• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.545-556
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• 2013

The purpose of this research was to enhance the understanding of scientific thinking of $5^{th}$ graders of elementary school through conducting investigative analyses on the students' associations with regard to illustrations on science textbooks and to provide basic data that are needed for the teachers teaching science in classrooms to reorganize textbook illustrations suitable to the realities of science contents and realms. In order to achieve the research purposes, subject $5^{th}$ grade students were asked to write down what they associated with the illustrations on the matter part of the $5^{th}$ science textbooks of elementary school: among 14 illustrations, a half of them were after lessons and other half from before lessons. The types of students' learning goal statements according to Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives were compared with the learning objectives provided in teachers' guide. The differences between before and after lessons in associated words which students used responding to given illustrations were investigated. Students' responses were analyzed in terms of how their associations were consistent with what their preference of learning objectives would be as well. Students variables including their achievement levels and gender were used as group variables in order to locate their effects on differences in their associations before and after the lessons. It was found that students manipulated the given illustrations more variously with more explanations before the lessons than after. After the lessons students tended to describe the illustrations more homogeneously and made theirs stick on the given direction by the textbooks. The implications for how school teaching affected to students' perception was made.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.158-169
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to analyze the uses of the external representations in the $3{\sim}6th$ grade science textbooks developed under the 7th National Curriculum on the basis of the theories and the research results on learning with the multiple representations. The results showed that the frequencies of the macroscopic external representations were higher than those of the symbolic external representations. The external representations with drawing and/or writing, especially writing, were used more frequently than those without drawing and/or writing. However, the most of the external representations were rarely used according to the principles and/or the theories (e.g., personalization principle, dual coding theory, cognitive load theory, and social constructivism theory) for effective uses of the multiple external representations in the science textbooks. The present study provides the guideline to establish the effective uses of the external representations in the science textbooks that not only meet learners but also teachers.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.277-288
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• 2007

This study analyzed the visual images covering 'weather' and 'weather forecast' in elementary science textbooks from the Syllabus Period to the 7th national curriculum from the socio-semiotic perspective. The results showed that most of the visual images were 'realistic' which were descriptive of real world phenomena. This means that most of the visual images in elementary science text were familiar to students in every curriculum period. The power relationship in communication between images and students was very complex. The visual images in elementary science textbooks include few geometrical and alphanumeric code in every curriculum period. This study provides a new framework to interpret amount of information, functions of information, structures, and social meanings of visual images. It could be also a beginning stage to introduce the socio-semiotic perspective into choosing visual images for next science textbooks.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.482-489
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• 2011

This study analyzed the visual images covering 'the changes of weather' in elementary science textbooks by 2007 curriculum revision from a perspective of linguistics. The findings showed that there were inclined to increasing in terms of ideational and textual metafunctions. It meant that the informative images were increased and the form of images became more abstractive. It also showed an increase in terms of interpersonal metafunctions. It was interpreted as decreasing the ratios of images inducing epistemological detachments and increasing images help familiarity and involvement between images and readers. These results showed that the visual images of 'the changes of weather' in 2007 revised elementary science textbook were professionally, technical, and abstractive in terms of the contents and formality. And these trends of images were complemented by the involvement and familiarity of images in the aspect of interpersonal metafunctions.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.29-36
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• 2003

The purposes of this study are to analyze the elementary school science textbooks (chemistry part) developed under the 7th national curriculum and to compare with those under the 6th national curriculum. The lesson hour, the number of pages, contents at each grade, deleted or newly introduced contents were analyzed. Some features of the 'Separation of mixtures' chapter were also analyzed. Educational implications were discussed in the aspect of whether the intention of revised curriculum was reflected, especially whether the amount of teaming was decreased.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.329-340
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• 2007

This study is to find out how well elementary school gardens work as places of observation learning. We compared the tree species planted in elementary school gardens with those which appeared in the science textbooks of the 7th Korean National Curriculum. The number of tree species are 60 throughout all the grades, specifically; 43 in the third grade, 22 in the fifth grade, 16 in the first grade, 15 in the second grade, 8 in the sixth grade, and 5 in the fourth grade, respectively. Their frequency of appearance (hereafter referred to as 'appearance frequency') throughout all the grades is 175, and the maximum frequency is 62 in the third grade. Of particular note is the fact that the appearance frequency in one grade was very high, meaning that a repeat study will not be conducted. The total number of tree species counted in the study was 13,028 and consisted of 167 species in 52 families. Only 23% of the total planted tree species, that is, 38 tree species appeared in the textbooks, so the ratio of the practical usage of school gardens was revealed to be low. In the school gardens, there are only an average of about 16 tree species per school. The fewest number of species in one school was 9 and the most was 22. The native species were 74 and the non-native species were 93. This means that almost all the planted species do not relate to observation learning in the textbooks. The 22 tree species among 60 species in the textbooks were not planted in the gardens. In conclusion, the degree of utilization of almost all the elementary school gardens examined during this investigation was very low.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.116-124
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to provide basic data that can be appropriately used for teaching and learning activities by comparing questions presented in the 2009 curriculum elementary science textbooks and questions presented in the elementary science textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum, I would like to suggest some implications that may help. Therefore, questioning types of elementary science textbooks in 2009 curriculum and 2015 revised curriculum were compared and analyzed. First, in the present curriculum, it is necessary to increase the percentage of applied question as it aims to cultivate creative and convergent talent. Second, the increase in the percentage of open-ended questions that provide an opportunity for learners to think freely is a desirable change. Finally, it is necessary to increase importance of the question that can be applied to content learned and can be thought of as diffusive and evaluative.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.79-92
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• 2022

