• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.242-258
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• 2002

This study investigated preservice teachers' understandings of the ontology and epistemology underlying constructivist notions of teaming. Throughout this study, the epistemological, ontological, and pedagogical characteristics for each teacher's developing views of learning were identified through four in-depth interviews. Data from interviews were used to create three profiles containing ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments and pedagogical beliefs. This study has demonstrated that the notion of a constructivist profile change has significant potential for informing the analysis and description of preservice teachers' beliefs changes. Major findings include: constructivist profile changes overtime, diversification of profile components over time, features of the teachers' pedagogical belief profile changes, and teachers' unawareness of their profiles. However, changes in ontological beliefs and epistemological commitments were not easy, nor were they easily internalized for these teachers. The implications of this research are that preservice teachers should be aware of coexisting different categories of their learning-to-teach profiles, and that teacher educators should provide these preservice teachers with instruction designed to change preservice teachers' profiles towards increasing constructivist views of teaching and learning and restricting other undesirable categories.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.193-202
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• 2021

This study aims to identify what kind of epistemological resources were activated in unproductive and productive practice by students participating in scientific argumentation, and to explore which contexts result in changes in argumentative practice. We collected transcriptions of participants' argumentative lessons and interview, participants' work sheets, and researchers' field notes. The analysis revealed that the focus group activated different kinds of epistemological resources depending on their practice; propagated, belief, and accumulation in unproductive practice and constructed, understanding, accumulation, formation and rebuttal in productive practice. We found two contextual cues that led to these changes; unfamiliar form of argumentative task was provided and emotional, epistemic, and conceptual support of the epistemic authority. This work can be provided as additional case studies to analyze changes in practice according to learner context-dependent epistemology, and we expect to contribute to discussions of productive epistemology and stabilization for students' authentic science engagement.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.277-287
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate the main effects and interaction effects of individual variables on the epistemological beliefs of elementary school science teachers. For this purpose, a survey was conducted on 338 elementary science teachers in the metropolitan area on gender, teaching career, and epistemological beliefs. Epistemological beliefs show significant differences not only in gender and teaching career, but also in the interaction between gender and teaching career. Depending on gender, female teachers are more integrated in knowledge than male teachers, and process is more important than outcome in learning. Depending on the teaching career, it was found that high-career teachers generally value the process rather than the results, as knowledge is integrated and constantly evolving, knowledge is acquired by individual reasoning and justified through external interaction. On the other hand, teachers with low career perceive that efforts are indispensable in learning compared to other groups. Depending on the interaction between gender and teaching career, elementary school teachers believe that the higher the teaching career, the more integrated and constantly evolved, but low-career male teachers believed that learning ability was born with experience, while high-career male teachers value the learning process. Based on this study, it is expected that many training sessions aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning will provide more effective opportunities to develop elementary science teachers' epistemological beliefs, considering teachers' personal characteristics.

• Korean Journal of Logic
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.167-195
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• 2015

This paper aims to respond to Weisberg's claim that the standard Bayesian epistemology cannot model an agent's belief updating that is triggered by some undermining evidence. Our epistemological intuition seems to require that the undermining evidence decreases some particular relevant credences. According to Weisberg, however, such a belief change cannot result from the standard Bayesian belief updating rules-i.e., (Jeffrey) Conditionalization. This is because probabilistic independence between some propositions is preserved under (Jeffrey) Conditionalization on the relevant evidence. Yet I will show in this paper that this conclusion is somewhat hasty. In particular, I will show that there is another version of Conditionalization and that when one updates her credences by means of such a version, the belief updating originated in undermining evidence can be well modeled in the Bayesian framework. Some authors often call the version Higher Order Conditionalization.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.571-582
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• 2005

In spite of the importance of cognitive conflict in conceptual change, there has been little research on the characteristics of cognitive conflict in students enrolled at vocational high schools. The purpose of this study was to expose these students' cognitive conflict types and investigate characteristics of cognitive conflict according to the type of cognitive conflict. This paper examined how vocational students' motivational beliefs and epistemological beliefs affect the process of cognitive conflict when students are confronted with an anomalous situation related to the action and reaction concept. Results indicated that many vocational students experienced low levels of cognitive conflict and remained passive during the explanation of anomalous phenomenon or easily desisted any attempt to resolve the conflict situation because of their epistemological belief to depend on the external absolute knowledge of teachers, an extrinsic motivation to choose easier tasks, or reliance on the teachers' reputations. Therefore, Instructors need to recognize these characteristics in order to facilitate vocational students' conceptual change when presenting cognitive conflict tasks.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.328-344
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• 2013

