• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.887-900
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• 2011

Teachers use explanations to communicate important scientific ideas to students. Consequently, all biology teachers should be evaluated to determine how effective they are at constructing and communicating biological explanations. Open response questions are required to detect pre-service biology teachers' abilities to communicate robust and accurate scientific explanations. Nevertheless, multiple-choice questions are typically preferred by educators because of the common drawbacks of using open-response instruments, such as scoring time, inter-rater scoring disagreements, and delayed feedback to test takers. This study aims to measure pre-service biology teachers' competence in building scientific explanations and to investigate how accurately multiple-choice questions predict the results of open-response questions. One hundred twenty four pre-service biology teachers participated in the study and were administered 20 multiple-choice items and three open-response items designed to measure the accuracy and quality of their explanations of evolutionary change. The results demonstrated that pre-service teachers displayed higher competence when tested with multiple choice items than when tested with open response items. Moreover, scores derived from multiple-choice items poorly predicted the scores derived from open-response items. Multiple-choice items were also found to be poor measures of the consistency, purity and abundance of conceptual elements in teachers' evolutionary explanations. Additionally, many teachers held mixed-models composed of both scientific and naive ideas, which were difficult to detect using multiple-choice formats. Overall, the study indicates that multiple-choice formats are poorly suited to measuring several aspects of biology teachers' knowledge of evolution, including their ability to generate scientific explanations. This study suggests that open-response items should be used in teacher education programs to assess pre-service teachers' explanatory competency prior to being permitted to teach science to children.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.113-128
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• 2012

This study explored to what extent Korean science teachers perceived socioscientific issues (SSI) as an effective instructional tool for creativity and character (CreActer) education; which was recently announced as a main goal for the Korean National Science Curriculum 2009. The guiding research questions were as follows. (1)How do science teachers conceptualize the relationship between creativity and character in the context of science classes? (2) What do science teachers think about the possibility of CreActer education through SSI in science classrooms? Thirty science teachers participated in individual interviews (each lasted 20-90 minutes). In the results, the teachers' perceptions on CreActer education and SSI for CreActer education were categorized into four profiles. Eleven teachers in Profile A thought that creativity was positively correlated with character education because their understanding of creativity and character embraced a very broad range of elements. They mentioned that addressing SSI in the science classes would be satisfactory to cover those elements of CreActer education. Six teachers in Profile B mentioned similar elements of creativity and character of Profile A, but reported that, in their experience, creativity was often inversely correlated with character. However, they responded that addressing SSI would be a good way to integrate creativity and character in the science classes. Ten teachers in Profile C believed there was no relationship between creativity and character, but took a positive stance on CreActer education through SSI. Unlike Profile A and Profile B, they tended to regard character as only an interpersonal virtue. And three teachers in Profile D had a narrow perspective on CreActer education. Not only did they think creativity had no relationship with character, but also disagreed that CreActer education would be activated by addressing SSI in science classrooms. The results imply that SSI could be used as an effective instructional tool for CreActer education, but this can be possible when science teachers expand their view on CreActer education.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.213-223
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• 2012

This study explored practicing elementary school teacher's beliefs of scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching methods. Defining teacher's beliefs as a broad construct, we tried to examine the teachers' understandings about the scientific inquiry and scientific inquiry teaching method. This study drew on interview data from 10 elementary teachers in busan and changwon area of korea. Conclusions of this study include; First, we found that elementary teacher's beliefs of inquiry were represented variously. And they considered that inquiry is the important goal of science education. They though that the goal of science education is development of Scientific inquiry skills, Scientific thinking skills, development of Creativity and problem solving ability, increasing interest about science, understanding of the basic concepts of science and apply of real-life. second, most of the teachers though that Scientific inquiry is scientists activities, they defined 'the process of creation of new knowledge', 'the process of deriving theory', 'solving process of intellectual curiosity', 'Problem-solving process'. third, they considered that teaching method of scientific inquiry is open inquiry activities. however, they thought that there are many difficulties to actually apply. Understanding teachers' beliefs has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviors during professional development, with enhanced outcomes for engaging students in Science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.48-62
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• 2004

This research aimed to investigate whether Korean education programs for secondary science teachers reflect constructivist perspectives. To identify how to introduce the idea of constructivism and STS into the courses of the current Korean education programs for secondary science teachers, two programs were selected: the Qualifying In-service Program held in Seoul and the pre-service programs established in the four departments of science education of the Korean National University of Education in Chungbuk. The course guidebooks, syllabi, and text materials prepared for implementation of the courses were collected and analyzed. E-mail correspondence with the program instructors who had conveyed both ideas to the trainees provided us more precise information about the characteristics of the classes, such as the total time provided the ideas and the teaching strategies used to implement the classes. The results indicated that the pre-service programs included the ideas of constructivism and STS more than did the Qualifying In-service Program. It is necessary that the courses included in the Korean in-service program, in particular the Qualifying In-service Program for secondary science teachers, have to be more focused on the constructivist perspectives.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2015

