• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.198-209
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• 2011

In this study, pre-service science teachers' reflective thinking in their journal writing was investigated. To do this, the authors used pre-service science teachers' journal writing abilities, wherein they not only reported data and result formally, but also wrote their feelings and reflections about an inquiry-based physics experiment they performed. Pre-service science teachers' writings were decomposed into sentences and each sentence was analyzed into a framework with 4 dimensions: knowledge, procedure, orientation and attitude. Reflective thinking in knowledge dimension included reflection on what they know before the experiment, what they still do not know and what they learned from the experiment. Reflective thinking in procedure dimension included recalls of experiences about general experimental procedures and specific experimental skill. Reflective thinking in orientation dimension included their views about the nature of science and science teaching and learning, and reflective thinking in attitude dimension consisted of interests, motives and values about the experiment they performed. While there were some variations in frequency distribution of reflective thinking by the topic of experiments, pre-service science teachers' reflective thinking in journal writings revealed their metacognition on their knowledge and learning, epistemological belief about science and science learning, and affective domain related to experiment. This study can infer that such kind of writing with 'their own language' in an informal way followed by formal 'scientific' reports in a scientific experiment has a significance not only as a mediator representing reflective thinking but also as an instructional activity to facilitate reflective thinking in science learning and teaching.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.309-323
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• 2002

This qualitative study investigated preservice teachers' understandings of the ontology and epistemology underlying constructivist notions of learning through four in-depth interviews. Of the sixteen participants in a larger study, five significantly changed ontological and epistemological beliefs and eleven did not. This study focused on these eleven teachers who have hardly changed their philosophical beliefs throughout the teacher education program. Ten teachers who consistently maintained the scientific realist beliefs were presented as a composite case (Young's case). Among the eleven teachers, there was one outlier who had consistently maintained an idealist and relativist epistemological position from the beginning of the study and was subjected to another case analysis (Ben's case). These cases corroborated the assertion that each individual's deeply entrenched ontological and epistemological beliefs are very hard to change. For researchers, this study offers insights into the reasons that preservice teachers give for non-changes in their thinking about learning to teach. The study also examines preservice teachers' perceived constraints in implementing their ideal pedagogies and the influence of the teacher education program on their pedagogical beliefs changes. The benefits and influences of the M.Ed. program's theoretical coursework and the field experiences on these teachers' learning-to-teach experiences are addressed with rich data. The implications for teacher educators as well as for the instructional practices of preservice teacher education programs are discussed. This research emphasize necessity of the field-based teacher education program and the need of empowering experienced school teachers as teacher educators in teacher preparation and professional development.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.277-287
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• 2016

This study explores how a teacher copes with anomalous situation in primary practical science lesson and what factors affect teacher's strategy to cope with anomalous situations. The method of auto-ethnography was used in order to capture the inner experience of the individual teacher. For this, one of the researchers participated in this study as the teacher participant. Two science lessons that the researcher taught as a teacher were observed by a co-author and video-recorded. However, only one lesson which the teacher experienced the anomalous situation was analyzed. After the lesson, self-interviews were conducted with the co-author. Also the researcher wrote four reflective journals about anomalous situations that she experienced. What has emerged in this study is that anomalous situations were experienced by the teacher while students were doing practical work and while students were presenting their results of practical work. As each anomalous situation was experienced in different contexts, the strategies that the teacher used were different and were affected not only by the personal epistemological belief but also by the socio-cultural context that the teacher was surrounded by. This study has implications to help teachers who have difficulties in coping with anomalous situations.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.107-144
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• 2012

Recently concerns on the energy future are rising in Korea after nuclear disaster of Fukushima in Japan last year. However, even after Fukushima disaster Korean government keeps on insisting nuclear oriented energy policy. Contrary to it, some of civil society's organizations(CSOs) including environment groups and progressive political parties are making strong voices for phase-out nuclear. As a way of phase-out nuclear activity researcher groups based on CSOs have presented several alternative energy scenarios against the official government scenario so that contest between the two senarios seems not to be avoided. This article aims to analyse the politics of expertise around energy scenarios in Korea by highlighting differences between two scenarios of government and CSOs in terms of epistemological and methodological base, value orientation, institutional foundation, and the socio-political contexts of scenarios. Our research shows that government's energy scenario is based on scientific-positivist epistemology, firm belief in value neutrality and forecasting method, and is built by neo-classical economists at government-sponsored research institutes in accordance with the 'Business As Usual' approach. In contrast, alternative scenarios of CSOs can be said to be based on epistemological constructivism, value oriented attitudes and backcasting method, and be built by collaboration of researchers and activists with different academic and social backgrounds after Fukushima nuclear disaster.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.117
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• pp.57-84
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• 2011

As for the methodology of physical science, on the one side, Ludwig Boltzmann was declined to Scientific Realist and at the same time Epistemological Idealist. But on the other. He was neither fully nor consistently either one of them, because of rejecting the causal realism of the former and the belief in absolute certainty of the latter. Is there nevertheless any evidence that he had a coherent world view of his own? Yes. In short, he seems to identify his own position with what is called a mind-matter identity theory. In 1897, he supported that psychological processes are identical with certain processes in the brain(realism). And in 1903, he said : "Physics is not separated from psychology. They are only different sides." But Boltzmann did not explain concretely the possibility of this identity. So I tried to construct one theory of identity which is suitable for understanding problems n the physical world, though whether it would work for a full-scale world view which includes both physical and mental phenomena remains problematic. If light phenomena, for example, tend to be measured in terms of some contexts as if light were a wave and in others as if light were a particle, then one may be able to reasonably suppose that light has whatever characteristics in itself which it must have in order to seem like a wave under some conditions of measurement and like a particle in others. If this theory is provisionally to mental phenomena as well, it would mean that reality has those characteristics in itself which it must have to appear as it does to the various faculties of the mind and as it is measured in different physical situations. This is probably not what Boltzmann meant by his theory of identity, since it is very ontological and metaphysical. But in my opinion it is by far the most reasonable identity theory.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.43-58
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• 2006

