• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.389-405
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to analyze elementary school teachers' understanding, certainty, and familiarity with 13 key concepts of wave physics that are presented in textbook and teacher's guidebook. 123 elementary school teachers answered concept tests and questionnaires. In the results to these tests and questionnaires, teachers demonstrated a high level of understanding and high certainty in understanding with regard to the concepts of sound generation, effect of medium on wave, timbre, wavelength, and trough and crest of wave. For the topics of sound velocity, wave reflection and wave transmission, teachers demonstrated a high level of understanding but low certainty in understanding. With regard to sound propagation, teachers demonstrated a low level of understanding and an improperly high certainty in that low understanding. Teachers lacked knowledge, i.e., displayed a low level of understanding and low certainty in sound strength, sound frequency, constructive interference and destructive interference. In constructive and destructive interference, the teachers also displayed a low level of familiarity. We analyzed the differences in teacher's understanding, certainty, and familiarity according to teacher demographics defined by the teacher's gender, teaching experience with concepts of sound, career, curriculum track while in high school, and major in university. There were no significant differences in understanding, certainty, or familiarity as defined by gender, teaching experience, and career. However, these displays of knowledge were affected by the teacher's curriculum track in high school and their major. These results suggest that the teacher's understanding of, familiarity with, and certainty in wave physics concepts are more influenced by their learning experience than by their teaching experience. Therefore, we suggest additional learning opportunities for teachers (such as teacher training programs) in order to improve teacher knowledge and correct teacher misconceptions in wave physics.

• 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 The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.449-457
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• 2014

Recent studies have shown that teachers should have be aware of and understand students' misconceptions, which is one of the major components of PCK. However, teachers often have difficulties in understanding misconceptions and in applying appropriate instructional strategies to change misconceptions. Thus, we designed a method course for pre-service teachers (PSTs) adapting the concept of "teacher as researcher". In the course, PSTs conducted research to investigate students' misconceptions in physics. Twenty-five female PSTs participated in the study. They went through the research process including creating question items, administering items to their target populations, collecting and analyzing student responses, and writing a research paper. Data source included individual interviews with the PSTs, field notes during classroom observation and PSTs' research papers. The results were as follows. First, the PSTs confirmed students' misconceptions and learning difficulties in physics. They experienced discrepancies between their conjecture and research findings. Second, PSTs developed the sophisticated understanding of students' misconceptions and appropriate teaching strategies. Third, the research experience provided the PSTs opportunities to reexamine their physics content knowledge while creating items and explaining scientific concepts. They realized that physics teachers should develop sound understanding of physics concepts for guiding students to have less misconception. Lastly, they realized the necessity of being a teacher as a researcher.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.374-388
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service physics teachers' perceptions on the physics education major curriculum. We surveyed 15 junior, and 13 senior college students of physics education major in an university in southern part of Korea. Among them, 24 participants(86 %) took the physics 1 course in high school and 22 participants(79 %) chose the physics 1 in their Korea Scholastic Aptitude Test. The responses showed that the most necessary part in pre-service students' learning was the understanding of high school level physics(36 %), and the understanding of introductory level physics(29 %). In the wish list of courses to be open, high school level physics course was ranked first among seven options by 61 % of respondents. Also, there was some concurrence among respondents in opinion of the necessity for understanding introductory physics. Students felt difficulties in understanding it especially owing to the lack of problem solving skill and comprehension. They added that the sufficient explanation of core concepts should be the first action in the innovative plan. Most participants of pre-service physics teachers hoped to have the revised major curriculum which could help their understanding of high school level or introductory level of physics. However, there was a gap of opinions between the group of students with completion of the high school physics 1 & 2 course and those with non-completion of them. The approach of changing major curriculum with consideration of learners' needs was recommended because the number of students with completion of the high school physics course would probably be decreasing rapidly under these circumstances such as the application of new national curriculum, the reduction of the number of the elective courses in Korea Scholastic Aptitude Test and so on.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.173-193
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• 2019