This study investigated the types of elementary science-gifted students' coping strategies and teachers' desired teaching strategies in anomalous situations. Their epistemological beliefs about science were then analyzed on the bases of the types. To do this, 5th and 6th year science-gifted students (N=72) were asked to respond to an open-ended question with some of them being interviewed deeply. The analyses of the results indicated seven types of coping strategies in anomalous situations and were identified as follows: Abandoning, asking a teacher for help, trying the experiment again with same methods, trying the experiments again with different methods, trying the experiment again after actively analyzing the causes, recognizing the experimental results, and explaining the experimental results. Seven types of teachers' desired teaching strategies emerged and were also identified as follows: Encouraging, providing successful experimental results, explaining, providing the opportunity for trying the experiment again with same methods, providing the opportunity for trying the experiments again with different methods, providing the opportunity and help for trying the experiment again after actively analyzing the causes, and providing the opportunity and help for explaining the experimental results. The fourteen types were grouped again into four categories such as 'transferring facts', 'constructing facts', 'transferring meanings', and 'constructing meanings' on the bases of the epistemological beliefs toward knowledge and the epistemological beliefs toward relation. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.1087-1098
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• 2012

This study investigated the types of elementary school students' coping strategies for anomalous situations in science classes. Their epistemological beliefs were then analyzed on the basis of types. To do this, the students (N=75) from 2 elementary schools were asked to respond to an open-ended question about their coping strategies on anomalous situations and some of them underwent in-depth interviews. The analyses of the results indicated five types of coping strategies and were identified as follows: Abandoning, asking a teacher for help, trying the experiment again with same methods, trying the experiments again with different methods, and trying the experiment again after actively analyzing the causes. Among these, the major types were 'trying the experiment again with same methods', 'trying the experiments again with different methods', and 'asking a teacher for help'. The five types were grouped again into four categories such as 'transferring facts', 'constructing facts', 'transferring meanings', and 'constructing meanings' on the basis of the epistemological beliefs toward knowledge and the epistemological beliefs toward relation. The results revealed that 'trying the experiment again after actively analyzing the causes' was only included in 'constructing facts' and the others were included in 'transferring facts'. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Korean Medical Education Review
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.64-68
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• 2012

Learning in medical school is usually regarded as a very specialized type of learning compared to that of other academic disciplines. Medical students might have general beliefs about their own learning. Beliefs about learning have a critical effect on learning behavior. There are several factors that affect medical students' learning behavior: epistemological beliefs, learning styles, learning strategies, and learning beliefs. Several studies have addressed epistemological beliefs, learning styles, and learning strategies in medical education. There are, however, few studies that have reported on medical students' beliefs about learning. The purpose of this study was to determine what learning beliefs medical students have, what the causes of these beliefs are, and how medical educators teach students who have such beliefs. In this study, the five learning beliefs are assumed and we considered how these beliefs can affect students' learning behaviors. They include: 1) medical students are expected to learn a large amount of information in a short time. 2) memorization is more important than understanding to survive in medical schools. 3) learning is a competition and work is independent, rather than collaborative. 4) reading textbooks is a heavy burden in medical education. 5) the most effective teaching and learning method is the lecture. These learning beliefs might be the results of various hidden curricula, shared experiences of the former and the present students as a group, and personal experience. Some learning beliefs may negatively affect students' learning. In conclusion, the implications of medical students' learning beliefs are significant and indicate that students and educators can benefit from opportunities that make students' beliefs about learning more conscious.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.261-275
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• 2016

Many students have dualistic beliefs about mathematics and its learning- for example, there is always just one right answer in mathematics and their role in the classroom is receiving and absorbing knowledge from teacher and textbook. This article investigated some epistemic implications and limitations of common mathematics teaching practices, which often present mathematical facts(or procedures) and treat students' errors in a certain and absolute way. Langer and Piper's (1987) experiment and Oliveira et al.'s (2012) study suggested that presenting knowledge in conditional language which allows uncertainty can foster students' productive epistemological beliefs. Changing the focus and patterns of classroom communication about students' errors could help students to overcome their dualistic beliefs. This discussion will contribute to analyze the implicit epistemic messages conveyed by mathematics instructions and to investigate teaching strategies for stimulating students' epistemic development in mathematics.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.167-178
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to explore characteristics of sixth grade students' opistemological beliefs in science and the relationship to learner's characteristics: learning motivation, learning strategies, and logical thinking. The subjects were 265 sixth graders and data was collected through two types of questionnaires, translated and modified by researchers: opistemological beliefs regarding science, learning motivation & strategies. The results of this study were as follows. The students believed that the goals of science were related to activations such as 'Science is experiment', or 'Science is invention: These beliefs were connected with the emphasis of science classes or the focus of the science curriculum. However, the students' beliefs related to the changeability of science knowledge, the source of science knowledge, and the role of experiments in developing knowledge were oriented to modern opistemological views. Moreover, the beliefs were meaningfully related to students' characteristics: learning motivation, learning strategies, and logical thinking. Among the students' characteristics, logical thinking was especially related to all of the factors of students' beliefs: the changeability of science knowledge, the source of science knowledge, and the role of experiments in developing knowledge. However, the students who believed that scientific knowledge came from scientists, science teachers, or science textbooks had high levels of self-efficacy. Therefore, the belief that scientific knowledge is formed by self-discovery, in order to generate high self-efficacy, needs to be encouraged. From the results, it is possible to check the orientation of current science education based on the students' opistemological beliefs. In addition, the resources can be accumulated for persevering in our efforts to achieve a positive orientation for science education.