• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
• /
• v.14 no.1_spc
• /
• pp.299-317
• /
• 2008

The school drop-out among the youth has grown to become a serious social problem since about 2000 and calls for an attention to its seriousness. Therefore, this study reviewed the statitistical reports and the previous empirical findings on the school drop-out and integrated to establish a comprehensive understanding of this social phenomenon. The main concepts and terminologies on school drop-out, the current statistics, the possible causal factors and the usual trajectory the youth take after dropping-out of school were discussed to conceptualize the issue. Analyses indicated 12 characteristics of the students who dropped out of school. Those 12 characteristics were restructured according to the ecological conceptual model. The social instability and the financial crisis in the 1990's has eroded the stability of the primary environments of adolescents such as family and school. The family breakdowns from divorce and other reasons weakened psychological and financial support for adolescents. The diminished authority of teachers and school over students exposed conflicts between teacher and students, students' loss of purpose and interest in academic attainment. The adolescents showed emotional reponses like increased level of depression, helplessness, aggression, indicated cognitive reponses such as the loss of purpose and interest in studying, a heightened sense of uncertainty of the future, and behavioral responses like sexual acting out behaviors, and bullying. The unmet psychological needs of adolescents result in run-away and school drop-out behaviors, which in turn progress into juvenile delinquency as the society fails to provide adequate and appropriate guidance and interventions. The intervention strategies at the national level were proposed and the limitations of the study were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.42 no.4
• /
• pp.497-512
• /
• 2023

While scientific explanation is a fundamental component of science, teachers often lack familiarity with the formal structure of scientific explanations and the criteria for assessing their quality. Consequently, this study aims to clarify the concept of scientific explanation and proposes a tool for constructing scientific explanations. The primary objective is to explore the tool's impact on enhancing the explanatory skills of pre-service teachers when it comes to the phenomenon of condensation. The research findings indicate that many pre-service teachers initially operated at a description level during the pre-test. However, the implementation of the tool enabled them to advance their explanatory skills beyond the associative level. Notably, the tool was analyzed for its ability to provide pre-service teachers with a conceptual framework for explaining phenomena and guiding logical explanations and micro-level interpretations. This study holds significance in demonstrating that pre-service teachers can comprehend the formalities and criteria of scientific explanations and apply them to enhance their own explanatory abilities. Moving forward, efforts should be made to enhance the scientific explanation level among pre-service teachers across various topics and subject areas. Furthermore, pre-service teachers need classroom experiences that foster the construction of scientific explanations in authentic contexts.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.27 no.2
• /
• pp.173-185
• /
• 2024

Mathematics is a subject that is closely related to ensuring basic academic abilities. As the importance of basic academic abilities has emerged recently, various policies and programs have been implemented to ensure basic academic abilities in mathematics. In this study, we extracted the programs related to mathematics from the Implementation Plans of the Basic Academic Abilities Guarantee of 17 city and provincial education departments and analyzed the actual status of the programs. We divided the programs into diagnosis and support. Regarding diagnosis, we analyzed what types of diagnostic tools are used, who chooses diagnostic tools, who is diagnosed, and when students are diagnosed. Regarding support, we classified it as in-class, in-school, and out-of-school support, and further analyzed the type of the learning support program and the expertise of the instructor. The results of this study showed that there was room for improvement in the timing of diagnosis and diagnostic expertise. This study also found the problems with the lack of preventive programs, ensuring teacher expertise, and support for dyscalculia. This study is expected to contribute to the implementation of programs to ensure basic academic abilities in mathematics and to promote research on basic academic abilities in mathematics education.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.303-320
• /
• 2024

This study presents the development and performance evaluation of a custom GPT-based chatbot tailored to provide solutions following Polya's problem-solving stages. A beta version of the chatbot was initially deployed to assess its mathematical capabilities, followed by iterative error identification and correction, leading to the final version. The completed chatbot demonstrated an accuracy rate of approximately 89.0%, correctly solving an average of 57.8 out of 65 image-based problems from a 6th-grade elementary mathematics textbook, reflecting a 4 percentage point improvement over the beta version. For a subset of 50 problems, where images were not critical for problem resolution, the chatbot achieved an accuracy rate of approximately 91.0%, solving an average of 45.5 problems correctly. Predominant errors included problem recognition issues, particularly with complex or poorly recognizable images, along with concept confusion and comprehension errors. The custom chatbot exhibited superior mathematical performance compared to the general-purpose ChatGPT. Additionally, its solution process can be adapted to various grade levels, facilitating personalized student instruction. The ease of chatbot creation and customization underscores its potential for diverse applications in mathematics education, such as individualized teacher support and personalized student guidance.