In this study, we identified the elements of teachers'expertise for the science gifted in science high school, and examined teacher perceptions of expertise. Through previous studies and expert consultations, 5 categories such as subject knowledge, inquiry teaching, pedagogical knowledge, student guidance and school work were derived. Based on these 5 categories and sub-element, a questionnaire was constructed. Total 284 mathematics and science teachers from 19 science high schools across the country responded to the survey. The desirable level of expertise and current level of responding teachers' own expertise were examined and compared to each other, and group comparisons were accomplished according to teacher career, type of degree and final degree. Some implications are suggested for the professional development for teachers of the science gifted.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.221-231
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• 1998

Middle school science teachers performed activities to identify their philosophical perspectives of science through a series of "card game" planned for this research. The subjects of the research were 156 middle school science teachers participated in the 1997 in-service science teachers' training course of the Gyeong Sang Nam Do province. The teachers performed the activities for this research for three hours during their workshops. We found that the subjects in the research were turned out predominant in the inductivistic views regardless of their major. gender, and career. In addition, in the process of collective consensus making, views of (a) the criteria of demarcation and (b) the patterns of scientific change were shifted to the extreme inductivism, (c) the epistemological status of scientific knowledge to the relativism, and (d) the scientific methods to the falsificationism, respectively.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.910-922
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• 2009

The purpose of the study was to investigate the professional level of the Korean non-physics major middle-school science teachers in 'force and motion' content knowledge. For the study, nine science teachers who majored in chemistry, biology, or earth science were sampled from middle-schools in a big city in Korea. The physics concept test-tool (subjective type), which the authors developed, were administered, and then followed by in-depth interviews. The research findings are as follows: Firstly, non-physics major science teachers' correct answer rate in physics knowledge test of secondary school level was not so high that they may have difficulty in teaching correct concepts in physics to middle-school students. Secondly, some teachers show that they can not apply some physics concepts from one to another situation. That means that they may have difficulty in teaching physics conceptual application in various situations to students.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.182-197
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to identify the difficulties that elementary school teachers face and the atmosphere of school fields in depth in the course of conducting science experiential learning. For this study, we conducted focus group interviews with five elementary school teachers who have had rich experiences in science field studies. Through interviews, the actual state of experiential learning operation, the operation of science experiential learning including planning, progress and evaluation of experiential learning operation. The main results of this study are as follows: Teachers were most concerned about budget, and were burdened with curriculum reconstruction for science experiential learning. In addition, teachers expressed their lack of expert scientific knowledge with science experiential learning, and difficulties with collaboration with science-specialized teachers. In sum, teachers consider budget, site, and administrative convenience first, rather than effects of science experiential learning. The significance of this study is identifying the selection of topics, methods, educational expectations, and problems of science experiential learning topics, which were difficult to identify in previous studies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.657-668
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• 2016

The purpose of the study is to explore the types and coping methods of dilemmas that pre-service science teachers experience during student teaching. For this, we collected 131 dilemma journals that 34 pre-service science teachers wrote during a four-week period of student teaching. Results show that first, there are five categories of dilemmas, they are, 'Which science teacher should I be?', 'What is good science teaching?', 'How should I build relationships with the people around me at school?', and 'Who am I as a student teacher?'. Second, pre-service science teachers' status as a students-teachers made them cope with dilemmas passively. Third, when they cope with the dilemmas, student-teachers considered the dilemmas as conflicts of irreconcilable alternatives rather than opportunities of conciliation and compromise, therefore, most pre-service science teachers choose just one alternative and only 20% of dilemmas are resolved by compromise choice. Finally, dilemmas which showed the features of science teaching are the dilemmas related to scientific inquiry teaching and science teaching-learning model. Based on the results, we discussed the implications for teacher education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.432-446
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• 2007

The purpose of the study is to explore the science teaching orientations of secondary science teachers, and how they influence the planning and execution of reform-based lessons. Professional development workshop for constructivist teaching consisted of three different phases; five lectures, small group discussion, and preparing lesson plans. Four teachers who participated also executed their lesson plans in their own classroom. All workshops were videotape recorded. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted and recorded. Instructional materials were also collected for each science class. All data recorded were transcribed and analyzed. Based on the data collected from multiple sources, we identified each teacher's teaching orientations, and through this lens, we also tried to understand their classroom practices. We expected teacher-participants to implement constructivist science teaching. However, the differences among teachers in the course of actual planning and implementing activities for constructivist science was wider than we expected and even some teachers were unsuccessful. Teaching orientations can act as a filter for teachers when they decide whether to accept and apply new knowledge about teaching and learning to actual lessons or not. Even if a teacher plans a guided-inquiry lesson, her/his didactic teaching orientation could be revealed in actual classroom, and lead her/his class to other direction which is quite different from her/his original intention. Although the teachers participated in the same workshops in our study, they planned and executed differently and their own teaching orientations contribute substantially to their practice. Understanding the role of science teaching orientations could be an important step in addressing issues of diverse difficulties in supporting reform efforts in science.