• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.8
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• pp.711-723
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• 2007

As the discourse of scientific literacy has broadly summed up the goals of science education in the current decade, this study attempts to question how we contextualize appropriate interpretations and feasible approaches to scientific literacy in K-6 science education. With respect to the complex praxis of scientific knowledge and practice, this study emphasizes the participatory framework of scientific literacy which interweaves children's everyday experiences and science learning. This study also concerns children's abilities to understand and enact scientific enterprises (i.e., children's fundamental sense of scientific literacy). As a way of developing K-6 scientific literacy, this study investigates how using science books can broaden the scope of children's understandings of science in life connections and promote a fundamental sense of scientific literacy through talking, reading, and writing skills in Grade two science classrooms in Canada. Second graders were engaged in learning "sound" for five weeks. During science lessons, children's talks were recorded and their writings were collected for data interpretation. This research finds that using science books can encourage children to become engaged in communicative activities such as talking, reading, and writing in science; furthermore, using science books develops children's inquiry skills. These findings open a further discussion on scientific literacy at the K-6 levels.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.258-276
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• 2022

The historical aspects, policies, institutions, awards and measurement results of scientific literacy and scientific culture development in Indonesia have currently attracted further exploration. This paper utilizes secondary data research, further analyzed by employing the Supplementary Analysis technique. The results revealed that the tradition of writing and publishing scientific journals in Indonesia has existed ever since the Dutch East Indies with the journal's publication entitled 'Natuurkundig tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indië' in 1850. To date, Indonesia has owned 5,990 nationally accredited journals. Policy support has been provided at the national and regional levels, despite limitations in cultivating literacy and reading habit. From the institutional perspective, Indonesia provides a wide array of public support, including the effort of the Ministry of Education and Culture for advocating the national literacy movement and the availability of a reference database and scientific access established by the National Library; the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, and the Ministry of Research and Technology. Similarly, in the award-related perspective, the Indonesia government has granted awards to individuals or groups and local governments engaging in the cultivation of scientific literacy and scientific culture. However, among the global measurements for literacy development in Indonesia (in 2020) recorded that three indicators scored less than those in 2019.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.55-62
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• 2014

This study is to reclassify the classifications or definitions of scientific literacy in scientific literacy researches since 1960s and grasp the classification trends of scientific literacy definitions. Sixteen articles have been selected among the articles that have been introduced in the two articles. Classification criteria are as follows: 1) "be learned," "competence," or "be able to function in society" as meanings of "literate," 2) "terms" or "description" as the ways of representing scientific literacy, 3) "singular structure," "hierarchical structure," or "parallel structure" as the inner structure of scientific literacy definitions. The results of this study are as follows: First, hierarchical structures in scientific literacy have almost always accompanied "terms" representing scientific literacy and also accepted the hierarchy between "be learned" and "competence," but not the definition of scientific literacy as functioning in society. All parallel structures in scientific literacy have accompanied the definition as functioning in society. And singular structure almost always appears in researches based on the views of scientific literacy in relatively recent times. Second, researches who have used "terms" as ways of representing scientific literacy have increased. Based on the results in this study, the meanings of scientific literacy have been emphasized in view of the ability of playing a role in a social context as well as learning and competence these days. To meet this movement in scientific literacy actively, science education community should get out of traditional teaching and learning scientific concepts and give emphasis on application in various context and social role of science learners.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.9-17
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• 2007

This study sets out to assess the scientific literacy of secondary school students and to describe their differences according to gender, grade, course. This study involved 112 middle school students and 213 high school students. Their scientific literacy was measured by the Scientific Literacy Test designed by Manhart (1997). A 70-item multiple-choice test was used to assess their scientific literacy. The constructs of science factor included 36 items making up physical science, life science, and earth science subtests. The social aspects of science factor consisted of 34 items in nature of scientific inquiry/knowledge, science as a human endeavor, science and technology, and societal perspectives. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test were conducted using the SPSS program. The scientific literacy score of the middle school students was 45.17. There was no significant difference according to gender but boys tended to perform better than girls on both the constructs of science factor and the social aspects of science factor. The scientific literacy score of the high school students was 51.79. There was no significant difference according to gender. But, boys tended to perform better than girls on the constructs of science factor. Girls tended to perform better than boys on the social aspects of science factor. The students taking a course on natural science got statistically higher scores than the students taking a course on humanities. The high school students got statistically higher scores than the middle school students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.893-905
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• 2001