• The Korean Journal of Elementary Counseling
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.65-92
• /
• 2006

The objective of this study is to conduct survey analyses of the role perception and performance of homeroom teachers in elementary schools in Seoul as well as their students' expectations for teachers' role as counsellors. The study also aims to analyze the causes behind the lackluster performance, to provide assistance in teachers' counselling and guidance activities and collect basic data for providing a plausible orientation for elementary school counselling. Research topics for achieving these study objectives are as follows. First, what is the status quo of counselling between elementary school students and teachers? Second, what is the role perception of elementary school homeroom teachers as counsellors and their current level of performance? Third, what are the differences in students' expectations for homeroom teachers' role as counsellors according to students' environmental variables such as gender and grade? Fourth, what are the discrepancies between the roles perception and performance of elementary school homeroom teachers and role expectation of students for homeroom teachers' role as counsellors? In order to answer these questions, surveys were conducted for 229 teachers and 385 students in grades 4, 5 and 6 in 11 elementary schools in Seoul, and the results were analyzed. The questionnaires used for this study were modified and supplemented according to the research objectives based on survey questions released by Gyung-Beom Lee(1989), Hak-Soo Lee(2001) and Gi-Nam Gwon(2005). Statistical analyses were peformed using the SPSS for Windows 10.0 program. The results of the study can be summarized as follows. First, most elementary school homeroom teachers were involved in counselling activities, and about half of them were providing counselling once a month or less. The classroom was the primary location of counselling, and more than half of the surveyed teachers were dissatisfied with their counselling activities. The teachers cited overwhelming teaching hours and excessive work as the factors that made counselling difficult. Second, it was revealed that most elementary school students have had experiences of anguish and most have had some form of counselling. They mostly sought counselling from their parents and friends, and the reasons behind such choices were that they were very understanding. Third, most students responded that they have had no experience of receiving counselling from their homeroom teachers. Among those with counselling experience with their homeroom teachers, most said that the counselling was helpful. The most significant reason for not receiving counselling from their homeroom teachers was that the students had no worries to talk about with their teachers. Fourth, as a result of categorizing the role of elementary school homeroom teachers as counsellors according to the areas of counselling, role perception for each area turned out to be generally high, while performance was substantially lacking. Fifth, in terms of the causes for the lackluster counselling performance, overwhelming teaching hours and excessive work were indicated for counselling areas of academic and personality issues. Sixth, the analysis of students' expectations for elementary school homeroom teachers as counsellors for counselling areas according to gender and grade revealed that there was no overall statistical significance. Seventh, from the general perspective, the level of role perception of the homeroom teachers were higher than the level of students' expectations. In conclusion, in order to enhance the teacher's role as a counsellor, there has to be a concrete perception of roles as a primary premise, calling for training sessions and programs dedicated to counseling for the teachers to take part in. Moreover, in order to alleviate the most significant causes for undermining teachers' counselling activities - overwhelming teaching hours and excessive work - there must be administrative consideration as well as provisions for effective counselling centers and dedicated school counsellors.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.99-120
• /
• 2001

The purpose of this thesis is to find the guiding direction of mathematical communication in lower grade students of elementary school and to present a new direction about the effect of using concrete material in communication. It is expected that mathematical communication increases when concrete material is used for the students of the lower grades, who are in concrete operational period. Therefore, this study ai s to investigate what characteristics there are in mathematical communication of second grade students and what effect concrete materials have on mathematical communication and learning. The analysis of the teaching record shows that the second grade students use alternative terms in the process of communication since they are not familiar with mathematical symbols or terms, which is a characteristic of communication in a mathematics class in which concrete material is used. In the process of teaming the students apply their living experiences to their teaming. Since a small number of students lead class, the interaction between students is also led by them. The direction of communication in a small group is not centered around solution of a problem, and most students show a more interest in finding answers than in the process of learning. The effect that concrete material has on communication plays an important role in promoting students' speaking activity; it allows students to identify and correct their errors more easily. It also makes students' activities more predictable, and it increases a small group activities through the medium of concrete material. However, it was also noticed that students' listening activities are not appropriately developed since they do not pay attention to a teacher who uses concrete material. The effects that concrete material has on mathematics class can be summarized as follows. Concrete material promotes students' participation in class by triggering their interest of learning of mathematics and helps them to understand the course of learning. It also helps the teaming and formation of concepts for children of low academic performance. And it makes a phased learning possible according to students' ability to use concrete material and to solve a problem. Based upon the results above mentioned, the use of concrete material is absolutely needed in mathematics classes of lower grade elementary school students since it increases communication and gives much influence on mathematics learning. Therefore, teachers need to develop teaching or learning method which can help increase communication, considering the characteristics of students' communication.

