• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.109-122
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• 2015

In National Curriculum of Science revised in 2007, free inquiry was newly introduced to increase student's interest in science and to foster creativity by having students make their own curiosity questions and find answers by themselves. The purpose of this study is to analyze elementary school students' perceptions on free science inquiry activities applying a brain-based evolutionary approach. For this study, 106 the fifth grade students participated, and then completed a questionnaire on free inquiry activities according to a brain-based evolutionary science teaching and learning principles. The students performed a series of steps of the Diversifying, Estimating-Evaluating-Executing, and Furthering activities in each of Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive domains (ABC-DEF approach) and constructed their own free inquiry diary, then the observations by the researcher and interviews with the students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major results of the study were as follows: First, the majority of the students perceived the each domain and step positively although a few of them perceived negatively. The reasons perceived as negatively were categorized into two; preference dimension of like or dislike and ability dimension of metacognitive or self-reflective capacity. Also, they perceived the free inquiry experience in the form of ABC-DEF as helpful to understand the nature of scientists' scientific activities. Based on these findings, implications for supporting authentic inquiry in school science are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.773-783
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• 2014

In National Curriculum of Science revised in 2007, the Free Inquiry was newly introduced to increase students' interest in science and to foster creativity by having students make their own question and find answer by themselves. The purpose of the study was to analyze characteristics, in cognitive domain, appeared in the processes of performing the Free Inquiry activities applying a brain-based evolutionary science teaching and learning principles. For this study, 106 fifth grade students participated, and they performed individually Free Inquiry activities. In order to characterize of the diversifying, estimating-evaluating-executing, and extending-applying activities in cognitive domain (C-DEF), the Free Inquiry diary constructed by the students, observations by a researcher, and interviews with the students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major results of this study were as follows: First, at C-D step, many students (71.5%) had difficulty in searching the meanings of their results and the contents of interpretations were at the level of simple description of their results. A few students (15.2%) derived interpretations based on causal relationships between specific variable and result. Also, the tendency that the numbers of interpretation about meaning of their results were increased as the scores of science attitude and achievement was appeared. Second, at C-E step, the students showed tendency of considering facts exactly explaining inquiry topic and being appliable to daily life rather than objectivity or accuracy of scientific knowledge. Third, at C-F step, there were three types of extension and application: simple repetition (8.2%), extension (64.0%), and upward application (17.6%) types. Based on these findings, implications for supporting appropriate interpretation, evaluation, and application of inquiry results are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.579-587
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• 2014

In National Curriculum of Science revised in 2007, 'Free Inquiry' was newly introduced to increase student's interest in science and to foster creativity by having students make their own questions and find answers by themselves. The purpose of the study was to analyze characteristics deployed in the processes of elementary school students' free inquiry activities applying a brain-based evolutionary science teaching and learning principles. For this study, 106 the fifth grade students participated, and they performed individually free inquiry activities according to a brain-based evolutionary approach. In order to characterize the diversifying, estimating-evaluating-executing, and extending-applying activities in behavioral domain, the free inquiry diary constructed by the students, observations by the researcher, and interviews with the students were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The major results of this study were as follows: First, the students preferred basic inquiry process skills and the majority of the students selected observation as a major approach of their inquiry. The reason was found to be that they were accustomed to only typical basic inquiry skills which is frequently presented at textbooks and regular instruction and didn't have appropriate experience for using relevant integrative inquiry skills. Second, most of the methods diversified and selected by the students were confined to descriptive explanation rather than causal one. Third, both of the science attitude and academic achievement were associated with the number of diversified methods and the selection of appropriate method. Based on these findings, implications for supporting domain novices in inquiry learning environments are advanced.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.36-46
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• 2013

The creative thinking and emotional trainings are very important educational issues in the knowledge-information-based future society. Recently STEAM education is suggested as one of the educational solutions to prepare the future society. The aims of this study are to develop STEAM teaching-learning program and analyze its effects on the creativity and emotional intelligence of science-gifted and general students in elementary school. Four different subject matters based on the 2007-revised curriculum were selected to construct the brain-based STEAM teaching-learning program consisting of 12 class hours. The program was applied to 50 elementary general students and 19 science-gifted elementary students. The findings of this research are as follows. The brain-based STEAM programs is effective to improve the creativity and emotional intelligence of science-gifted and general elementary students after class. The creativity of two groups was not statistically different before the class. However after class, the creativity of gifted-science students is significantly higher than that of general students. The emotional intelligence of gifted-science students was higher than that of general students before the class. Therefore in oder to analyze the different effects of the program on two groups in emotional intelligence, the test results of both group of students were analyzed by ANCOVA after class. This analysis also showed that the program is more effective in gifted-science students to improve the emotional intelligence compared to general students.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.73-84
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of home economics education in a low fertility society in the contexts of curriculum contents, community involvement, public policy participation, and advocacy. The results showed following. First, home economics is a key subject matter in dealing with a low fertility problem among 2007 revised curriculum for secondary education level. Home economics curriculum contents was systematically organized through 8th grade to 10th grade in 4 units, where as curricula contents of social studies, science, and moral education deal with a low fertility problem in partial. Second, it is proposed to be active in community involvement incorporating with secondary education, college education, and lifelong education by service learning, outreach program, and extension program. Third, public policy and advocacy participation of home economics teachers are crucial for transformative leadership and practice in enhancing the condition of individual, family, and community wellbeing such as a low fertility problem. To perform this role of home economics education, home economics teachers should participate in developing curricula and teaching materials for the extra curricula activity, creative experiencing activity, and service learning activity. Home economics teacher educators also should actively involved in outreach program and extension program as well as in public policy advocacy activity for solving a low fertility problem.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.68-78
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• 2013

