• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.68-74
• /
• 2012

The focus of this study was on the comparative analysis in the area of illustrations between the primary school from third grade to the sixth grade between Korean and American science textbooks in order to offer some suggestions for consideration of the Korean science textbooks, which will be revised in 2009. The results are as follows: The number of illustrations per page in Korean science textbooks are more than that of American science textbooks. As the type of illustrations, the ratio of photos is the highest and as the role of illustrations, data provision has the highest percentage in both countries. The motivation role in Korean science textbooks seem to be higher than American science textbook, whereas study summary role is more prominent in American textbooks than in Korean textbooks.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.463-480
• /
• 2012

This study is intended to investigate the frequency of scientific writing tasks in Korean and American science textbooks, to compare the differences in types of posing the writing tasks according to the level of the children's scientific cognition, and to analyze the differences in the organization and development of writing ones of each chapter and thus to propose an effective way of presenting scientific writing in science textbooks. Korean 'Science' and 'Experiment Observation Workbook'and Macmillan Mcgraw-Hill(MMH) Science for fourth graders were analyzed for the purpose. The results are as follows: First, Korean textbooks contain more science writing tasks per pages, and less per chapters than MMH one. Both text books provide balanced amount of science writing tasks, yet MMH especially does systematic exercises for each chapter. Second, the qualitative analysis of the textbooks' scientific writing shows that both textbooks contain a significant amount of "understanding" and "explanatory" writing, which reflects that the purpose of writing in science textbooks is leaning towards acquiring and verifying scientific concepts. In American textbooks, however, writings utilizing extensive cognition process and materials are also present. It is necessary for textbooks to present diverse and expressive writing assignments including personal opinions. Third, there are differences in organization and development of science writing tasks. Science writing tasks in Korean textbooks are present independently with lesson objectives of the chapters and practices, while those in MMH are systematically developed. Based on these results, it is necessary to systemize the textbooks' way of presenting writing tasks for effective teaching and learning. By organizing the writing materials and thus developing diverse materials, and by implementing extensive cognitive process in the writing activities, textbooks will be able to contribute in attracting the students' interests and in improving their scientific knowledge.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.27 no.7
• /
• pp.639-644
• /
• 2007

This study intended to examine the differences through comparative analysis of the illustrations in the 3rd - 6th grade elementary science textbooks. The analysis of the types and illustrations in the Korean and American textbooks revealed that the textbooks of both countries provide many photographs and illustrations, so as to deliver data mainly in the form of realistic illustration. In Korean textbooks, pictures and cartoons were mainly used with photographs to guide the students into experiments and to enhance their interests and curiosity. In contrast, the American textbooks place more emphasis on diagrams and photographs to train the students in analyzing and interpreting data. The Korean textbooks should place more emphasis on the diagrams in order to encourage elementary school students to analyze and interpret the given data. As a result the addition of more diverse forms of illustrations and the re-organization of illustrations according to the topic should be considered in future Korean textbooks.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.390-403
• /
• 2009

We have examined the perception of teachers and students in elementary schools toward the frontier science and analyzed corresponding contents in science textbooks in Korea and the U. S. in order to promote a good guidance for the frontier science education. We prepared separate questionnaires for teachers and children, respectively, and analyzed the responses obtained from 244 teachers and 1,000 students in five elementary schools. For the analysis of how to introduce the frontier science, we investigated textbooks such as Science, Society and Practical Arts of Korean elementary school, and an American science textbook published by Scott Foresman. This study revealed that teachers are well aware of the importance of the frontier science, however, they are inactive in conducting the subject in class rooms because of their insufficient scientific knowledge and poor environment for teaching. It has been found that children had strong interest in the frontier science, however, opportunities to learn the topic are not properly provided. The frontier science m the American science textbook turned out to be more systematically introduced than that in Korean ones.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.736-750
• /
• 2014

The purposes of this study were to investigate concepts of Korean and American elementary school pre-service teachers on combustion, and to compare the concepts of Korean pre-service teachers with those of American pre-service teachers. For this study, concept test on combustion was administered to 23 Korean and 18 American elementary school pre-service teachers. The test composed of 6 items: 'Definition of combustion', 'The reason why a candle in a glass bottle is blown out when the bottle was closed', 'The change of gases in the bottle when a candle burns in it', 'The combustion products of a candle', 'The combustion products of steel wool', and 'The combustion products of a substance'. The results showed that the rates of elementary school pre-service teachers who had scientific concepts on combustion were very low in both Korean and American pre-service teachers' groups, although they were a little different from items. However the rates of pre-service teachers who had partial concepts and misconceptions on combustion were high in two groups. The levels of Korean elementary school pre-service teachers' concepts were a little higher than those of American elementary school pre-service teachers' concepts. The contents and activities on combustion which are in Korean and American science textbooks seem to affect building up their concepts on combustion.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.21-43
• /
• 2016

The purpose of this study is to examine the text and learning activities of Korean and American home economics textbooks from the perspective of building adolescent empowerment and to suggest an alternative framework for the textbook. An in-depth content analysis was conducted for the Korean and American home economics textbooks. We analyzed the text and learning activities in the textbook on three levels of empowerment: Micro, Meso, and Macro. Major findings are as follows. First, in the case of Korean textbooks, the results showed that the three levels of empowerment were off-balance (Individual Empowerment: 55%, Group E: 37%, Organizational E: 8%). The educational contents in Korean textbooks were described at the Meso-level. In the case of the American textbooks, the result showed that the educational contents of IE(43%), GE(40%), and OE(17%) were relatively balanced. Therefore, the educational contents of the American textbooks were described at the Macro-level. Second, the learning activities in the Korean textbooks put a greater weight on IE at 66%, followed by GE at 25%, but OE at 9% only. The results showed that learning activities in Korean textbooks were presented at the Meso-level, but that the three levels of empowerment were significantly off-balance. In the case of the American textbooks, the results showed that the learning activities were comparatively well balanced at IE(36%), GE(40%) and OE(23%). Therefore, learning activities in the American textbooks were presented at the Macro-level. Based on the results, we suggested an alternative framework for 'understanding of self as an adolescent' unit, to build adolescent empowerment at the Macro-level.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.31 no.2
• /
• pp.21-34
• /
• 2016

