• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.495-502
• /
• 2013

The purpose of this study was to explore North Korean immigrant elementary students' cognitive and affective characteristics related to science education. A total of 68 North Korean immigrant students enrolled in 3 to 6 grades and 133 South Korean students in 4 and 6 grades in 3 South Korean elementary schools participated in the study. A short version of Group Assessment of Logical Thinking(GALT) was used to investigate the students' levels of logical thinking, and the Enjoyment of Science Lessons Scale(ESLS) of the Test of Science Related Attitudes(TOSRA) was administrated to examine their attitudes towards science lessons. The statistical analysis of data revealed that the level of logical thinking of the North Korean immigrant elementary students was very low and that this was also the case for the South Korean students. Especially, the mean score of logical thinking of the North Korean immigrant 6 graders was much lower when compared with that of the South Korean counterparts. For both the North Korean immigrant students and South Korean students, the enjoyment of science lessons decreased as they progressed through higher grades. This decreasing trend, however, turned out to be more serious in the South Korean elementary students. Based on these results, suggestions were presented to help successful science learning of North Korean immigrant elementary students.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.168-182
• /
• 2020

This study investigated how elementary students' science-related affective characteristics and their perception of measurement changed following participation in citizen science activities through a GLOBE program. Before and after the activities, test of positive experiences about science (PES) and perception of measurement were conducted with twelve fourth grade students. In addition, the teacher who participated in the GLOBE program with students observed and recorded the students' involvement, conversation and behavior to qualitatively analyze the value of the program and the students' perceptions of measurement. After the end of the program, an open questionnaire was conducted to fill any gaps in these observations. The results showed that citizen science activities had a positive impact on elementary students' science-related affective characteristics. In all areas of PES test, the post-test scores were higher than the pre-test results, and a statistically significant difference was seen in the 'science learning motivation' area. Furthermore, students' perception of the value and meaning of measurements was seen to deepen through ongoing global environmental data measurement activities. And their understanding of various units of measurement and numerous situations in which they might need to make measurements was also elaborated.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.39 no.3
• /
• pp.363-377
• /
• 2019

This study reveals the aspects of subjectivity in the test results in a science-specific aspect when assessing science-related affective characteristic through self-report items. The science-specific response was defined as the response that appear due to student's recognition of nature or characteristics of science when his or her concepts or perceptions about science were attempted to measure. We have searched for cases where science-specific responses especially interfere with the measurement objective or accurate self-reports. The results of the error due to the science-specific factors were derived from the quantitative data of 649 students in the 1st and 2nd grade of high school and the qualitative data of 44 students interviewed. The perspective of science and the characteristics of science that students internalize from everyday life and science learning experiences interact with the items that form the test tool. As a result, it was found that there were obstacles to accurate self-report in three aspects: characteristics of science, personal science experience, and science in tool. In terms of the characteristic of science in relation to the essential aspect of science, students respond to items regardless of the measuring constructs, because of their views and perceived characteristics of science based on subjective recognition. The personal science experience factor representing the learner side consists of student's science motivation, interaction with science experience, and perception of science and life. Finally, from the instrumental point of view, science in tool leads to terminological confusion due to the uncertainty of science concepts and results in a distance from accurate self-report eventually. Implications from the results of the study are as follows: review of inclusion of science-specific factors, precaution to clarify the concept of measurement, check of science specificity factors at the development stage, and efforts to cross the boundaries between everyday science and school science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.165-173
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study is to investigate the stress factors experienced by science teachers and stress related to science teaching. To do these, I have developed the Science Teacher Stress Inventory, which consisted of 50 stress factors with subcategories such as student characteristics, teacher characteristics, school environment, administrative procedures, and conditions of service. 104 science teachers have participated in this questionnaire survey. Additionally, I got 109 stress cases related to science teaching from surveys of 25 science teachers. Results are as follows: first, stress from students characteristic and administrative procedures are perceived as having more stress factors than teacher characteristics, school environment, and conditions of service. Second, stress in affective domains such as students' low motivation in science and insincere class attitude is perceived as having more stress factors than stress in cognitive domain. Third, female science teachers are significantly more stressed than male science teachers. Fourth, students' low motivation and low understanding in science learning are the most stressful factors in stress related to science teaching. Fifth, science teachers feel more stress in evaluation such as experiment test and joint-set exam questions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.760-774
• /
• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyze the characteristic of the linguistic interaction according to leadership type of the leader in the scientific inquiry activity groups and examine how leadership factors affect the linguistic interaction within a group. In this investigation, leaders among 12 elementary school students were chosen by considering results of the leadership diagnosis that tested 3 leadership factors: vision and promotion, assignment responsibility, and decision-making. The members of the groups were organized according to scientific inquiry ability and academic achievement; the groups were assigned to perform scientific inquiry activities. The linguistic interaction was largely divided into the cognitive domain and the affective domain for analysis. According to the results, the frequency of linguistic interaction within a group sorted by leadership type is more influenced by the cognitive domain than the affective domain. The highest frequency of linguistic interaction appeared within the group that had vision and promotion type leader. Assumedly, the vision and confidence of the vision and promotion type leader produced such an outcome. While solving the assignments, linguistic interaction in all three groups had more cognitive domain than affected domain. Linguistic interaction in cognitive domain displayed only low level of linguistic interaction in relation to the experiment itself: high level of linguistic interaction barely occurred. In the case of affected domain, active participation appeared more frequently than maintaining the mood: Interactions related to restricting the group members actions to solve the assignment appeared more frequently than those for maintaining the mood.