• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.479-490
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• 2014

In this study, we investigated the characteristics of the reading materials in the elementary school science textbooks in order to obtain implications for the effective use of them. The reading materials in the elementary school science textbooks developed under the 7th and the 2007 revised National Science Curricula were analyzed. The criteria for classifying the reading materials were the type of theme, purpose, students' activity, the type of presentation, the type of images, the role of images, and readability. The results indicated that the reading materials in the 2007 revised science textbooks are more systematic than those in the 7th science textbooks in terms of their length and their distribution among energy, matter, life, and earth areas. It was also found that various types of reading materials are presented in the 2007 revised science textbooks covering new themes such as frontier science, job opportunity and career, and environment. In addition, the reading materials in the 2007 revised science textbooks introduce more visual images and the readability of them are also better than their counterpart. However, several limitations were still found to exist in the reading materials of the 2007 revised textbooks; most of them are non-inquiry and explanatory; most of the visual images are illustration and/or pictures. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.288-296
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• 2015

This study aimed to analysis of concepts and inquiry activities related to the 'Earth Science' area in the South Korean elementary school textbooks to the current and to seek the improvement of future textbook. For the study, we were collected South Korean elementary school textbooks to the current. After the collection had been made, we were analyzed related to the 'Earth' area in the South Korean elementary school textbooks and were extracted central concepts and inquiry activities. The result of this study: First, there were 'A change in the land', 'Strata and Fossil', 'Volcanoes and Earthquakes', 'Earth and Moon', 'The weather', 'The Solar system and the Star', and 'Seasonal Change' in the central concepts related to the 'Earth' area in the South Korean elementary school textbooks to the current. Second, central concepts were almost the same but the curriculum was changed. Third, inquiry activities also were confirmed to be maintained with little change. This result was believed that it can provide a variety of suggestions at this point in changing the curriculum.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.45-53
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• 1998

This study was intended to suggest the desirable direction in the 7th national curriculum revision through the illustration analysis of the elementary science textbooks in the 6th national curriculum. The analysis system was composed of two categories, (1)the kind of illustrations (2)the .ole of illustrations The kind of illustrations was divided into five subcategories such as photograph, pictures, illustrations, cartoons and diagrams. And the role of illustrations was divided into four subcategories such as motive induction, guidance for experimentation, the presentation of data and the results of experimentation. Each sentence in the textbooks was considered as an analyzing units. The frequency and percentage of each category were counted and the rates were calculated. The findings could be summarized as follows: 1. The illustration in the primary science textbooks was mostly composed of photographs (87.1%). 2. The examination of the role of illustrations showed that the presentation of data was 46.2%, the guidance for experimentation 38.4%, the results of experimentation 8.6% and the motive induction 6.8% respectively. 3. In the domains of physical and chemical science, the role of guidance for experimentation was emphasized. But the biological and earth science domains showed high tendency of the presentation of data.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.580-595
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• 2007

To respond to the announcement of the revised version of science curriculum early this year, it has been necessary to develop new science textbooks which can be appropriate and effective to achieve the goals of the revised curriculum. The system of new textbooks needs to embrace the concerns of cognitive development in scientific knowledge, skills, and attitudes as well as social and cultural demands in the rapidly changing society. To develop an innovative framework of science textbooks, we examined previous studies on textbook analysis in Korea and analyzed science textbooks in the United States, Singapore, and Japan. We analyzed various ways of introducing and developing conceptual knowledge, leading scientific inquiry skills and process, enhancing scientific attitudes toward science, technology, society and the environment in those science textbooks. In the process of framing the structures of textbooks, we focused on ways of increasing educational effects of visualized texts, leaners' interest, user-friendly procedure, scientific inquiry, effectiveness of hands-on activities, scientific reading and writing skills, and usage of workbook. Based on those aspects and analyses of textbooks, we attempted to propose a feasible framework of Grade $3{\sim}4$ Science textbook which can effectively respond to the educational changes and demands in the local and global society.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.273-288
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• 2020

This study aims to investigate the presentation of the Nature of Science (NOS) in integrated science textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum. The five integrated science textbooks published by the revised 2015 curriculum were analyzed with the conceptual framework of the four themes of the Nature of Science (NOS) (Lee, 2013) based on scientific literacy. The four themes of the NOS are 1. nature of scientific knowledge (theme I), 2. nature of scientific inquiry (theme II), 3. nature of scientific thinking (theme III), and 4. nature of interactions among science, technology, and society. The reliability of the textbooks analysis was measured between two coders by the Cohen's kappa and resulted in between 0,83 and 0,96, which means the results of analysis was consistent and reliable. The findings were as follows. First, overall theme II, nature of scientific inquiry emphasized on the integrated science textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum by devoting the contents over 40 % in the all five publishing companies' textbooks. Second, while the theme II, nature of scientific inquiry was emphasized on the textbooks regardless of the publishing companies, other themes of the NOS were emphasized in different portions by the publishing companies. Thus, the focus among other three themes of the NOS was presented differently by the publishing companies except that in theme II, nature of scientific inquiry was most emphasized on integrated science textbooks. Third, the presentation of the NOS was identified similarly across the topics of integrated science textbooks except on topic 4. Environment and Energy. The theme IV, nature of interactions among science, technology, and society was emphasized reasonably only in the topic of Environment and Energy of the textbooks. Finally, the presentation of the NOS in the integrated science textbooks of the 2015 revised curriculum were more balanced among the four themes of the NOS with focus on the scientific inquiry compared to the previous curriculum textbooks.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.55-65
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• 1998

