• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.154-163
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• 1996

In Korea, previous survey in science education mainly dealt with Quantitative variables. Qualitative ethnographic observation can bring deeper understanding of the context of school lesson and it's feature. The purpose of this study was to develop qualitative understanding about the learning experiences provided in middle school and students' responses to them through observation and interview and to investigate it from a constructivist perspective. Six lessons of the 9th grade were observed and recorded on the video tape. The topics of the lessons were potential energy, kinetic energy and conservation of mechanical energy. We had also unstructured interview with the teacher and three groups of students. The teacher's deductive explanation starting from scientific definition and quantitative problem solving using formula were the main features of the classroom lectures. The video - watching lesson was taking the role of a break rather than being seen as a useful tool for science learning and teaching by both students and the teacher. The teacher's perception about the lab experiment was not supported by the responses from the students. The teacher and students preferred problem-book to textbook for their teaching and learning. From a constructivist's perspective, however the teacher seemed to have intention of introducing daily life context, he couldn't unfold it to main context of the lessons. Students were so accustomed to passive learning that they did not express directly their complaint about their learning and did not participate in planing and controling their learning. The teacher and the students believed the scientific knowledge came from an exact experiment. There was a cooperation to seek right answer rather than a social process of making sense of knowledge. In conclusion, the observed science lessons of a middle school showed typical cross section of teacher - centered, passive learning environment, which is far from constructivist perspective.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to identify the effect of Problem-Based Learning on Student's Creativity Ability in Middle School Science Class. The experimental group had Problem-Based Learning classes for six weeks and control group had traditional inquiry instruction for the same period. The results of this study presents that Problem-Based Learning is significantly effective for the improvement of creative skills test and creative tendencies. And PBL group student's had positive thinking for PBL. It's not easy to generalize these results because of many different variables. but the results suggests that teachers should make an effort to improve student's creativity applying Problem-Based Learning. And it's necessary to develop many kinds of problems and teacher's instruction method to enrich creativity in the process of Problem-Based Learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.586-594
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• 2002

In this study, the relationships among cognitive conflict, situational interest, and conceptual change in studying boiling point were investigated. The differences in the relationships by gender were also investigate. Students of 7th grade(N=370) participated in this study. First, a preconception test was administered to choose students who possessed the misconception studied. After presenting anomalous data, test of response to anomalous data and state interest test were administered. After the instruction with a CAI program, a conception test was administered immediately. The conception test was administered again as a retention test four weeks later. The scores of both cognitive conflicts and state interest test were found to be significantly correlated with the scores of the conception test and the retention test. The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that state interest was significantly more important than cognitive conflict in prediction the degrees of conceptual change and retention of conception. For male students, state interest was the only significant predictor of conceptual change and retention of conception. In contrast, cognitive conflict was the only significant predictor for female students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.595-603
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• 2002

The influences of the characteristics of anomalous data on cognitive conflict and conceptual change in learning density were investigated. The subjects were 416 seventh graders. First, the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking and a preconception test were administered. A questionnaire on the responses to anomalous data was then administered. In the questionnaire, four types of anomalous data varying presentation type (movie/text) and authority level (high/low) were randomly presented. After a computer-assisted instruction on density, a conception test was administered. The results indicated that anomalous data presented in movie type significantly induced more cognitive conflict than that in text type. Students presented with anomalous data of high authority scored higher in the conception test than those of low authority. There were no significant interactions between the characteristics of anomalous data and students' logical thinking ability in the scores of both the cognitive conflict and the conception test.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.648-657
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• 2001

Using the concepts on the need of existence of living things, we investigate students' concepts on interdependence concepts between living things. The purposes of this study are to identify components of conceptual ecologies influencing on students' concepts and to describe the relations between those components and their concepts. The subjects of this study are 4 boys, 2 girls in the 3rd grade of middle school. The sources of data used in this study include a questionnaire, interviews and observation of the discussion class. Then, all data collected through each methods are compared and summarized in the relation to the questions of research. As a conclusion, it reveals that students' concepts are connected with several cognitive or affective components. Especially, the major components influencing on students' concepts are their metaphysical beliefs, conceptions includes other fields. These components function as constraints. Given these results, a teacher who want to teach a new concept to students should consider their characteristics and the components of conceptual ecology.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.16-24
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to compare student-student verbal interaction from two type's experiments; problem-solving and task-solving. For this study, five 3rd grade middle school students were selected and their verbal interactions recorded via voice and video; and later transcribed. The student-student verbal interactions were classified as questions, explanations, thoughts, or metacognition fields, which were separated into deep versus surface learning approaches. For the problem-solving experiment, findings revealed that the number of verbal interactions is more than doubled and in particular, the number of verbal interactions using deep-approach is more than quadrupled from the point of problem-recognition to problem-solution. As for the task-solving experiment, findings showed that verbal interactions remained evenly distributed throughout the entire experiment. Finally, it was also discovered that students relied upon a more deep learning approach during the problem-solving experiment than the task-solving experiment.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.510-517
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• 2006