There were two books on astronomy published in 1908. One is "Astronomy (天文學)" written by Jeong, Yeong-Taek (鄭永澤, 1874 ~ 1948), an educator. The other is "Introduction to Astronomy(텬문략 )" written by William Martyn Baird (裵偉良, 1862 ~ 1931), an American missionary. It was known that these two books were translated into Korean as astronomical textbooks of the Korean Empire. We investigated the life of translators, the motivation of writing textbook, and the translators' specialty in astronomy. We also compared the two books in terms of content, orthography of terminology, scale of units, and so forth. We suggest that these books were really utilized as textbooks of astronomy in the modern school in the early $20^{th}$ century in Korea. We also conclude that in astronomy education these two textbooks bridged the gap between the traditional Chinese astronomy of the middle age and modern astronomy from the West.

• Journal of Korean Home Economics Education Association
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.107-125
• /
• 2020

The purpose of this study was to analyze the dietary life units of Korean and American high school home economics textbook according to Habermas's three systems of action and to find out how the three systems of action are reflected in the learning objectives and activity tasks of the textbook. To achieve this purpose, this study analyzed the learning objectives and activity tasks of the dietary life units in the textbooks of 'technology & home economics' and 'home economics science' in Korea, and 'succeeding in life and career' in America using a content analysis technique based on Habermas's three systems of action. In analyzing the content, each learning objective or activity was matched with one of the three systems of action by examining the context. In some cases, two or more systems of actions were integrated in one activity. This is a case where a series of learning tasks that involve different action system were grouped into one. The numbers of learning objectives and activities of the units of 'technology & home economics', 'home economics science' textbooks of Korean high schools and 'succeeding in life and career' dietary life of American high schools were 3, 26, and 248, respectively. In Korean textbooks, the percentage of communicative action was highest among the three systems, that is, 66.7% for 'technology & home economics' textbooks and 50% for 'home economics science' textbooks. In comparison technical action was the highest in American textbooks at 66.5%. Activities related to technical action included cooking, conducting research on health and food, or conducting experiments. The activities related to communicative action included role play related to health and table manners, or writing reports after conducting surveys or interviewing professionals. The activities related to emancipative action were to social participation activities such as service project in relation to health and food, or to find problems that occur in dietary life and think about be best solution through practical reasoning.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.207-216
• /
• 2014

Understanding the nature of science (NOS) has been a major component of scientific literacy and an important learning goal in science education (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1990, 1993; Millar & Osborne, 1998; National Research Council, 1996, 2013). To achieve this goal, it is necessary to include appropriate views of the nature of science in science curriculum such as a textbook. The aim of this study was to conduct a content analysis of the elementary science textbooks to examine the presentation of the nature of science (NOS) using the four themes of scientific literacy, which are (1) nature of scientific knowledge, (2) nature of scientific inquiry, (3) nature of scientific thinking, and (4) nature of interactions among science, technology, and society (STS). Findings show while $3^{rd}$ and $4^{th}$ grade levels of science textbooks heavily emphasize on the Theme I, nature of scientific knowledge and the Theme II, the nature of scientific inquiry, the upper grade levels such as $5^{th}$ and $6^{th}$ grades of science textbooks are well balanced with the four themes of the nature of science. In addition, most of elementary science textbooks little focus on the Theme IV, nature of interactions among science, technology, and society (STS) among the four themes of the nature of science. It might be a shortcoming because the understanding the nature of interacions among science, technology and society (STS) is one of the key components in order for students to be a scientific literate person.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.29 no.7
• /
• pp.626-639
• /
• 2008

To present the suggestions for improvement in science textbooks of high school, scientific inquiry activities in geology of earth science textbooks of Korea and the U.S. were assessed in the areas of the contents, processes and contexts. Regarding the contents of inquiry activities, Korean textbooks contain more number of inquiry activities (5.8 per section) than the U.S. curriculums (4 per section). Inquiry activities of Korean textbooks mostly fall on the interpretation of diagrams and graphs whereas those of the U.S. textbooks more hands-on experiment, data transformation and self designing. As for the number of inquiry process skills per inquiry activity, Korean curriculums contain an average of 1.8 whereas the American ones 3. It suggests that the U.S. textbooks require more integrated process skills than the Korean earth science curriculums. In the process skills of all textbooks studied, the highest frequent elements were inferring and data interpretation; the percentage of these two elements was an average of 73.3% in Korean textbooks and 46.2% in the U.S. This suggests that the Korean textbooks emphasize the process skill on particular area, and uneven distribution of elements of process skills may hinder the development of integration ability of students. particularly in the integrated process skills, the U.S. textbooks presented all 7 elements, while Korean ones presented only 2 to 4 elements, indicating that the Korean textbooks may have weak points in providing various inquiry activities for students compared to the American textbooks. In inquiry context analysis, Korean curriculums provide simplistic inquiry contexts and low applicability to real life whereas the U.S. curriculums provide more integrated inquiry contexts and high applicability to real life.