An expert teachers' instruction can be helpful to other teachers because good teaching effectively guides students to develop meaningful learning. Feynman is an excellent physics lecturer as well as one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century who presented and explained physics with his unique teaching style based on his great store of knowledge. However, it is not easy to capture and visualize teaching because it is not only the complex phenomena interrelated to various factors with the content to be taught but also the tacit representation. In this study, the framework of knowledge & belief based on the integrated mental model theory was used as a tool to capture and visualize complex and tacit representation of Feynman's teaching of 'The theory of gravitation,' a chapter in The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman's teaching was found to go beyond the transmission of physics concepts by showing that components of the framework of knowledge & belief were effectively intertwined and integrated in his teaching and the storyline was well-organized. On the basis of these discussions, the implications of Feynman's teaching analyzed within the framework of knowledge & belief for physics teacher education are derived. Finally, the characteristics of the framework of knowledge & belief as tools for the analysis of teaching are presented.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.801-814
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• 2011

The purposes of this study were to understand what is physics teachers' perceptions of idealization and to explore their teaching experiences about idealization in their physics classes. In order to achieve these research purpose, we conducted in-depth interviews with ten Korean physics teachers. The interview data was transcribed and analyzed interpretively. The results are as follows: (1) Physics teachers are not familiar with the term of 'idealization' but they understand the meaning of idealization and ideal condition. (2) Physics teachers understand the necessity of explicit mentions of idealization and ideal conditions in physics classes. (3) Physic teachers adapt conceptions of idealization and ideal condition into their lectures, experimental classes and evaluation strategies. Thus, the results of this study can provide theocratical understanding of idealization. It will help develop teacher education programs and physics teaching strategies. This research also suggested follow-up research questions about idealization in the physics education field.

• Korean Educational Research Journal
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.109-125
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to examine how group argumentations mediated individual arguments by analyzing physics teachers' group argumentation and individual follow-up written arguments. Five in-service physics teachers participated in this study, two middle school and three high school teachers. The topics of argumentation included physics topics and pedagogy of them. Findings showed that the teachers constructed much more elaborated individual written arguments than group argumentation, which seemed to be resulted from different perceptions of teachers' verbal and written argumentations. Also, in their written arguments the teachers selectively utilized their colleagues' ideas shared during group argumentation. Lastly, teachers' argumentation showed different features between topics of physics and physics pedagogy. These differences were related to their orientations toward argumentation about content knowledge and teaching. These findings shed light on a productive physics teacher professional development in argumentation.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.187-193
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to investigate some implications for optics education and improvement of the Examination for Appointing Secondary School Physics Teachers (EASSPT), by analyzing the problems in EASSPT. For these purpose, we analyzed 38 optics problems of the EASSPT from the 16 school years of 2002 to 2017. The results of the analysis are as follows: First, optics problems were presented in 10.8% of the physics subject area, which was least frequently. Second, many problems have addressed specific areas such as Snell's law, image of a single lens, or interference. Few problems were found in many other evaluation areas, including optical instruments and aberrations. Third, compared to other areas, optics problems were presented as relatively easy questions, and the problems were presented in more laboratory contexts than daily-life contexts. In addition, we have discussed implications for EASSPT and in-service physics-teacher training.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.715-722
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• 2006

This study intended to find evidence of changes in teacher beliefs of teaching and learning and a case of infusing research experiences in teaching modules since their research participation. As part of this study, twenty three science and math teachers in Korea were provided with science research labs and field experiences in the University of Iowa for three weeks. The research units that teachers participated in for three weeks covered seven fields of subjects such as: geology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, and environmental engineering. In the course of this study, the effectiveness of science research participation program was explored in terms of changing teacher beliefs and their production of teaching modules based on their research. This study especially focused on identifying changes of beliefs on science teaching and learning after participating in the research. A case study of a participant teacher was also conducted by comparing descriptively teaching modules before and after experiencing the program. It was found that the program affected the new modules and the research experiences affected participants' beliefs toward student centeredness.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.535-550
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was the identifying differences between physicists' expectations and teachers' representations about the primary physics concepts in elementary schools. For this, the material subjects analyzed were the 7th curriculum, the textbooks of elementary school and the texts using at the department of physics in many universities. The primary physics concepts extracted from the texts were to be fundamental and basic. Also, they were restricted to the domain of dynamics. And besides, the human subjects were physicists, professors and students majoring physics of the graduate school, researchers of institutes or laboratories and elementary school teachers. At the result of this study showed the scholars and teachers have the different opinions.