• Journal of Appropriate Technology
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.151-162
• /
• 2020

Education is one of the priority sectors specified in Tanzania, and it has committed to provide 11 years of compulsory free basic education for all from pre-primary to lower secondary level. Despite the Government's efforts to provide free basic education to all children, there are 2.0 million (23.2 per cent) out of 8.5 million children at the primary school age of 7-13, who are out of school in Tanzania. The ICT class should be offered as a regular class in all secondary schools in Tanzania, recommended by the ministry of education. However, many schools are struggling to implement this mandate. Most of schools offer the ICT class with theory without any real hardware. Some schools were given with computers but they were not maintained for operation. There is a huge task to make ICT education universal. Main issues include: remoteness (off-grid area), lack of ICT teachers, lack of resources such as hardware, infrastructure, and lack of practical lessons or projects to be used at schools. An innovative blended ICT/STEM education program is being conducted not only for Tanzanian public and private/international schools, but also for out-of-school adolescents through institutions, NGO centers, home visits and at the E3 Empower academy center. For effective STEM education to take place and remain sustainable, more practical curriculum, and close-up teacher support need to be accompanied concurrently. Practical, project-based simple coding lessons have been developed and employed that students experience true learning. The effectiveness of the curriculum has been demonstrated in various project centers, and it showed that students are showing new interests in exploring new discovery, even though this was a totally new area for them. It has been designed for an easy replication, thus students who learned can repeat the lessons themselves to other students. The ultimate purpose of this project is to have IT education offered as universally as possible throughout the whole Tanzania. Quality education for all children is a key for better future for all. Previously it was hoped that education with discipline will improve the active learning. But now more than ever, we believe that children have the ability to learn on their own with given proper STEM education tools, guidelines and environment. This gives promising hope to all of us, including those in the developing countries.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.83-101
• /
• 1981