An objective of this paper is to discuss the didactical contracts which have been conceptualized by Brousseau. He modelled mathematics instruction as a game. In such game, didactical contracts existed as its own hidden rules which teacher and student should obey Brousseau introduced it to reveal certain hidden rules which regulates mathematics instruction. Those rules are implicit and reciprocal. In particular, it is not revealed until students break. He defined didactical contracts as teacher's behaviour and corresponding students 'behaviour in order to define it operationally. He he did not define it in psychological and epistemological dimension. But it is necessary to discuss teacher's belief system and epistemology, since teacher's behaviour in instruction is affected by them. He also did not discuss fully teacher's breaking of didactical contracts.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.354-372
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore the philosophical position of various scientific theories based on the scientific worldviews for science education. In addition, it aims to expand science education, which has usually dealt with epistemology and methodology, to ontology, that is, to the problem of metaphysics. It can be said that there exists a physical realism, traditionally defined as a strong determinism of the metaphysical belief. That is fixed and unchanging objective scientific knowledge independent of our minds, which was established by Newton, Einstein and Schridinger. What can be seen in the natural laws of dynamics can be called 'mathematicization'. Einstein also shook the traditional views to some extent through the theory of relativity, but his theory was still close to traditional thinking. On the contrary, to escape from this rigid determinism, we need anthropomorphic concepts such as 'possibility' and 'chance'. It is a characteristic of the modern scientific worldviews that leads the change of scientific theory from a classically strong deterministic thought to a weak deterministic accidental accident, probability theory, and a naturalistic point of view. This can be said to correspond to Darwin's theory of evolution and quantum mechanics. We can have three types of epistemological worlds that justify this ontological worldviews. These are rationalism, empiricism and naturalism. In many cases, science education does not tell us what kind of metaphysical beliefs the scientific theories we deal with in the field of education are based on. Also, science education focuses only on the understanding of scientific knowledge. However, it can be said that true knowledge can bring understanding only when it is connected to the knowledge of learned knowledge and the learner's own metaphysical belief in the world. Therefore, in the future, science education needs to connect various scientific theories based on scientific worldviews and philosophical position and present them to students.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.111-126
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to derive the criterions of each type of mental models on the plate boundaries and to investigate high school students' mental models on these concepts. The 11th grade student participants were requested to draw the collisional, convergent, and divergent boundaries and were interviewed individually. The drawings and the data gathered through the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. The mental models on the plate boundaries were classified as 'naive model', 'unstable model', 'causal model', and 'conceptual model'. The criterions for analyzing the mental models were the differentiations of the lithospheric plates and the mantle, the explanations of the motion of the plates and lower mantle, the demonstrations of topographical features of the plate boundaries and the causal relationships between the mantle convection and the topographical features. The findings revealed that the students holding 'the naive model' and 'the unstable model' were unable to relate the mantle convection and the three boundaries. In contrast, the students holding 'the causal model' and 'the conceptual model' were able to explain that the mantle convection causes the three boundaries. Also, the types of epistemological belief were different depending on their mental models. Students holding the naive model and the unstable model tended to rely upon the external authorities.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.59
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• pp.31-49
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• 2012

This study investigates normative role model of the journalists under the changing environment. Firstly, this article explores what pressure the new media environment gives to the journalists in their routine of news production and distribution. These are stated from the angle of epistemological, professional and interactive pressure. Next, as a reference for the standard journalism in the age of mass media, the idea of Rhee Young-hee, a late journalist who won respects from many Korean journalists, is studied. His firm belief in the pursuit of hard facts, rigorous investigative writing and expertism are spelt out. Then, this study explores how, in real term, this pressure changes the journalistic value, norm and practices in the newsroom. Ten of Koran journalists are interviewed in order to get their idea about the emerging journalistic standards under the digital environment. From this in-depth interviews, it is conclued that the pursuit of hard fact, investigative writing, expertism of Rhee Young-hee are, nonetheless the change of the media technology, still effective and provide good reference points for the enhancement of the standard of journalism in Korea. However, it is also suggested that the methods to fulfil desirable journalism in the digital age should be different from that of the mass communication age. The interviewees make propose that the journalist, as a network node, news curator or coordinator, should actively interact with the audiences facilitating their enhanced potential as a news 'prosumer'(producer and consumer).

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.475-491
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• 2006

In physics education, the research on students' conceptions has developed in the discussion on the nature and the difficulty of conceptual change. Recently, mental models have been a theoretical background in concrete arguments on "how students' conceptions are constructed or created." Mental models that integrate information in the presented problem and individual knowledge in their long-term memory have important information about not only expressed ideas but also in the thinking process behind the expressed ideas. The purpose of this study is to investigate the forming process and the characteristics of high school student's mental models about circular motion, and how they were changed by instruction. We used the think-aloud method based on the instrument for identifying student's mental models about circular motion, pretest of physics concept, mind map and interview for investigating student's characteristics. The results of the study showed that instructions based on the mental model theory facilitated scientific expressed model, but several factors that affected forming mental models like epistemological belief didn't change scientifically after 3 lessons.