• Title/Summary/Keyword: scientific epistemology

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Students' Knowledge, Acceptance of Theory of Evolution and Epistemology: Cross-sectional Study of Grade Level Differences

  • Kim, Sun Young
    • Journal of Science Education
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    • v.40 no.1
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    • pp.1-16
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    • 2016
  • The purpose of this study is to explore the variables of knowledge, acceptance of theory of evolution and epistemology that could be keys for teaching and learning the theory of evolution within school contexts, and to suggest instructional tips for teaching evolution in relation to the grade levels of education. This cross-sectional study examined the grade level differences (8th, 11th, and preservice teachers) of four variables: evolutionary knowledge; acceptance of theory of evolution; and both domain-specific epistemology (nature of science in relation to evolution) and context-specific epistemology (scientific epistemological views) and their relationships. This study, then, built conceptual models of each grade level students' acceptance of theory of evolution among the factors of evolutionary knowledge and epistemology (both domain-specific and context-specific). The results showed that the scores of evolutionary knowledge, evolution in relation to NOS, and scientific epistemology increased as the grade levels of education go up(p<.05) except the scores of acceptance of theory of evolution(p>.05). In addition, the 8th graders' and the 11th graders' acceptance of evolutionary theory was most explained by 'evolution in relation to NOS', while the preservice teachers' acceptance of evolutionary theory was most explained by evolutionary knowledge. Interestingly, 'scientific epistemological views' were only included for the 8th graders, while evolutionary knowledge and 'evolution in relation to NOS' (context-specific epistemology) were included in explaining all the level of students' acceptance of evolutionary theory. This study implicated that when teaching and learning of the theory of evolution in school contexts, knowledge, acceptance of evolutionary theory and epistemology could be considered appropriately for the different grade levels of students.

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Scientific Governance through Public Participation: Historical Epistemology of Divergent Positions in the Participatory Turn of STS (시민참여를 통한 과학기술 거버넌스: STS의 '참여적 전환' 내의 다양한 입장에 대한 역사적 인식론)

  • Hyun, Jae Hwan;Hong, Sung Ook
    • Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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    • v.12 no.2
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    • pp.33-79
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    • 2012
  • This paper first aims to reveal that, in the current trend of 'the participatory turn' in STS, there are divergent positions subtly different from each other, and that the understanding of these divergent positions can be significant to study the differences, similarities and interfaces between the various models of scientific governance discussed in STS and those in risk governance developed by risk studies. Secondly, this paper shows that theoretical differences among STS scholars on scientific governance and public participation goes back to the 1970s and 1980s, during which they first laid down the conceptual basis of STS. All ideas and theories have their own historicity. This article is about the 'historical epistemology' of the participatory turn of STS, and is to seek 'political epistemology' that can become a shared vision of STS.

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Elementary Student's Reasoning Patterns Represented in Constructing Models of 'Food Web and Food Pyramid' ('먹이 그물과 먹이 피라미드' 모형 구성에서 나타난 초등학생의 추론 유형)

  • Han, Moon-Hyun;Kim, Heui-Baik
    • Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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    • v.31 no.1
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    • pp.71-83
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    • 2012
  • The purpose of this study was to explore ecological concepts, epistemological reasoning and reasoning processes through constructing 'food web and food pyramid' in ecology. We conducted classes which involved a 'food web and food pyramid' for $6^{th}$ grade students. Each class is constructed of small groups to do modeling and epistemological reasoning through communication. The researcher had videotaped and recorded each class and have made transcription about classes. We analysed patterns of 'food web and food pyramid models' and reasoning processes according to scientific epistemology using transcription data and student outputs. As a result, students represented phenomenon-based reasoning, relation-based reasoning and model-based reasoning in scientific epistemology from their modeling. Students usually did relation-based reasoning and model-based reasoning in food web which explains ecological phenonenon, while they usually did model-based reasoning in food pyramid which expects ecological phenomenon. Student's reasoning can be limited when they have misconception of scientific knowledge and are limited by fragmentary knowledge. This represents that students has to do relation-based reasoning and model-based reasoning is beneficial in their ecological model. It also suggests that students need to define correct-conception related to ecological modeling(food web, food pyramid).