Under the full consideration of the growing need and importance of population education in the field of home economics in Korea, the study was carried out to verify and assess the following facts on the current issues of population education of home economists who are presently engaging in teaching professions as the teachers of middle and high school and professors of college and universities by setting its primary objectives of the study as followings; 1) to assess the degree of general knowledge and attitudes of home economists toward population education in the field of home economics, 2) to verify the problems encountered in implementing population education by home economists in its field, 3) to find an existing status of previous trainings received and other activities of population education of home economists aimed at utilizing these findings as a part of reference materials when the population education is conducted in the field of home economics. In order to attain these objectives described above, the questionnaire was carefully designed to house a total of 40 questions with good combination of multiple-choice and the simple answer questions. The mail questionnaire survey was conducted by establishing teachers of home economics at middle/high schools and college/universities as Senior Home Economists(SHE) who are from public, private liberal arts and vocational schools. The rate of response observed during the survey was 45.6 percent and the findings of the survey research are as follows: 1) Examining the status of the respondents by residence and religion, it was found that 45 percent of middle & high school teachers ar.d 59. 1 percent of college professors are residing in Seoul city area and that the largest percent of them are christian in their religion. Analyzing respondents by their ages, 56 percent of middle/high school teachers are in their 30s, 45 percent of college professors are in their 40s, and 37 percent of college teachers are in their 30s. In addition, 13 percent of the total respondents are found to be unmarried. The study also revealed that 71 percent of the college professors finished Master Degree course and 82 percent of middle/high school teachers are graduated from college level lasting 4 years. Looking over the status cf major fields of respondents, 68.4 percent of middle/high school teachers are specialized in home economic education and the college professors, on the other hand, show relatively even prortion by specializing in the order of food & nutrition science, clothes & textile science and home managerial science. As far as the length of teaching experience is concerned, a relatively longer period of teaching experience is observed in the college professors in comparison with that of middle/high school teachers. In other words, 33.3 percent of middle/high school teachers are experienced in teaching from 6 to 10 years on average while 43.9 percent of college professors show more than 16 years of experience. 2) Examining the status of existing number of children cf the respondents, one boy and one daughter pattern is predominant, showing 28.5 percent in middle/high school teachers and 21.1 percent in college professors. As for the desired number of children of unmarried respondents, it is observed that 43.8 percent of middle/high school teachers desire to have one boy and one girl, and 31.3 percent of college professors want to have one child regardless of the sex. By assessing the degree of awareness of the population education through their students, it is observed that 53 percent of middle/high school teachers and 50 percent of college professors are aware of population education in some extent and that a majority of respondents took the positive attitudes toward an inclusion of family planning components into the formal school education. Another noteworthy to observe is that a total of 84.8 percent out of middle/high school teachers pointed that the population education currently conducted at schools as a part of home economics are less sufficient than it should be. 3) Analyzing the tendency as to whether the respondents were experienced in receiving population education during the time when they were students, 75 percent of college professors and 59 percent of middle/high school teachers responded negative answers in the survey. In the mean time, a total of 50 percent of the respondents replied that they began to acknowledge the importance of population education mainly through the participation of some sort of population-education orientend seminars, experienced by 40 percent of college professors and 80 percent of middle/high school teachers. 4) What it calls attention in this study was to find that 96.5 percent of middle/high school teachers and 72 percent of college professors conduct population education to some extent during their lecture hours and that more than 80 percent of them are never experienced in teaching population and family planning contents in their regular classes. It is, on the other hand, found that no more than once was the response of those who believe themselves that they are experienced in teaching these relevant components to their students. Analyzing the contents of the subjects being taught in the class, a large percent of them are found to be consisted of population and family planning contents. According to this study, the current population education through the formal school is quite inactive. Analyzing the facts, 44.9 percent of the college professors responded that the population and family planning components are quite apart from their specialization which eventually generates lack of interest in the field. 5) It is also noticed through the study that the degree of frequency of commenting on population and family planning contents during the classes was depending significantly on their specializations which means that the degree of frequency varies from a major to another. Those who majored in home managerial science was the first one, as compared to others who majored in different specializations. Glancing over the status of correlations between ages of the respondents and numbers of seminar paticipation, it is quite clear that the aged group participated more than the younger group did, and that the most highest number of participations made by college professors were those who are in 50s. In addition, it is also found that those who are aged 20s and 60s of the respondents were the group who comments least on the contents of population and family planning at their classes. The suggestions and recommendation made through this survey research are as follows. 1) No one denies that the rapid increase of population, as compared to the limited size of land and resources, will certainly affect adversly to an enhancement of individual life quality which will, eventually, bring forth the poverty of the nation. This is the reasson why we are insisting that the world population be controlled up to an optimum level with a matter of global concerns. It is our understading that the primary aim for reducing number of population is believed to be attained only by conducting the systematic and comprehensive population education through the formal schools. Therefore, the role of home economists in the field of population/family planning education is considered very importment due to the fact that an ultimate goal of population education is placed in elevating the quality of family life by having optimum number of children through family planning program. 2) It is quite clear that home economists as teachers of formal school in all level are invited to pay their attention on redefining the ultimate goal of education and that of population education. We also understant that the primary objective of population education is to change the norm and value of the clients by replenishing the students with pertinent knowledge and attitudes on population and its related problems through a sort of education in order to attain the ultimate goal for enhancing the quality of life. There is no exception in the theory of home economics. An altimate goal of home economics is to elevate the general quality of life through an establishment of value existed in daily life. Considering the relations between population education and home economics, it is quite indespensable to bandle population components as an integral part in the field of home economics. We believe, therefore, that the senior home economists positive participation in the effort population control is more needed than it has been. 3) It is also strongly urged that population education should be a part of instructor training course for home economics. In other words, the teacher of home economics should be well aware of population and its problems by teaching interrelationship between population education and home economics, needs, contents and methods of population education during the instructor training courese for home economics. In addition, the senior home economists should be encouraged through positive participation on the short term training by types of domestic and international seminar, workshop, etc. 4) We certainly believe that the population education can not sustain itself without any backing-up of information and findings' of various and comprehensive researches of natural and social sciences. Accordingly, every senior home economist is invited to exert their maximum effort to conduct systematic study with an aim to utilize these findings and information at best in population education in the field of home economics. Therefore, we consider that the development of training material is imminent in order to provide effective and efficient population education through the for training of home economies. It should be noted that these training materials must be carefully designed, tailored and developed to meet the different classes of trainees under the considerations as to whether it is easily adaptable and infusable into the curricula of every field of home economics, and it is acceptable in the degree of difficulty and quality in its contents. 5) It is true that there are many domestic and international research rapers, reports and findings in the field of population education and family planning. However, there is a tendency that the most of research papers are heavily relying on the authors intension and preferences in its expression and publication. Under these circumstances, it is urged that the home economists should aware of the growing need of the technical training in order to keep these available information and research findings reprocessed and redesigned to insure the practical application into the population education in the field of home economics in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.24 no.3
• /
• pp.532-543
• /
• 2004