This study investigated the influences of situational interest, attention, and cognitive effort on drawing as a method to assist students to connect and integrate multiple external representations provided in learning chemical concepts. Seventh graders (N=178) at two coed middle schools were taught about the "Boyle's Law" and the "Charles's Law" for two class hours through drawing. They observed macroscopic phenomena through demonstrations. After these observations, they drew their mental model from the external verbal representation, and then compared their drawings with external visual representation. The tests assessing situational interest, attention, cognitive effort, and conceptual understanding were administered as post-tests. Correlation and path analyses supported a causal model which situational interest had a positive direct effect on attention to the drawing. Attention led to conceptual understanding directly as well as through cognitive effort. These results suggest that situational interest may be induced by drawing first of all, and attention and cognitive effort may be direct causes of conceptual understanding in drawing. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.898-909
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• 2009

In this study, we investigated the influences of the role-playing analogy in chemistry concept learning on mapping understanding and mapping errors by analogical reasoning ability level. Seventh-graders (N=151) at a middle school were assigned to the comparison group and the experimental group. The students of the experimental group were taught with the 'running in the circle' role-playing analogy. After the students were taught about 'the relation between volume and pressure of gas', the test of mapping understanding in the next class and the retention test four weeks later were administered. The students with typical mapping errors were also interviewed to investigate their mapping processes. The results revealed that the role-playing analogy in chemistry concept learning improved mapping understanding and its retention regardless of analogical reasoning ability level. It was also found that the students in the experimental group had fewer mapping errors than those in the comparison group. However, there were similar patterns of mapping errors in both groups, and there were no significant differences in the frequencies of each type of mapping errors by analogical reasoning ability level. Educational implication of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.225-237
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions of elementary pre-service teachers regarding their interest in science. A survey was conducted among 187 elementary pre-service teachers enrolled at Non-Metropolitan Area A University of Education. Data collection was carried out concurrently with three elementary pre-service teachers who agreed to participate in online interviews. The survey responses provided by the elementary pre-service teachers were analyzed using a qualitative text analysis method. Interest in science was observed to decrease during middle school, followed by the upper grades of elementary school and then the lower grades. The reasons for the decline in interest in science were interpreted as stemming from negative experiences with science education within the context of individual circumstances in the school setting. Strategies to address the decline and enhance interest in science were discussed across individual, family, school, teacher, local community, and national levels, considering both short-term and long-term perspectives. These strategies encompassed various inquiry activities and experiences related to the field of science, engagement in science-related activities, student-centered instruction, teacher professional development, support for elementary students and teachers, and policy measures. The multifaceted approach and efforts aimed to open avenues for positive feedback regarding science on an individual level and foster experiences related to science were interpreted as part of an effort to counteract the decline in interest in science. Lastly, given the current situation of declining interest in science and the need to enhance students' interest, it was implicitly and explicitly discussed that pre-service teachers should focus on improving their expertise in curriculum instruction. This research, by exploring the conceptual characteristics of interest in science, perceptions of changes, and educational needs related to interest in science among elementary pre-service teachers, is expected to have academic significance as foundational research data for the current status of declining interest in science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.367-375
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• 2006

This study investigated the effects of varying visuals in drawing and writing as methods to assist students in connecting and integrating multiple external representations provided in learning the particulate nature of matter. Seventh graders (N=233) at a coed middle school were assigned to control, static drawing (SO), dynamic drawing (DD), static writing (SW), and dynamic writing (DW) groups. The students were taught about "Boyle's Law" and "Charles's Law" for two class periods. Two-way ANCOVA results revealed that the scores of a conception test for the two drawing (SD, DD) groups and the two writing (SW, DW) groups were significantly higher than those for the control group. Within the writing groups, students of lower spatial visualization ability in the DW group scored significantly higher than those in the SW group. However, no significant differences were found in the scores of the conception test for the two drawing (SD, DD) groups regardless of students' visualization ability. Researchers also found that most students in both DD and DW groups had respectively positive perceptions of dynamic visuals in drawing or writing.