• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.429-436
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• 2020

In this study, we examined students' science academic achievement through an analysis of the national assessment of educational achievement(NAEA) from 2015 to 2018 when the 2009 revised curriculum was applied. This study analyzed achievement average scores by gender and region and also analyzed the trend of the rate of achievement level in order to understand the characteristics of students' academic achievement. In addition, we analyzed the characteristics of the affective aspect using a survey of students' attitudes (confidence, interest, value, and willingness to learn) toward science. The main findings are as follows; First, the average science score shows a tendency to decrease year by year at the middle school level. Second, when analyzed by achievement level, the decline in the advanced group was large, and the rate of the below basic group increased. Third, comparisons of the average achievement scores by gender, female students' scores were generally high and the difference in achievement scores between male and female students tended to increase. Fourth, a characteristic gap was found between regional scales that increased in the advanced group. The results of a questionnaire on students' attitudes show that the four constructs of the students' attitudes had a significant correlation with the average achievement scores. In addition, the mean and positive response rates on the confidence, interest, and value of science in the above proficiency group increased but decreased in the below basic group. These results can be used as basic data for revising the curriculum, improving teaching and learning, and establishing educational policies.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.133-150
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate the suitability of elective of the 2009 revised high school science curriculum. This study surveyed 911 students in 126 high schools by using proportionate stratified sampling. Each participating students carried out the on-line survey comprising 13 items about personal and academic suitability. The result of analyzing the response of the questionnaire were as follows. First, there were deviation of study-load, depth, difficulty, etc. between science elective I and II. Second, even though 'science' subject was developed as a subject for improving scientific literacy, it was found that it was considered difficult next to Physics I. Besides, it showed 'science' subject could not function properly to improve the ability to communicate. According to the results of analyzing the degree of interest in science elective, it can not be determined 'no interest in subject' is from the reason of difficulty or large amount of contents to memorize. The results of this study will be useful to provide suggestions for the improvement of next high school science curriculum and textbooks.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.318-333
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• 2017

In this study, we analyzed activities in life science chapters of middle school 'science' textbooks for the 2009 revised Korea national curriculum and examined the difference between the analysis based on scientific practices and the analysis based on inquiry skills. As a results, there was a lot of inquiry skills in the order of 'reasoning', 'observing', 'classification' in the all of grade. In scientific practices, 'data analysis and interpretation' and 'constructing explanations and devising problem solving' were biased. This shows that life science inquiry activities in middle school 'science' textbooks are lacking in diversity in scientific practice elements as well as inquiry skills, and that the goals of the activities are limited. In addition, through the interrelationships between scientific inquiry skills and scientific practice elements, we examined contents relevance in the transition from inquiry function center to scientific practice, and compared with the results of inquiry activities in textbook, The results of this study were matched monotonously due to the tendency to basic inquiry-data interpretation / basic inquiry-explanation. This comes from results of the lack of diversity in activities presented in middle school 'science' textbooks. In this study, it is suggested that efforts should be made to include diverse scientific practice elements in the process of realizing 2015 revised Korea national curriculum from the simple and diversity-less inquiry activity through analyzing the textbooks of the 2009 revised Korea national curriculum.

• New Physics: Sae Mulli
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• v.68 no.12
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• pp.1347-1355
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• 2018

This study aimed at investigating the physics curriculum implemented in science core schools. Thus, the researchers analyzed the science curriculum articulated in the annual reports of science core schools and interviewed some teachers in the schools to identify the features of the physics curriculum. The research findings were as follows: First, with respect to the teaching units by subjects, general science had the largest proportion, as much as 6.7 hours in average, and physics I and II were 4.2 and 4.4 hours, respectively, which were similar to other subjects such as chemistry, life science, and earth science. Second, most of schools opened the courses of physics I and II with two hours for two semesters. Fourteen schools taught physics I as an intensive unit whereas nine schools taught physics II intensively. In the case of specialized subjects, the most frequent one was independent research, and advanced physics was taught in 7 schools whereas physics experiments were done in 34 schools. Based on the findings, this study gives some implications about how to organize the physics curriculum in science core schools according to the 2015 revised science curriculum.

• 대한공업교육학회지
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.52-71
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• 2019

The quality of school education is a key element for national education development. An important factor that determines the quality of school education is qualities of teachers who are in responsible for school education in the field. Therefore, it is necessary to hire competent teachers in the teacher appointment exam for the secondary school. This necessity is evident especially for vocational high schools and Meister high schools with the introduction of 2015-revised curriculum based on NCS that separates each three subjects, "Electrical, Electronics Communication" resulting in the change of question mechanism, which requires new designing of assessment and content area. So, this study analyzes curriculum in college of education for "Electrical", "Electronics", "Communication", 2015-revised curriculum based on NCS and the development of standards for teacher qualifications and assessment area and evaluation of teaching ability in the subjects of the teacher appointment exam, "Electrical, Electronics Communication" Engineering" in 2009. The assessment area and content elements of "Electrical", "Electronics", "Communication are extracted from the analyzed results and they are verified by experts' consultation and presented as follows; First, the assessment area and content elements of the "Electrical" subject were designed to evaluate the NCS - based 2015 revised curriculum by presenting the NCS learning module to the evaluation area and content element in the basic subject "Electrical and Electronics Practice". Second, the section of "Electronics" presented the assessment area and content elements applying the Electronic Circuit, basic subject of the NCS and it also added "Electromagnetics", which is the basic part of Electronics in the Application of Electromagnetic waves that could be applied to the assessment. Third, the assessment area and content elements of "Communication" consist of the communication-related practice that is based on "Electrical" and "Electronic", considering the characteristics of "Communication Engineering". In particular, "Electrical and Electronics practice" which adds network construction practice and communication-related practice makes it to be able to evaluate the communication-related practical education.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.343-357
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• 2015

