• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.499-518
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• 2004

This study focused on research that illustrates the important interplay between learners' epistemological beliefs about science knowledge, physics textbook knowledge and knowing physics in the classroom. Also this study investigated learners' conceptual changes on the value of mechanical energy. To explore these topics, six sophomores were chosen as participants. Three categories were introduced to classify how participants' understanding of the nature of science knowledge, physics textbook knowledge has been linked with epistemological beliefs of knowing physics. The three categories were (1)receiving physics knowledge as authority, (2)receiving physics knowledge as the perception of teacher's role and (3)understanding physics knowledge as the perception that science knowledge is a product of a variety of human ideas. These categories were also concerned with construction of individual conceptions of mechanical energy. The participants who understood physics knowledge as the perception that science knowledge is a product of a variety of human ideas naturally used metacognitive strategy in classroom compared to other participants. And they had scientific conceptions about the value of mechanical energy. Others who were passive in classroom had unscientific conceptions about the value of mechanical energy due to definition of energy and epistemological beliefs about the nature of science knowledge. In the process of their conceptual changes on the value of mechanical energy, it was important to understand an instrumental aspect of scientific knowledge and to think about the relation between formulae and physical phenomena.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.169-179
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• 2008

In this study, 46 teaching materials for understanding the nature of science (NOS) were developed based on the 42 statements describing the NOS. Each teaching material involves scientific knowledge and scientific inquiry skills as well as NOS statements. Teaching materials consist of students' learning worksheets and teachers' guides. Among the materials, 11 materials for understanding the nature of scientific thinking (NOST) were applied to 3 scientifically gifted students. As results, the degree of difficulty was appropriate and students showed interests in scientific thinking rather than new concepts or inquiry activities involved in the materials. It was expected that understating the NOST would be helpful for conducting scientific inquiry in more authentic way. And similarly to the Park's (2007) theoretical discussions about the relationship between the NOS and scientific creativity, students actually responded that undertrading the NOST could help their creativity. Therefore, it was expected that teaching the NOST would be plausible elements for teaching scientific creativity.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.235-249
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• 2003

The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate the nature, role and development of pedagogical content knowledge in science teaching. Two research questions were considered: 1) What are the nature and the components of the pedagogical content knowledge in science teaching? 2) What is the value of pedagogical content knowledge and are there any routes and paths to developing pedagogical content knowledge for science teachers? In order to answer these questions instead of analyzing empirical data, former research literatures are reviewed. The results indicate that science pedagogical content knowledge is a special amalgam of science content knowledge and science method knowledge in a special context of science teaching that is uniquely the province of teacher based on their own special form of professional understanding. As a part of one's own distinctive bodies of knowledge, science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge is an important basis for professional development and competent teachers. It is knowledge of how to teach specific content in specific contexts, also it depends on each teachers' distinctive knowledge structure. Pedagogical content knowledge for science teaching is composed of five components: orientations toward science teaching, knowledge and beliefs about science curriculum, knowledge and beliefs about students' understanding of specific topics, knowledge and beliefs about assessment for teaching science, knowledge and beliefs about instructional strategies for teaching science. The development of science pedagogical content knowledge does not start until teachers have acquired a deeply principled conceptual knowledge of content, also it is promoted by the constant use of subject matter knowledge in teaching situations.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.206-217
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• 2010

