• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.479-490
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• 2014

In this study, we investigated the characteristics of the reading materials in the elementary school science textbooks in order to obtain implications for the effective use of them. The reading materials in the elementary school science textbooks developed under the 7th and the 2007 revised National Science Curricula were analyzed. The criteria for classifying the reading materials were the type of theme, purpose, students' activity, the type of presentation, the type of images, the role of images, and readability. The results indicated that the reading materials in the 2007 revised science textbooks are more systematic than those in the 7th science textbooks in terms of their length and their distribution among energy, matter, life, and earth areas. It was also found that various types of reading materials are presented in the 2007 revised science textbooks covering new themes such as frontier science, job opportunity and career, and environment. In addition, the reading materials in the 2007 revised science textbooks introduce more visual images and the readability of them are also better than their counterpart. However, several limitations were still found to exist in the reading materials of the 2007 revised textbooks; most of them are non-inquiry and explanatory; most of the visual images are illustration and/or pictures. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.207-212
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• 2014

The national reform document, Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990), and the Next Generation Science Standards (NRC, 2012) emphasize the importance of the nature of science in guiding science educators in accurately portraying science to students. Therefore, it is important that textbook materials convey an accurate conception of the nature of science. This study employs content analysis to examine the content of textbooks in US and Korea elementary science textbooks with regard to the four aspects of the nature of science: (a) nature of scientific knowledge; (b) nature of scientific inquiry; (c) nature of scientific thinking; and (d) nature of interactions among science, technology, and society (Chiappetta, Fillman, & Sethna, 2004). Intercoder reliability was determined by calculating Cohen's kappa (Cohen, 1960). Findings show that while US elementary science textbooks are not balanced in presenting the four aspects of the nature of science regardless of the publishing companies, the presentation of the nature of science in Korean elementary science textbooks have better balanced treatment of the four themes across the grade levels. On the other hand, both US and Korean elementary science textbooks are attempting to convey an idea of what science is by emphasizing scientific knowledge and investigation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.141-147
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• 2010

This study was carried out to analyze terms in primary science textbooks. The results of the research are as follows. 1. The higher-grade science textbooks use more types of categories and less definitions for terms. Only 14% of definitions for terms are showed in textbooks, and no more than 0.4~0.6 definitions shows the shortage of definitions for terms in one class content. 2. The definitions by contract, which forms 68%, was the highest in elementary science textbooks. And the dictionary definitions, which are 62%, was the highest in experiment-observation textbooks. 3. The most used type of definitions is the way which is used for a case or a indicating methods, and its rate is increasing steadily. And its rate was 76% of the whole of terms. 4. Terms used in energy field are few as compared with terms of other fields. Each field has completely different ways of defining terms and presenting content in textbooks to other fields.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.42-50
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• 2012

The Purpose of this study was to analyze STS contents in elementary school science textbooks according to 6th, 7th and revision 2007 national curriculum. The contents of STS were analyzed by the STS elements of Yager and the STS topics of Piel's standard. Major findings from the analyses are as follows: (1) The STS contents in the science textbooks of the 6th curriculum took up 13.7% and increased to 18.3% in the 7th and 19.0% in the revision 2007, which showed that the textbooks followed the goal of the national curriculum faithfully. (2) Based on the STS elements by Yager's standard, most of STS content is focused on 'Application of science', 'Social problems and issues' and 'Local and community relevance'. (3) Based on the STS topics by Piel's standard, most of STS contents are focused on 'Effect of technological development' and 'Society of science'. These results indicate that recent STS education trends are reflected on the 6th, 7th and revision 2007 textbooks well. However, it is suggested that some improvement is needed, such as diversification of topic.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to develop the student-centered elementary science textbook model and explore the applicability of the school. For this study we conducted a literature survey and analysis of domestic and foreign books, surveys, and then developed a textbook model of student-centered instruction. We have selected the three elementary school, three grades, fifty-seven students to apply the model developed textbooks. Textbook model of Earth was developed as a center of student activity. Applying the results of development of textbooks in the field, students were interested about the student-centered textbooks and they were felt that the development of textbooks were textbook that students can study on their own. Through this research it could confirm that it should be provided feedback to causes of the reflective thinking of students in the textbook for the development of student-centered textbook.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.745-770
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• 2013