Korean students ranked the 3rd out of 32 participating countries in the first cycle of PISA(Programme for International Student Assessment) science field, which assessed 15-years-old students' scientific literacy. PISA developed several variables such as parents' socio-economic status, parents' educational attainment, family wealth, and cultural possession, to investigate the effects of background variables on scientific literacy. On the other hand, motivation and engagement in science study were not given much attention, partly because science was the minor area in the first cycle of PISA. Therefore, PISA Korea developed a series of variables to collect data on students' learning motives and out-of-school activities in science as a national option. The results are as followings. First, Korea was found to be one of the PISA participating countries with the scientific literacy achievement least influenced by parents' socio-economic status, family wealth, and parents' cultural possession. Second, the degree of achievement in scientific literacy according to parents' educational attainment was in a positive correlation, similar to the overall tendency of PISA. Third, the most crucial learning motive for Korean students was their desire to develop scientific thinking abilities or obtain science knowledge. On the other hand, choosing jobs in the field of science or parental expectation was the least important learning motive. In particular, the motive for scientific learning was found to have a positive relationship with the degree of scientific literacy achievement. Therefore, the higher the students achievement, the stronger the motive for scientific learning in order to develop their ability to think scientifically or acquire science knowledge. Fourth, Korean students were shown to participate very little in out-of-school scientific activities other than watching TV programs related to science. Whatever the activities may be, the more actively involved students are in out-of-school scientific activities, the higher their scientific literacy achievement. Fifth, Korean girls were rather passive compared to boys in all areas, including science learning motive and out-of-school scientific activities. The gender difference was especially more pronounced in out-of-school scientific activities with wider gaps in such activities as reading scientific books or articles and visiting science-related web sites.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.338-345
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to analyze science fields and content elements of the science reports in a web portal site of Republic of Korea in view of scientific literacy. The main results of the analysis on the 679 reports sampled in a year are as follows. First, 506 reports in 46 fields were identified. Reports about technology and earth science occupies 16% respectively, and life science occupies 13%, medical science 4%, chemistry, company, others 3% and physics 1%. Almost reports show technology as associate field. Second, the frequency rate of reports including scientific literacy content elements is 52%. Reports related to 'physics' and 'chemistry' as dominant fields show relatively high rate in scientific literacy elements. The element, 'social context' is included in about 96% of the reports. Both 'data and statistics' and 'application' show relatively low rate and large gaps according to dominant fields. A few concluding remarks and proposals follow from these results. First, as almost science reports show the nature of integrated science, scientific literacy acquisition through science reports in internet requires the integrated scientific view. Especially most science reports includes the contents related to technology or medical science, so the point of view in the science-technological literacy is required. Second, the scientific literacy content elements in reports show various rates according to dominant fields. Therefore, science reports need to complement the deficient content elements to carry out the role of science reports as scientific literacy sources.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.208-218
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• 2017

This study was to investigate factors and disclose causal model of the scientific literacy competency about the motivation for science and the scientific literacy competency. The 3 grade university students and the 1 grade university students as pre-service elementary teachers were participated to questionnaire investigation. The data were analyzed by the factor analysis method and the structural equation model method, and the following results were obtained. First, the 3 grade university students and the 1 grade university students perceived the science interest factors and science usefulness factors as the motivation for science, and also revealed the scientific problem recognition factor and the scientific evidence use factor as the scientific literacy competency. Second, the science interest factor had a greater effect on the scientific problem recognition factor than the scientific evidence use factor in both the 3 grade and 1 grade university students. In the path from the science usefulness factor to the scientific problem recognition factor, the science usefulness factor of the 3 grade university students had a greater influence on the direct route to the scientific problem recognition factor than that of the 1 grade university students. In the path from the science usefulness factor to the scientific evidence use factor, the science usefulness factor of the 1 grade university students influenced more on the direct route to the scientific evidence use factor than that of the 3 grade university students.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2013

20 preservice teachers at college level participated in this study and interacted with students at elementary and middle school levels during science camp offered by science center in Taiwan. Preservice teachers displayed moderate (above the average, 4 point out of 5) understandings about scientific literacy and scientific views in all aspects of the nature of science before the camp. Then, the researchers designed science camp programs which were expected to promote students' scientific literacy; scientific knowledge, inquiry skills for experimentation as well as for argumentation, affective domain such as the attitude toward science and the understandings about nature of science and the relationship among STS (Science-Technology-Society), all of which were embedded in the programs. Preservice teachers seemed to perceive scientific literacy pretty well (over 4 point) before the camp, however, preservice teachers' understandings about scientific literacy were not much scored (around 3 point, but still moderate scores of average) as expected after concrete inquiry activities. The reasons why this happened could be that preservice teachers were not trained to employ theory into the context to be more practical or the researchers did not develop camp program which included the aspect of scientific literacy successfully. The discussion and implication were made in teacher education in that preservice teachers must be prepared how to bridge theory into practice, and informal science education in that educators at science centers must be trained to be experts in providing the envisioned educational programs to meet the goal of science education, scientific literacy.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.57-70
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• 2004

This study is the subsequent study that has the objectives examining the relationships among 'substantive understanding', 'scientific literacy' and 'learning intention' in computer supported intentional learning environments and inquiry ability, variables for affecting knowledge construction derived from the finding out of the former study. As a result, the current study confirmed in CSILE the close correlation between 'the learning intention for scientific inquiry' and 'substantive understanding', between 'the learning intention for scientific inquiry' and 'scientific literacy'. Another result showed that 'scientific literacy' was the most significant predictor on inquiry ability. Base on the result of this study, the present researcher is about to make suggestions to stimulate learners' scientific literacy in CSILE-based inquiry learning.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.21-38
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• 2005

This study aims to find methods to improve the scientific literacy of the youth, which comprise the group who will lead the upcoming era of knowledge and science. To do this, the study focuses on improving the youth's understanding of science and their ability to utilize it. It is widely recognized that scientific literacy Is highly essential in this era of scientific revolution and innovations. Accordingly, various kinds of programs are being developed in Korea and other countries. In particular, 'Project 2061' is designed to enable a permanent learning system by improving problem-solving ability through the scientific process. This system plays an Important role In supporting the Americans' Pursuit of Increased literacy in the fields of science, mathematics, and engineering. To improve the scientific literacy of young people, content development in relation with school courses as well as information services that arouse Interest and curiosity In the field of science is very important. In addition, It is necessary to develop a problem-solving program by stages. Further studies focusing on methods of improving scientific literacy of the youth are recommended.