This study was intended to suggest the desirable direction in the 7th national curriculum revision through the analysis of the elementary science textbooks in the 6th national curriculum. The analysis system was composed of three categories, (1)knowledge (2)inquiry process and (3)attitude. And knowledge was divided into fact, concept and rule. And inquiry process was divided into thirteen subcategories such as manipulating experimental apparatus, observing, measuring, recording data, classifying, interpreting/ predicting, determining relationship/ causal explanation, extrapolating/ interpolating, drawing conclusions/ formulating a generalization or model, evaluating, formulating a problem, generating a hypothesis and designing an experiment/ controlling variables. Each sentence in the textbooks was considered as an analyzing unit. The frequency and percentage of each category were counted and the ratios were calculated. The findings could be summarized as follows: 1. The content of the elementary science textbooks was composed of knowledge 10.3%, inquiry process 88.8%, attitude 0.8% respectively. 2. As increasing the grades, the ratio of knowledge showed high frequency, but that of attitude showed low frequency. 3. In All the grades, the ratio of observing was the highest in inquiry process. 4. In the domain of physics and chemistry, the manipulating experimental apparatus showed high frequency. In the domain of biology and earth science, the role of observing was emphasized.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.84-91
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• 2020

In this study, we investigated the elements of knowledge and information processing competence of science inquiry activities in grades 3-6 science textbooks. For this purpose, the elements of knowledge and information processing competence were extracted and a framework for analysis was created. Analysis of eight science textbooks for grades 3-6 in elementary school was carried out using the analysis framework. The following results were obtained by the analysis framework: First, we divided the knowledge and information processing competence into five elements: 'collection,' 'analysis,' 'expression,' 'selection,' and 'evaluation.' Second, the elements of knowledge and information processing competence of science inquiry activity of elementary science textbooks were not evenly composed. The science inquiry activities of elementary science textbooks focused on 'collection' and 'analysis' among the five elements of the knowledge and information processing competence, followed by 'expression,' 'selection,' and 'evaluation.' As a result, we found that a science inquiry model or a science instruction model is needed to develop the knowledge and information processing competence in elementary school science curriculum.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.456-464
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• 2007

The aims of this research are to analyze the representations and conceptual sequence of eye vision in Korean science textbooks and to suggest a contents construct about eye vision where the conceptual sequence is considered. Research method was literature review, and the literatures that were used for analysis were the 7th Korean science curriculum which was revised in 1997, and the science and physics textbooks developed based on the 7th Korean science curriculum. The research results are as follows: 1) Although the science curriculum seems to have no problem on sequence in the eye vision concepts, the science and physics textbooks based on the curriculum reveal problems on the sequence in the eye vision concepts; 2) Some Korean science textbooks explain retinal image formation according to the Alhazen's idea, except in inverse image; 3) Some Korean science textbooks explain about the reasons of near- and far-sightedness without consistency between the textbooks for 7th and 8th grade students; 4) A few Korean science textbooks give an inappropriate explanation about the principle of eye sight correction by eye glasses; 5) According to the analysis result, the concepts related to eye vision should be presented in the order of explanation about light refraction phenomena, image formation process by convex lens, structure of human eye and retinal image formation process, correction of eye sight using lens.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.7
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• pp.3022-3029
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• 2011

One of the characteristics of the informatics subject implementing the revised national curriculum is to develop the practical attitude of the student as an active member of information society. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the units 'Information Society and IT' in middle school informatics textbooks reflect inquisitive tendencies to student's practice. After four textbooks that were widely selected by schools were selected from among the authorized textbooks, the sentences of the selected textbooks were analyzed by utilizing Romey's analysis method to see whether there was such an inquisitive tendency in them. As a result of analyzing six content elements of the textbooks, one textbook and two textbooks had an inquisitive tendency in three elements or more in terms of texts and activities index respectively. But there was no inquisitive tendency in the textbooks in terms of figure/diagrams, questions at the end of chapters and chapter synthesis. This study is meaningful in that it attempted to make a quantitative analysis of middle school informatics textbooks and to investigate an inquisitive tendency in the textbooks by analyzing every statement and sentence instead of analyzing just some parts of the textbooks.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.811-824
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• 2007

Photographs and illustrations are integral parts of current science textbooks' inscriptions. This study analysed and compared the function and structure of photographs and illustrations used in high school earth science textbooks of the 6th and 7th national curriculum. The findings of the function analysis showed that 'illustrative' function was far superior to other functions in terms of frequency and ratio. The illustrative function varied more in the 7th curriculum textbooks, especially in earth science I. 'Explanatory' and 'complementary' functions, which were relatively ignored in the 6th curriculum, significantly increased in the 7th curriculum textbooks. 'Decorative' function increased on the whole. The results of the structure analysis revealed that indexical reference remarkably decreased in the 7th curriculum textbooks, which means the retrogression of co-deployment with main text. 'Multiple' organized photographs and illustrations significantly increased in the 7th curriculum textbooks, while 'pair' and 'series' organization did not show an increase at all. It was suggested in this study that 'inquisitive' function and 'complementary' organization should be supplemented in terms of both function and structure. Moreover, the functional and structural aspects of scientific inscriptions including photographs and illustrations should be utilized by the certification criteria of science textbooks.