In the knowledge-based society today, most knowledge is the integrated one which is difficult to be classified into subjects rather than the knowledge of a single subject. Thus, integrated thinking, which integrated knowledge is preferentially acquired first and then can be also associated with imagination and artistic sensitivity, is simultaneously required in order that we have a problem-solving capability in our daily life. STEAM education(science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) is one of the educational methods to improve this problem-solving capability as well as integrated thinking. This research developed materials for STEAM education which can be applied to the 6th grade curriculum of elementary school mathematics, then input it, and analyzed how it impacts with students' attitudes toward mathematics. Unit 3 'Prism' and Pyramid' were restructured and replaced by classes such as 'Spaghetti Project' or 'Paper Craft'. Unit 4 'Several Solid Figure' was taught as a class of 'EDUCUBE'. Unit 6 'Proportional Graph' was taught as a class of 'Creating my own bracelet'. After having this class, we found that mathematics class applied STEAM also has a positive effect on the mathematical attitude of students. Many students said that math is fun and gets more interesting after having math class applied STEAM and we come to know that they have positive awareness of mathematics.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.61-70
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not they have been revised corresponding to the purpose of revision by making a comparative analysis of the content and illustration in the 6th and 7th primary science textbooks. The analysis of content was composed of knowledge, inquiry process and attitude. The analysis of illustrations was composed of the kinds of illustrations and the role of illustrations. The findings of this research were as follows: First, as a result of content analysis of the primary science textbooks in the 6th and the 7th national curriculum, the ratio of inquiry process showed the highest frequency, next knowledge and lastly scientific attitude. And the 7th textbooks are greatly emphasized knowledge and science attitude. Second, as a results of the illustration analysis are as follows: There are conspicuous differences in that the illustration number of the 7th science textbooks Is about twice the illustration number of the 6th science textbooks and next, they place more weights on pictures and comics hard to discovery in the 6th science textbooks. Therefore, they have tried to induce the interests of students and heighten their understanding by supplementing the role of illustration presented as picture-centered and increasing its number presented as picture. In the results, although they have improved the problems of the 6th national curriculum a lot through the innovation including the interest induction of pupils through comics, the development of its content presentation method, the gradual change of subject number and the cultivation of curriculum according to the level of enrichment and supplementing types, the 7th science textbooks have fallen short of 6.3%, not around 30% in terms of the reduction in the 7th national curriculum. Accordingly, the 7th science textbooks also can be pointed out to have the problems of too much amount of studying compared to the time per week like the 6th science textbooks.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.201-212
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• 2002

This paper aims to find out how did elementary students understand scientific units in science textbooks. The subjects were 191 students of the 6th grade from 7 elementary schools in 3 different areas, consisting of 70 from 4 village schools of, 64 from 2 town schools of Gyeongnam province, and 57 from one city school in Ulsan Metro City. A test was developed based on the analysis of scientific units in the science textbooks and teacher's manuals constructed according to the 6th and 7th National Science Curriculum. The understanding of elementary students' on the scientific units(Temperature, Length, Weight, Volume, Speed, Plane Angle) were surveyed. The result are as follows: Regarding the temperature unit, the students generally well understand why to measure and how to read temperature, but had some problem in recording it, in confusion with the plane angle sign. As for the length unit, they obtained high scores in understanding the purpose of measuring length as well as recording and reading it. Which indicates that they are well aware of and use the unit appropriately. With respect to the weight unit, they got high scores in reading and recording weight, which means most students have no problem using the unit. However, it was found that they do not understand why to use the plate balance scale. The volume unit was one in which the students got relatively lower scores. They do not perceive the object of using a scale cylinder and confuse it with a device of length measurement. The unit of speed is the most difficult one for children's of science to understand, presumably, because it is an derived unit from two basic units. It is also assumed that the students got the highest score in the plane angle unit because they studied the unit immediately before the test. From the children's understanding of science units above the teacher's understanding and teaching methods presumed to play a major role for children to understand and use the science units properly.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.580-595
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• 2007

To respond to the announcement of the revised version of science curriculum early this year, it has been necessary to develop new science textbooks which can be appropriate and effective to achieve the goals of the revised curriculum. The system of new textbooks needs to embrace the concerns of cognitive development in scientific knowledge, skills, and attitudes as well as social and cultural demands in the rapidly changing society. To develop an innovative framework of science textbooks, we examined previous studies on textbook analysis in Korea and analyzed science textbooks in the United States, Singapore, and Japan. We analyzed various ways of introducing and developing conceptual knowledge, leading scientific inquiry skills and process, enhancing scientific attitudes toward science, technology, society and the environment in those science textbooks. In the process of framing the structures of textbooks, we focused on ways of increasing educational effects of visualized texts, leaners' interest, user-friendly procedure, scientific inquiry, effectiveness of hands-on activities, scientific reading and writing skills, and usage of workbook. Based on those aspects and analyses of textbooks, we attempted to propose a feasible framework of Grade $3{\sim}4$ Science textbook which can effectively respond to the educational changes and demands in the local and global society.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.134-143
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to devise a new method for examining the readabilities of textbooks and to compare the readabilities of elementary school science textbooks. Third and sixth grade science textbooks were compared in terms of word, sentence, and paragraph in this study. In the word analyses, criterion suggested by Kim (2003) who classified about 238,000 words into seven categories according to their educational importances was adopted. In this study, the words from 3rd and 6th grade science textbooks were classified into four categories, and then the kinds and frequencies of words in each category were investigated. In the sentence analyses, sentences were classified either a simple sentence or a compound/complex sentence, and the ratios of each type were calculated. The average number of words in a sentence was also calculated in the sentence analyses. The ratios of conjunctions and demonstratives were examined in the paragraph analyses. The results indicated that both the kinds and frequencies of words in 3rd grade science textbook were smaller than those of 6th grade one. However, both science textbooks were similar in the distributions of words across the four categories. The ratio of simple sentences in 3rd grade science textbook was higher than that of 6th grade one, and the length of a sentence in 3rd grade science textbook was also shorter than that of 6th grade one. Both the ratios of conjunctions and demonstratives in 3rd grade science textbook were lower than those of 6th grade one.