This study examines the propositional connections and markers for connecting propositions in the texts of the 3^rd- and 6^th-grade science textbooks developed under the 2015 Revised Science Curriculum. A selection of texts from Korean and social science textbooks were analyzed and compared to those from science textbooks as well. The propositional connections were classified into emphasis, elaboration, exemplification, listing, addition, order, correspondence, causal relation, condition, and purpose types. The markers for the relationship of propositions were classified as demonstrative, using conjunctive, using a comma, using distinctive linguistic elements, and no marker types. The results showed that the frequency of propositional connections in the texts of the 6^th-grade textbooks was lower than that of Korean and/or social science textbooks. However, the frequency of the propositional connections in the texts of the 3^rd-grade textbooks was found to be lower than that of the social science textbook but higher than that of the Korean textbook. The types of order, listing, condition, and causal relation were dominant in science as well as Korean and social science textbooks. Over 40% of the markers for the relationship of propositions were found to be the no marker type, with the ratio of the no marker type being especially higher in the categories of order and causal relation.

• Journal of People, Plants, and Environment
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.485-498
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• 2021

Background and objective: This study was conducted to find out the status of plant utilization in the current textbooks by analyzing the plants by grade and subject in the national textbooks for all elementary school grades in the 2015 revised curriculum in Korea. Methods: The data collected was analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel to obtain the frequency and ratio of collected plant data and SPSS for Windows 26.0 to determine learning content areas by grade and the R program was used to visualize the learning content areas. Results: A total of 232 species of plants were presented 1,047 times in the national textbooks. Based on an analysis of the plants presented by grade, the species that continued to increase in the lower grades tended to decrease in the fifth and sixth grades, the upper grades of elementary school. As for the number and frequency of plant species by subject, Korean Language had the highest number and frequency of plant species. The types of presentation of plants in textbooks were mainly text, followed by illustrations and photos of plants, which were largely used in first grade textbooks. In addition, as for the area of learning contents in which plants are used, in the lower grades, plants were used in the linguistic domain, and in the upper grades, in the botanical and environmental domains of the natural sciences. Herbaceous plants were presented more than woody plants, and according to an analysis of the plants based on the classification of crops, horticultural crops were presented the most, followed by food crops. Out of horticultural crops, flowering plants were found the most diversity with 63 species, but the plants that appeared most frequently were fruit trees that are commonly encountered in real life. Conclusion: As a result of this study, various plant species were included in elementary school textbooks, but most of them were horticultural crops encountered in real life depending on their use. Nevertheless, plant species with high frequency have continued a similar trend of frequency from the previous curriculums. Therefore, in the next curriculum, plant learning materials should be reflected according to social changes and students' preference for plants.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.305-315
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• 2016

The purpose of this paper was to analyze the role of illustrations in elementary textbooks (3~4 grade) of the 2009 revised curriculum of science education in Korea from point of view of aim of science by applying the criteria of 5E inquiry process model for reflecting core aim of the science education. The subjects of the paper was the 105 illustrations in the earth-science domain of elementary science textbooks (3~4 grade) of the 2009 revised curriculum of science education in Korea. The analysis criterion was of two categories, the function of illustration and the role of illustration. the function of illustration was divided into three subcategories such as Exclusiveness type, correspondence type and supplementary type. The role of illustration was divide into five subcategories such as Engagement, Exploration, Explanation, Elaboration and Evaluation. According to results of the illustration analysis are as follows: the result of the function of illustration are exclusiveness type 39, correspondence type 36 and supplementary type 30, the important of point to note is that there are a lot of exclusiveness type considerably. compared with other subjects, this fact indicate character of illustration of the only science textbook. The result of the role of illustration are Engagement 14, exploration 64, explanation 25, elaboration 2 and evaluation 0. This data indicate main role of illustrations in earth-science domain is to help the students to be able to observe and explore. Cross-analysis of the function and role was a significant difference. Role of illustration was evenly distributed within Exclusiveness type on the other hand, the role of illustrations was mainly exploration and explanation in correspondence and supplementary type. Especially, illustration of exploration was mainly correspondence type.