Until now, research to integrate art activities and science education have been making steady progress in the field of primary education and early childhood education that are directly involved in the art education of students. However, some science educators were interested in visualizing the artifacts by using design principles and experimental results through STEAM education. So, when conducting lessons for integrating science education with art activities, research is needed on the changing of the students' ability. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of science experiments in collaboration with art activities for students' self-directed learning skills and creative personality in elementary school. This study was applied to 30 students(16 male, 14 female) of 4th grade in Changwon C elementary school. The teaching materials of this study was extracted some of the experiments from the 2007 revised national curriculum in elementary science textbook and 'Teachers for Exciting Science'. Experimental treatment was performed over a total of 10 class 5 subjects and a pre-post test was conducted through G-TAGAS. As a result, science experiments in collaboration with art activities have improved significantly students' self-directed learning skills and creative personality.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.363-370
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• 2012

The purpose of the study was to classify scientific models in the seventh grade science textbooks of the 2007 revised science curriculum. The three chapters of 'three states of material', 'motion of molecule', and 'change of state and energy' were investigated. There were two types of the scientific model as 'mode of representation' and 'attribute of representation'. The mode of representation was composed of 'action model', 'analogical model', 'symbolic model', and 'theoretical model' and the attribute of representation was composed of 'static model' and 'dynamic model'. The results showed that the action model and the analogical model were used primarily in mode of representation. The dynamic model were widely used in attribute of representation. Area of matters dealt with conception of molecules and aimed for students to understand the arrangement and movement of molecule microscopically about macroscopic state in a daily life. Tis study could help to recognize the limitations of scientific models on current textbooks and offer more useful information in planning lessons and organizing textbooks for the future.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.210-224
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to analyze students' recognition of the free inquiry activity and to investigate what effect the free inquiry activity of the 2007 Revised Educational curriculum revision has on the science inquiry ability of middle school students. To conduct the research we worked with 262 female students, 8 classes of first graders in a middle school. Among them, 4 classes were taught in free inquiry activity and the remaining 4 classes were taught in the traditional way. The results of Likert-questionnaire indicate that students were learning about cooperative spirit through group investigation activities and discussions and did not take the free inquiry activity as a hard activity. Also they showed positive reaction agreeing that this activity is both a helpful method in learning science and interesting. However, it seemed that the investigation tends to flow between the leading 1~2 members of the group and showed difficulty in carrying out the investigation as a group after school hours. It showed there are few problems and obstacles in operating the free inquiry activity. The free inquiry activity did not give any meaningful influence on the improvement of science inquiry ability of students. Integrative inquiry process skills did not give a relevant influence, however, it showed a meaningful influence on the improvement of basic inquiry process skills. Especially, among the low-ranking element of basic inquiry process skills, it enhanced the capacity for prediction.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.1139-1153
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• 2013

Misconceptions are one of the most important and long-lasting studied themes on science education. It is because their nature is obstinate and settled as well as they corrupt students' understanding of science concepts. This study examines whether preservice elementary school teachers enrolled in biology teaching material research course changed positively on science teaching efficacy and correcting life science misconceptions when they used the handbook developed for this study. The handbook comprises 203 life science concepts surveyed among preservice teachers holding from advanced researches and arranged by 2007 Revised Science Curriculum. 107 preservice elementary school teachers participated in the study. Forty-six (46) of them were assigned to the experimental group and the other 61 to the control group. ANOVA was conducted for analyzing data. Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) and the life science misconception test which was developed for this study, were administrated as assessing instruments for pretest and posttest. The experimental group, using the handbook, acquired higher scores in both tests on statistical significance level than the control group who were not using the handbook. The results indicate the handbook developed for correcting life science misconceptions for this study is effective in enhancing science teaching efficacy and correcting life science misconceptions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.143-152
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the contents of open inquiry activities of the newly revised 2007 National curriculum for each grade level and to teach open inquiry activities and selection of rational inquiry activities. For this study, 470 elementary students in Seoul, ranging from 3rd to 6th grades were surveyed. The experiment plans written by students were analyzed based on the analysis criteria. These criteria consisted of the reason for the selection, type, and suitability of open inquiry activities. The reason for selecting open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the reason why they want to conduct the activity, degree of getting help and the object of getting help. The types of the open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the field of inquiry, the inquiry method and the period of inquiry. Suitability of the open inquiry activities were analyzed according to the reason of suitability or unsuitability.