This study aims to explore preservice teachers' overall views of nature of science and compare their views by gender and certificate area (biology vs. non-biology teachers). In addition, a comparison with American preservice teachers' views was also implemented. The Views of Nature of Science (Abd-El-Khalick, 1998), an openended questionnaire, is utilized to explore participants' views of nature of science. Along with 'definition of science', six aspects of the nature of science, (1) theories and laws, (2) tentativeness, (3) social and cultural embeddedness, (4) creativity, (5) theory-laden, and (6) inference, were investigated. The qualitative result indicates that the participants' first image of science was about the method of science such as observations and experiments. Furthermore, these preservice science teachers particularly have a difficulty in differentiating between scientific theories and laws, and understanding the importance of creation and imagination in developing scientific knowledge. In addition, compared to American preservice teachers' view of the nature of science, Korean preservice teachers possess naive views in creative and imaginative aspect. Interestingly, biology teachers demonstrated lower understanding in theories and laws as well as tentativeness of scientific knowledge. However, there is no difference by gender.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.292-306
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to review the current state and characteristics of instruments used to assess individual understanding of the nature of science (NOS). This study conducted a series of content analyses of the articles published in a total of seven Korean and international journals from 1990 to 2009. A total of 99 research papers and assessment tools were categorized according to their features such as item type, the method of development, philosophical perspectives and others. So, evaluation domains of the instruments were also compared with the features of the NOS endorsed in some standards science education documents internationally well known, such as Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993), National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996). It was found that VNOS was the most frequently used instrument used for the last 20 years. There was a difference between characteristics of instruments used in Korean journals and these in international journal, such as philosophical perspectives, item type. Moreover, the results showed that there were only a few of instruments to ask about ethics of scientists, significance of science process skill and the context. NOS instruments focused only on limited aspects of NOS emphasized by the standard documents.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.246-259
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service biology teachers' perception of the evolution. This study was to compare the views of pre-service biology teachers with no religion with those of christian preservice teachers. Subjects were 77 pre-service biology teachers who enrolled in an university and graduate school of education located in Seoul. The instrument of this study was a questionnaire which consisted of 14 items on 2 domains: the nature of science, the origins of human beings. The key results are as follows. Most pre-service teachers showed highly understanding of the characteristics of science. However pre-service biology teachers still possessed naive views on the distinction of law and theory. In terms of the methods of science, many of the pre-service biology teachers considered scientific theories to progress through the accumulation of observation and experiments or through changes and modifications in existing theories. Compared with the pre-service teachers with no religion, christian pre-service teachers had conflicting views and misconceptions about the origins of human beings. The factors of religion were found to be one of the important barriers which prevent them from understanding the origins of human beings. The results suggested that the education program for pre-service biology teachers integrating the concepts and development process of the scientific knowledges should be effective for understanding the nature of science. For pre-service biology teachers, It is important to understand conflicting views of the christian pre-service teachers who understand creationism as a science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.353-366
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• 2011

An alternative vision for science inquiry that appears to be important and challenging is model-based inquiry in which students generate, evaluate and revise their explanatory model. Pre-service teachers should be given opportunities to develop and use their mechanistic explanatory models in order to participate in the practice of science and to have a sound understanding of science. With this view, this study described a case of pre-service elementary teachers' scientific modeling in magnetism. The aims of this study were to explore difficulties preservice elementary teachers encountered while they engaged in a model-based inquiry, and to examine how their understandings of the nature of scientific models changed after the model-based inquiry. The data analysis revealed that the pre-service teachers had difficulties in drawing and writing their own thinking because they had little experience of expressing their own science ideas. When asked to predict what would happen, they could not understand what it meant to make a prediction "based on their model". They did not know how to use or consider their model in making a prediction. At the end of the model-based inquiry they reached a final consensus of a best model. However, they were very anxious about whether the model was the "correct" answer. With respect to the nature of scientific models, almost all of the pre-service teachers initially viewed models only as a communication tool among scientists or students and teachers to help understand others' ideas. After the model-based inquiry, however, many of them understood that they could create, test, and revise their "own" models "by themselves". They also realized the key aspects of scientific models that a model can be changed as evidence is accumulated and a model is a knowledge production tool as well as a communication tool. The results indicated that pre-service elementary teachers' understandings of the nature of scientific models and their previous school science experiences could affect their performance on a model-based inquiry, and their experience of scientific modeling could help them enhance their understandings of the nature of scientific models.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.197-215
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• 2001

