' and 'culture' during this period provide an interesting and significant subject for historical semantics. Gaebyeok, the bulletin of Cheondogyo, is very useful in this context: it offers a variety of discourses by different individuals who had examined modern Western civilization and were seeking new directions for modernity. The various combinations of historical conception, subjects and objects of discourse, and methodologies allow recognition of the relations between the subjects of speech and conceptual performance. In particular, this analysis emphasizes the semantic intersection of two conceptual frames: material-civilization vs. mental-culture. The boundary between these was still vaguely defined in the 1920s, and the frame of universal civilization and particular cultures gradually crystallized during this period. As the authority of universal civilization waned, the unique history and culture of each nation could emerge. A succession of books appeared on various themes, describing the distinctive traits of Joseon history and culture. Now that civilization was no longer seen as universal, the specific characteristics of Joseon culture were concomitantly more evident, and Joseon's national identity and singular cultural were perceived by contrast with those of other places. Writing about cultural history was more than the rectification of distortions imposed by Japan upon Joseon history: it was also a positive project on the part of the subject against colonialism. The reinvention of Joseon's national culture, which was founded on a moral and ethical perspective, reflected the subject's aspiration for recovery, which had been repressed by material civilization.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.45-61
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to explore students' epistemic goals and considerations in designing an experiment task and to investigate how a shift in the students' epistemology affected their argumentation. Four 7th grade students were selected as a focus group. According to the results, when they designed their own experiment, their epistemic goal was 'scientific sense-making' and their epistemic considerations - the perception of the nature of the knowledge product was 'this experiment should explain how something happened', the perception of the justification was 'we need to use our interpretation of the data' and the perception of the audience was 'constructor' - contributed to designing their experiment actively. When students tried to select one argument, their epistemic goal shifted to 'winning a debate', showing 'my experiment is better than the others' with the perception of the audience, 'competitor'. Consequently, students only deprecated the limits of different experiment so that they did not explore the meaning of each experiment design deeply. Eventually, student A's experiment design was selected due to time restrictions. When they elaborated upon their result, their epistemic goal shifted to 'scientific sensemaking', reviewing 'how this experiment design is scientifically valid' through scientific justification - we need justification to make members accept it - acting as 'cooperator'. Consequently, all members engaged in a productive argumentation that led to the development of the group result. This study lays the foundation for future work on understanding students' epistemic goals and considerations to prompt productive argumentation in science classrooms.