• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.49-61
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• 1985

In this study, I compared and analyzed the new and old secondary school science textbooks to find the charateristics of them and the differences between them. The results of the study are the following. Major concepts in the new textbook are almost similar to those in the old one. The-new textbook reinforces the functions of the introudction and checking the result of learning, and presents more and diverse learning materials and reduces the degree of learning difficulty by omitting the several abstract knowledges and mathematical formulas which can be understood through formal operational thinking. The results show that the new textbook is more effective in arousing student's interest and curiosity there fore it increases the efficiency of learning. But the new textbook is less suitable for inquiry because it is mainly composed of explanation and fact rather than experiment and observation. I think that this is the result from the actual approach to the real conditions of school when the curriculum was reformed and the new textbook was written.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.217-229
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• 2015

In this study, we explored the development of scientific model through the social-construction process on "combustion." Students were 8th graders from one middle school class. Each student engaged in small group discussions three times and made a group model on combustion. Discourses between peers and teacher were videotaped, audiotaped, and transcribed. The results show that the small groups constructed an initial concept: 'Conditions of combustion', which they then evaluated and revised the initial concept through combustion experiment. Following the discussions, some small groups evaluated their model and made a revised model. Then, the small groups compared various models and constructed a scientific model through consensus within the small group and as a whole class. Finally, students kept revising their model to 'Burning needs oxygen.' This tells us that the social construction process of scientific model made a meaningful role to build scientific model through diverse discussion between the students and their teacher, although they have had some difficult process to reach the final consensus. The data also showed some group features: the members were open to other's ideas. They analyzed the differences between their own ideas from others and revised their model after the whole class discussion. Lastly, they showed the tendency to make a good use of teacher's guidance. This study implies the importance of having social interaction process for students to understand the scientific model and learn the nature of scientific inquiry in class.