• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.80-86
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that influence the choice of a major in a sample of 655 science students enrolled in 14 high schools. It was found that more than 80 percents of students had already chosen their desired majors by the second year of high school. Half intended to apply for medical colleges. The preference of medical colleges was more pronounced in high-ranking students. It was found that students who scored highly on career decision level assessments were more likely to major in science. The most important determinant for students in choosing majors was subject interests. Career concerns and students' grades also influenced the choice of majors. In this study, it is concluded that the career decision level of students and subject interests influenced their choice of major. These findings suggest the career development programs and efforts to expose students to various career paths will increase the ability to make informed educational decisions.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.14-23
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• 2010

Whether the engineering department of universities employs ideal usage of e-learning or not needs to be investigated as many engineering departments diversify the use of the e-learning elements for educational purpose. Applying the teaching and learning methods and characteristics would lead to better strategies which are applied to development of contents and deployment of the e-learning courses. This study examines the characteristics and approaches of the usage of e-learning elements used by some instructors who use multimedia contents in offline teaching and learning environment. The results of this study shows that the e-learning elements assist the face-to-face course and the interactions are manifested in the classroom rather than in online setting. Lecture, hands-on-practice, simulation, and PBL(Problem-based learning) are turned out to be the major teaching and learning methods. This study signifies the need for use of various teaching and learning methods by the instructors and provision of PBL environment.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.96-106
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• 2009

Problem-based learning has been considered as one of the effective educational methods in engineering education. However, in so far as professors who require practical insights in PBL and experiences of developing actual problems by subject, in particular, thorough understanding from experiences of PBL process as well as problem-development has not been sufficiently provided. The purpose of this paper is to present strategies focusing on problem design for PBL on engineering education. In order to do this, a literature review and a qualitative case study were performed. Especially, the study intended to identify differences and gap between professors' problems-development process and its output and those of authentic PBL. Professors were found that their PBL problems had lack of authenticity, consideration on experiences of students, and realistic thinking process. Professors in PBL had difficulty to link theory into real situation. In consequence, in designing a problem, we consider the followings; first, the problem should be designed based on real design process and its output. Second, the problem should be designed and implemented in all academic years for developing student's systematic and skillful thinking process. In conclusion, more supports are needed for engineering professors to extend their experiences of designing and developing actual problems that present real experience.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.171-179
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• 2010

In this paper, we describe a case study of a new lab. project that improves efficiency for education and interest on learning in image processing and pattern recognition related subjects by using LEGO Mindstorms. In addition we verify the validity with analysis of the practical application. LEGO Mindstorms is already used in many educational institution of several countries since about 10 years ago and various case studies have been published. The use of LEGO Mindstorms is generally positive but the negative comments about this exist. The main cause of negative opinion is from unpredictability. The unpredictability from mainly analog characteristics of robot can degrade the effective learning. The describing lab. project suppresses occurrence of unpredictability by minimizing dependence on robots. Students can concentrate on learning the related algorithms by minimizing the learning content and further consideration.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.50-57
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• 2013

The study to improve engineering students' performance in studying physics lacked despite of the importance of studying physics in engineering education. The cognitive belief and the motivational belief in studying physics had a strong effect on studying physics. The purpose of this study was to seek the educational way through comparing professors' expectations with students' beliefs about the cognitive belief and the motivational belief in studying physics. The cognitive belief in studying physics was considered as variables like 'knowledge', 'learning' and 'relation'. The motivational belief in studying physics was considered as variables like 'expectancy' and 'value'. It was the 'expectancy' that was the most different dimension between professors' expectations and students' beliefs. It means that students have little confidence in their abilities to study physics, though professors expect their students to be confident. Professor who teaches physics to engineering students recognize these differences, need to have interest in affective domains of beliefs to teach. In addition, there is need to teaching and learning strategies that can lead engineering students' beliefs about ability to perform the task, the purpose, importance, interesting for physics.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.149-168
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• 2014

Growing in its size, the contents of the teaching-learning programs for mathematically gifted children from A program in Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education were examined in terms of the individual subjects provided through the courses of gifted education programs, and it was evaluated based on the revised version of the existing module. As a result, the educational objectives of teaching-learning program were clear, differentiated and obtainable. Among the program, the advanced parts were more than the selective parts, which mainly consisted of numbers and calculation, shapes, regularity and problem solving parts and had latest contents of research in balance. Additionally, every part of the program needs mathematical and creative thinking and approach and has proper evaluation index for problem solving. The presented materials in the programs are specific and appropriate, though some of them did not suggest the evaluation index for cultivating personality and value clearly and the reference books. The teaching-learning programs were focusing on problem-based learning and cooperative learning and using performance assessment for evaluation.

• School Mathematics
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.153-179
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• 2004

In this article, we classify the middleschool students' mathematical modeling activities with three types as following: perceptive activity, cognitive activity, and metacognitive activity. And we research model development process through the interaction of perceptive, cognitive, and metacognitive activities. We report three results of our case study as following: First, students understanded the context of the modeling tasks on the base of their own experience and constructed the tasks with perceptive activity operating tool. Second, students developed various models with reorganizing cognitive activity which think and reason about perceptive activity-based model. Third, students were able to create generalizable and reusable models through metacognitive activities. This study revealed that the possible contribution of modeling activity as following. Students are able to understand abstractive mathematical knowledge as connecting between realistic activity and abstractive activity.

• School Mathematics
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.283-299
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• 2004

It is a very important objective of mathematical education to lead students to apply mathematics to the problem situations and to solve the problems. Assuming that mathematical modeling is appropriate for such mathematical education objectives, we must emphasize mathematical modeling learning. In this research, we focused what mathematical concepts are learned and what reasoning are applied and used through mathematical modeling. In the process of mathematical modeling, the students used several types of reasoning; deduction, induction and abduction. Although we cannot generalize a fact by a single case study, deduction has been used to confirm whether their model is correct to the real situation and to find solutions by leading mathematical conclusion and induction to experimentally verify whether their model is correct. And abduction has been used to abstract a mathematical model from a real model, to provide interpretation to existing a practical ground for mathematical results, and elicit new mathematical model by modifying a present model.

• School Mathematics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.131-145
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• 2009

This research was designed to investigate the possibility to teach function concept and graph representation of functions in explicit manner toward at elementary level. Eight class-hours instruction was given to four Grade 5(age 11) students, and dynamic geometry software GSP was partially used in the class. Results indicate that the students could conceptualize the function relation, interpret linear function graphs, recognize the meaning of their slopes, and discuss the relationships among linear graphs and real life situation. Results also indicate that GSP helped students to recognize the relation between dots and the linear graph clearly and that GSP-line graph did decisive role for children to understand the meaning of graph representation of function.

• School Mathematics
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.55-70
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to implement Lakatos method in the teaching and learning of geometry for middle school students. In his landmark book , Lakatos suggested the following instructional approach: an initial conjecture was produced, attempts were made to prove the conjecture, the proofs were repeatedly refuted by counterexamples, and finally more improved conjectures and refined proofs were suggested. In the study, students were selected from the high achieving students who participated in the special mathematics and science program offered by the city council of Seoul. The students were given a contradictory geometric proposition, and expected to find the cause of the fallacy. The students successfully identified the fallacy following the Lakatos method. In this process they also set up a primitive conjecture and this conjecture was justified by the proof and refutation method. Some implications were drawn from the result of the study.