The Epistemological Understandings on Ecologism: Applications of Sung Confucianism and The Silhak (생태주의의 인식론적 비교: 성리학과 운화론을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Jeong-Tae;Lee, Seong-Woo
    • Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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    • v.13 no.2
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    • pp.39-49
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    • 2007
  • The objective of this paper is to investigate the development of Silhak as a Korean epistemology, to investigate the implications of Silhak in Korean society, and to discover further environmental implications. The main discussion of this paper concerns with the epistemology of environmental philosophy. Epistemology is based on the justification of certain knowledge and social philosophy. Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/ speech) is the branch of philosophy concerned with theories of the sources, nature, and limits of knowledge. Since the seventeenth century, epistemology has been one of the fundamental themes of philosophers, who were necessarily obliged to coordinate the theory of knowledge with the development of scientific thought. It is a general belief that Western ideology is substantially embedded in Eastern ideology due to physical and metaphysical colonial involvement. We argue that ecological crisis may be resulted from western epistemological mechanical view, thus we suggests a Korean epistemology as an alternative. In this paper, we seek possibility of epistemological alternative of nature in the Korean traditional epistemology incorporating the epistemology of Sung confucianism and The Silhak.

A Study on the Objectivity of Scientific Knowledge: Focused on Michael Polanyi's Epistemology (과학지식의 객관성에 관한 고찰: 마이클 폴라니의 인식론을 중심으로)

  • Kim, Man-Hee;Kim, Beom-Ki
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.23 no.1
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    • pp.100-116
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    • 2003
  • The purpose of this paper is to investigate the objectivity of scientific knowledge, focusing on Michael Polanyi's epistemology. The objectivity of scientific knowledge could be examined in epistemological and ontological view. The former relates to the rationality, but the latter to the reality. Since the middle of 20th century science philosophers have debated about the objectivity of scientific knowledge. Their opinions are divided three parts by the criteria of objectivity in relation to the rationality. Exactly Objectivism approves the rationality of scientific knowledge, and Falsificationism accepts the panial rationality, but Relativism denies any rationality. In this paper, we will study the objectivity of knowledge in relation to the subjectivity, especially throughout the theory of Kant, Kierkegaard and Wang Yang-ming. Experienced good scientist Polanyi(1946; 1958) have ever suggested the new epistemology as the name of 'personal knowledge'. He argues that scientific knowledge is personal by faith, trust, passions, tacit understanding, method rules embodied in practice. Some implications were discussed for science education from the view of Polanyi. The first holds that science class needs human voice throughout the personal commitment. The second holds that intellectual passions should he recovered. The third holds that the teacher should act like real scientist. Finally, the theory of science education should be established for ourselves.

Exploring Epistemological Features Presented in Texts of Exhibit Panels in the Science Museum (과학관의 전시 패널 글에 반영된 과학의 인식론적 측면 탐색)

  • Lee, Sun-Kyung;Shin, Myeong-Kyeong;Lee, Gyu-Ho;Choi, Chui-Im;Baek, Doo-Sung;Chung, Kwang-Hoon;Yu, Man-Sun;Kim, Sun-Ja;Son, Sung-Keun;Choi, Hyun-Sook;Lee, Kang-Hwan;Lee, Jeong-Gu
    • Journal of the Korean earth science society
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.124-139
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    • 2011
  • This study was to explore epistemological features presented in texts of exhibit panels in the science museum located in Gyeonggi Province. Out-of-school or daily experiences allow more properly and potentially students to form informative science image, because the understandings of scientific epistemology were constructed tacitly through various experiences over a long period of time. The target for this study was panel texts of exhibits in a science museum as an of out-of-school context. The analytical framework was adopted from epistemological frameworks by Ryder et al. (1999). The research results were explored in the categories of relationship between scientific knowledge claims and the data, the nature of lines of scientific enquiry, and social dimension of science. It revealed that one exhibit might reflect the characteristics of one epistemological position: relating one data to one knowledge claim; generating knowledge claim from scientists' individual interests or from discipline's internal epistemology; scientists working as a community or an institution. Findings suggested that the exhibits of a science museum including panel texts and medium need to reflect the wide ranges of scientific epistemology.

High School Students' Views about Some Topics of the Epistemology of Science (과학인식론의 일부 주제에 대한 고등학생들의 견해)