The present study aims to analyze the extent of the use of STS contents in the areas of 'Evolution of Life' and 'Health of Humanity and Scientific Technology' in 'Science' textbooks and to determine whether they meet the goals of the curriculum revised in 2009. The analysis of the 7 types of textbooks according to the STS topics areas indicated big differences between textbooks as little as 16.67% and as much as 58.33%. Also, among the topics associated with STS, 'Space Development and National Defense' and 'Environmental Problems' were not included. In the STS activity areas, the areas of 'Structured Debate,' 'Interpretation of Data,' 'Research and Investigation' showed great frequency. On the other hand, the STS activity areas of 'Field Activities,' 'Problem-solving and Decision-making,' 'Role Playing,' 'Simulation,' 'Case Study,' and 'Research Design' showed small frequency. Analysis of the STS contents for each area indicated 67.57% for the contents relevant to 'the applicability of science' accounting for the largest part whereas 'Understanding of Occupations related to Science' accounted for 1.63%, showing a great difference in their frequency. Seven standards except 'the applicability of science' were included each contents beyond 10% or less than 10% proportion. The STS contents included in the life science area of the 7 types of convergence-style 'Science' textbooks for the high-school accounted for an average of 20.75%, from as little as 12.35% to as much as 26.90%, depending on the publishes.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.599-609
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• 2017

The goal of this research is to analyze the trend of Korean fourth grade students' achievement in TIMSS 2011 and TIMSS 2015 science content domains and to suggest implications for science curriculum and teaching & learning improvement. With four elementary science teachers and three science educators, we analyzed Korean fourth grade students' percentage of correct responses in TIMSS 2015 science content and cognitive domains, and conducted item-curriculum matching analysis for test items. According to the results, Korean students performed relatively better in test topics covered in the science curriculum for 3-4 grades regardless of the science content domain (i.e., Life science, Physical science, or Earth science). Korean students showed low percentage of correct answers for items related to such topics as heat conduction, the action of electricity, the motion of the earth and the moon, etc., which were covered in the 5th-6th grades in the 2009 revised curriculum. For science cognitive domains, Korean students' achievement dropped significantly in reasoning between TIMSS 2011 and TIMSS 2015. Discussed in the conclusion are implications to reconstruct elementary school science curriculum, and ways to improve science teaching and learning.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.486-501
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• 2015

In the elementary school science curriculum, wind is one of the most important concept. In particular, land and sea breeze has been a key example to deliver how wind is driven, and thus its model experiments have been used to help students understand causes of wind. Here we compare causes and explanations for wind and land and sea breeze between textbooks in colleges and elementary schools to examine any potential improvement for the contents. In addition, we conducted survey to examine how pre-service teachers understand land and sea breeze, and convection box experiment used in elementary school textbooks is useful to understand land and sea breeze. Based on the comparison, we find that college level textbook explains the cause of wind as atmospheric pressure difference while elementary school textbooks explain them differently according to curriculums. In the textbooks, there are a difference in the way described for land and sea breeze. Analysis of questionnaire indicate that pre-service teachers understood land and sea breeze correctly, and they selected the convection box experiment in 2009 curriculum textbooks as the most suitable one. Explanations and experiments for land and sea breeze in the textbooks have been revised as the modification of elementary school curriculums. We expect this study helps to deliver more solid contents for wind and land and sea breeze in the upcoming new curriculum.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.583-605
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• 2016

Problem solving has been consistently emphasized in national mathematics curricula, whereas the foci of such an emphasis have been changed. Given this background, this study traced down major changes in emphasizing problem solving from the first national mathematics curriculum to the most recent 2015 curriculum. In particular, both the 2009 and the 2015 revised curricula were analyzed in detail to figure out the latest emphasis and trends. This paper then investigated whether a series of mathematics textbooks were aligned to the emphases of recent curricula. It finally discussed some issues that we need to reconsider with regards to problems, problem solving strategies, and the process of problem solving. As such, this study is expected to provide textbook developers with detailed implications on how to employ problem solving in new series of textbooks.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.333-351
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• 2016

This study analyzed what STEAM elements, except mathematical content, are contained in 2009 revised elementary school 5th and 6th grade group mathematics textbooks. STEAM elements in the textbooks were examined by grade and by content area in the elementary school mathematics curriculum. The results were as follows. First, the number of STEAM elements in mathematics 5-1, 5-2, 6-1, 6-2 are 151(18.4%), 212(25.9%), 211(25.7%), 246(30.0%), respectively. The 6th Grade than in 5th Grade can be seen a few plenty. Second, the number of STEAM elements are different depending on the type of STEAM. The number of arts element is 617(75.2%) and this elements are seen the most. The number of representative art and cultural art is 445(54.3%) and 172(20.9%), respectively. The number of technology-engineering and science is 158(19.2%) and 45(5.5%), respectively. We need to developed to promote use of science element in next mathematics curriculum.