The teacher appointment examination is consisted of a written test, an interview, a demonstration of teaching practices, one's academic record etc. The primary written test(full credit of 100) consists of multiple-choice test of general pedagogy(30%) and constructed response test of science(70%). The science test consists of science education($20{\sim}30%$) and science content($70{\sim}80%$). Five science exams were implemented for appointing general science, physics, chemistry, biology and earth science teachers in 2002 and 2003. The credits alloted to science education domain decreased from $25.7{\sim}30%$ in 2002 to $24.3{\sim}25.7%$ in 2003. The percentage of correct answer was similar between science education and science content domain in 2002, but the percentage of correct answer in science education domain(70.2%) was 29.8% higher than that of science content domain in 2003. Earth science exam almost reached the target mean score of 60 but the other four exams showed the mean scores ranging from 45.0 to 52.7 in 2002 and from 40.1 to 49.6 in 2003. The percentage of high difficulty items(p<40%) was 41.2% in physics and chemistry in 2002, 50% in physics and chemistry, and 45% in biology in 2003. Seventy eight percent of the items showed fairly high discrimination index(r>.30). In addition, the reliabilities of 5 tests were from .79 to .88. In conclusion, it is recommended that the credits alloted to science education domain should be increased up to 30%, and exam difficulties should be lowered to a proper level by making science content items easier.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.107-134
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of two teaching methods of word problems, one based on mathematical modeling learning(ML) and the other on traditional learning(TL). Additionally, the influence of mathematical modeling learning in word problem solving behavior, application ability of real world experiences in word problem solving and the beliefs of word problem solving will be examined. The results of this study were as follows: First, as to word problem solving behavior, there was a significant difference between the two groups. This mean that the ML was effective for word problem solving behavior. Second, all of the students in the ML group and the TL group had a strong tendency to exclude real world knowledge and sense-making when solving word problems during the pre-test. but A significant difference appeared between the two groups during post-test. classroom culture improvement efforts. Third, mathematical modeling learning(ML) was effective for improvement of traditional beliefs about word problems. Fourth, mathematical modeling learning(ML) exerted more influence on mathematically strong and average students and a positive effect to mathematically weak students. High and average-level students tended to benefit from mathematical modeling learning(ML) more than their low-level peers. This difference was caused by less involvement from low-level students in group assignments and whole-class discussions. While using the mathematical modeling learning method, elementary students were able to build various models about problem situations, justify, and elaborate models by discussions and comparisons from each other. This proves that elementary students could participate in mathematical modeling activities via word problems, it results form the use of more authentic tasks, small group activities and whole-class discussions, exclusion of teacher's direct intervention, and classroom culture improvement efforts. The conclusions drawn from the results obtained in this study are as follows: First, mathematical modeling learning(ML) can become an effective method, guiding word problem solving behavior from the direct translation approach(DTA) based on numbers and key words without understanding about problem situations to the meaningful based approach(MBA) building rich models for problem situations. Second, mathematical modeling learning(ML) will contribute attitudes considering real world situations in solving word problems. Mathematical modeling activities for word problems can help elementary students to understand relations between word problems and the real world. It will be also help them to develop the ability to look at the real world mathematically. Third, mathematical modeling learning(ML) will contribute to the development of positive beliefs for mathematics and word problem solving. Word problem teaching focused on just mathematical operations can't develop proper beliefs for mathematics and word problem solving. Mathematical modeling learning(ML) for word problems provide elementary students the opportunity to understand the real world mathematically, and it increases students' modeling abilities. Futhermore, it is a very useful method of reforming the current problems of word problem teaching and learning. Therefore, word problems in school mathematics should be replaced by more authentic ones and modeling activities should be introduced early in elementary school eduction, which would help change the perceptions about word problem teaching.