The science in elementary school has the purposes of having interest and curiosity in nature phenomena and things, of understanding basic concepts of science, realizing experimental know-how for students. And it also intends students to develop self-leading research ability and creative problem-solving ability through looking-in and experience about nature. However, existing science is accepted very hard and no interesting, just bothering to prepare more then a ability-developing or interest. In this report, I will analyze the study problems suggested in science textbook from 3rd to 6th grade, then find a new way for study problem suggesting and adopt it. It would help students have interest, approach problem without tense, understand problem exactly, and stand a concreat study schedule of experiment, observation, rearrangement, result interpretation that have students study by themselves. Because the suggesting way of science study problem statement is important thing to develop students' creativity and problem- solving abillity and to make self-leading attitude, I wish the exiting, veneficial, and waiting-for science class, through apply the newly developed methology suggested in this report.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.338-346
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• 2014

In this study, find out of recognition of the effect of science, society and ethical aspects on natural disasters and understanding degree of knowledge applying for SSI class aimed at elementary pre-service teachers by developing SSI training program of the 'Earth and Space' field. Also, after SSI class application we examined the change perceptions of elementary pre-service teachers. SSI training program was that elementary pre-service teachers participated in the SSI class of a variety of subjects in the field of 'Earth and Space' and directly joined in the decision-making process and reflectional discussion with colleagues as conducted in this class reflective discussion with the pre-primary teachers pre-service teachers. Elementary pre-service teachers were understanding of the nature of the science and to understand in more depth about the SSI class characteristics. This study, second grade 115 people who was taking 'science and teaching materials' course in B National University of Education at B city participated. In order to apply for SSI class, one semester based on 15 weeks until seven weeks were science and teaching materials and based on the nature of science, after 8 weeks we set the theme of the contents related to the Earth and space and give lesson applied for SSI. During 8 weeks, test subjects 4 classes were taking 50 minutes a week 100 minutes. First time has theoretical lessons in topics related to the 'Earth and space' and on the second week, each classes participate in the decision-making processes respectivly by dicussing and debating on the first week's topic as regarding social and moral aspects of it. We obtained the following results. First, elementary pre-service teachers were acquiring the results of 67% in the knowledge aspects of the 'Earth and space'. This result was determined that most of the elementary pre-service teachers were liberal arts in high school. Second, while participating in the SSI class, elementary pre-service teachers were concretely aware of the nature of SSI and the characteristics of the class. Third, the elementary pre-service teacher are thaught that introduction education courses about 'Earth and space' are needed but most of the students responded that this would require a lot of effort of teachers. This was derived from not familiar class form that did not fulfill in the science teaching methods until now.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.7
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• pp.677-691
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• 2014

Understanding of the nature of science (NOS) has been a consistent topic as one of the most important goals in science education for the past several decades. Even though there is a variety of research related with the NOS conducted in science education, few researches has been conducted for the conception of scientists regards to the nature of science (Bayir et al., 2014; Taylor et al., 2008; Wong & Hudson, 2008). Recently, researchers in science education turned their attention to identifying views of scientists about the nature of science since they recognized the importance of participation of scientists in science education (Southerland et al., 2003; Taylor et al., 2008). This study was conducted to examine the Korean scientists' views of the nature of science. Through the use of semi-structured questionnaire and in-depth interview the views of 35 scientists who belong to the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association (KSEA) regards to the nature of science were explored. Findings show that while the scientists have more informed views with respect to the tentativeness of scientific knowledge, cultural and social influence embedded in science, the limitation of science, and the collaboration of science with others, the scientists have more na${\ddot{i}}$ve views about the distinction between laws and theories, the existence of a universal scientific method, and the importance of imagination and creativity. As such, it can be assumed that the scientists cannot conceptualize their notion in a philosophical sense even though they are engaged in scientific work in reality (Bayir et al., 2014).