  • Woo, Jong-Ok;Soh, Won-Joo
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.15 no.3
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    • pp.349-362
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    • 1995
  • As science programs emphasize an understanding of the nature of science, it is needed to assess students' views on a wide range of science-technology-society topics. The purpose of this study is to investigate the views of high school students about some selected topics of the epistemology of science. The selected topics include the meaning of science, scientific assumptions, values in science, conceptual inventions in science, scientific method, consensus making in science, and characteristics of the knowledge produced in science. Identified preconceptions in the study are as follows: Science was seen as improving the world(20%), and technology was defined as the application of science(35%). Almost half of the sample(49%) subscribed to a view consistent with a creationist posture and large group of students(46%) expressed a purely ontological view. Only minority of the students(5%) discounted the role played by private science values, but one half of the sample denied the fact that gender-related values can influence the knowledge that scientist construct(53%). Only a small potion of the sample(5%) held a view contrasting to contemporary epistemology of science, but the majority(67%) expressed a simplistic hierarchical relationship in which hypotheses become theories and theories become laws. One third of the students(33%) held a preconception that the scientific method composed of questioning, hypothesizing, collecting data, and concluding. Students did not appreciate the role of consensus making in science(33%). An out-dated epistemic perspective describes the progress of science as simply an accumulation of knowledge(4%). In general, it was concluded that most high school students did not hold efficient understanding on the nature of science. It can be said that no adequate and consistent instruction took place to provide students with an authentic view of the nature of science.

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Exploring Scientific Argumentation Practice from Unproductive to Productive: Focus on Epistemological Resources and Contexts (비생산적 논변에서 생산적 논변으로의 실행 변화 탐색 -인식론적 자원과 맥락을 중심으로-)

  • Lee, Jeonghwa;Kim, Heui-Baik
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.41 no.3
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    • pp.193-202
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    • 2021
  • This study aims to identify what kind of epistemological resources were activated in unproductive and productive practice by students participating in scientific argumentation, and to explore which contexts result in changes in argumentative practice. We collected transcriptions of participants' argumentative lessons and interview, participants' work sheets, and researchers' field notes. The analysis revealed that the focus group activated different kinds of epistemological resources depending on their practice; propagated, belief, and accumulation in unproductive practice and constructed, understanding, accumulation, formation and rebuttal in productive practice. We found two contextual cues that led to these changes; unfamiliar form of argumentative task was provided and emotional, epistemic, and conceptual support of the epistemic authority. This work can be provided as additional case studies to analyze changes in practice according to learner context-dependent epistemology, and we expect to contribute to discussions of productive epistemology and stabilization for students' authentic science engagement.

The Implications of Feminist Epistemology for Knowledge Production in Social Welfare (사회복지연구를 위한 페미니스트 인식론의 비평과 함의)

  • Sung, Jung-Suk;Lee, Na-Young
    • Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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    • v.62 no.2
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    • pp.349-373
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    • 2010
  • The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze the way of knowledge production in social welfare and to graft feminist epistemology to the discipline of social welfare. To put it more concretely, as analyzing the epistemological and methodological issues appeared in the articles in "orean Journal of Social Welfare", this study examines the meanings of feminist epistemology and its implications to research and practice in social welfare. From its onset, feminist research criticized the 'mainstream' ways of conceptualizing knowledge construction via research conducted upon a positivist epistemological position. Particularly, western feminists have problematized the androcentric bias embedded within the so-called 'social sciences' that we have taken for granted as 'scientific,' 'objective,' and 'neutral,' and attempted to redirect and reformulate the way of knowledge production with new concepts of 'strong objectivity,' 'partial/situated knowledge,' and 'strong reflection.' We believe that the implications of feminist epistemology to enable us to reflect the power relationship between subject and object, I and Other, and the researcher and the researched will contribute to recover the original vision of social welfare as critical theory and liberating practice in social work.

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The Examination of Pre-service and In-service Elementary School Teachers학 Perceptions about Science - Technology -Society(STS). (교대생과 초등교사의 과학-기술-사회(STS)에 대한 인식도 조사)

  • 김맹희;권치순
    • Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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    • v.18 no.1
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    • pp.29-39
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    • 1999
  • The purpose of this investigation was to examine and compare pre-service and in-service elementary school teachers' beliefs about Science-Technology-and Society (STS), particularly beliefs about the nature of science and technology, their interaction within society, and the epistemology of science. Large percentage of pre-service and in-service elementary school teachers were understood to perceive as follows : 1. they regarded the science as 〃Knowledge scheme aiming content'and technology as 'skill for solution of actual problems'. 2. they revealed themselves to perceive tat science/ technology influence our lives through new terms and ideas, that science/ technology is affected by governmental policies and that all the people concerned including scientist and technologist should participate in the course of decision making. 3. they perceived that scientist perform their studies by characteristic abilities and that the studies are affected by their religious viewpoint. Moreover, they were understood to perceive that scientific knowledge are constructed through social interaction. 4. they perceived that scientist discover and develop scientific laws by scientific methods such as verification and certification, and that those scientific laws could be changed later.

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