• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.213-222
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• 2007

In this study, science history program was developed to enhance student's concepts toward the particulate nature of matter and the understanding about the nature of science. And the effects of its application was investigated in the lesson of ‘Composition of Matter' in middle school science class. This science history program was based on genetic approach and included the contents from the old Greek natural philosophers to Avogadro. Before instruction, the test of understanding about nature of science was administered, and the science scores of the previous course were obtained, which were used as covariates. During 24 class hours, this study was conducted with two classes(experimental and comparison group) in a middle school in Seoul. The experimental group was received lessons by science history programs and the comparison group was received traditional lessons. After instruction, the scientific concept test, the test of understanding about nature of science were administered. The result of this study indicates that the scientific concept scores of experimental group were significantly higher than comparison group at p <.01 level of significance. It means that the students in experimental group has more sound conceptions about the particulate nature of matter and less mis conceptions about matter than the students in comparison group. However, there was no significant difference between two groups in the score of understanding about the nature of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.119-125
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• 1997

In the last few years, there has been a significant growth of interest in how the philosophy of science can be related to science education. Adequate understanding of the philosophy and history of science can promote understanding of the nature of science in teacher and student. The 6th curriculum in Korea has also placed emphasis upon understanding of the nature of science. From this point of view, to ensure effective school science education it is necessary to investigate how teachers and students are understanding the nature of science. To do this 45 secondary science teachers and 191 students of 7 schools in Seoul are administered Nott and Wellington's questionaire(1993). This questionaire is consisted of 24 Likert Scale statements and asks questions on 5 subscales of philosophy of science :Relativism-Positivism, Inductivism-Deductivism, Contextualism-Decontextualism, Instrumentalism-Realism, Thinking science education as a Process or a Content. The results of this study are as follows : 1. Teachers' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 2. There was no difference in teachers' conceptions on the nature of science according to experience and gender. 3. Students' view of the nature of science was relativism, deductivism, decontextualism and instrumentalism. And they thought process is more important than content in science education. 4. There was no difference in students' conceptions on the nature of science according to schools level(middle vs high) and gender. But, female students exhibited higher score than male students on deductivism(p<.05). 5. Teachers' and students' conception of the nature of science was in agreement with each other.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.93-99
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• 2003

The purpose of this study was to develop a new test instrument based on AAAS Benchmarks for Science Literacy, to assess k-12 students' progress in understanding nature of science (NOS). A total of 276 items were developed including 33 items for grade k-2, 36 items for grade 3-5, 78 items for grade 6-8 and 129 items for grade 9-12 and they were reviewed for validity and reliability. Key ideas that were the foundation of test items were extended, sophisticated and enriched according to the grade level. The general score of this test represents a student's cognitive state about an understanding of NOS. The result of this test can be expected to give some useful information for follow-up investigations, improving instructional design, and conducting further studies.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.277-291
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• 2010

In this study, we investigated the effects of explicit instruction about nature of science by elementary school students' cognitive level. Participants were six classes, 187 sixth graders at elementary schools in Daegu. Three classes were assigned to control groups and the other classes to treatment groups. Control groups were provided normal instructions and treatment groups were provided instructions integrated with nature of science about chapter 'electromagnet' for 9 class periods. The results of this study were as follow. Both low-cognitive level students and high-cognitive level students in the treatment groups are improved in understanding about nature of science by the explicit instructions about nature of science. Especially, the high-cognitive level students had more improvement than the low-cognitive level students in understanding about nature of science by the explicit instructions about nature of science. There were no significant differences between the test scores of the two groups in the science interest sub-domain of the science-related affective domain. But, there were significant differences between the test scores of the two groups in curiosity and open-mindedness of the scientific attitudes sub-domain of the science-related affective domain.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.1071-1081
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• 2002

This article describes the status of science teacher education in Taiwan. The pre-service and in-service science teacher training system, institutes, curricula, programs, and evaluation on the institutes were briefly introduced. The differences before and after the 1996 reform of science teacher training system were compared. Finally, the attempts and efforts that have been done through the channels of research to promote science teachers' professional development were addressed. These efforts include the Case studies of exemplary science teachers' teaching performances, the development of licensure instruments for the certification of science teachers, the use of computers and distance education for supervising student teachers, the exploration of promoting science teachers' understanding about the nature of science, the exploration of promoting science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge, the exploration of promoting science teachers' ability of increasing effective student-teacher and student-student interactions, and the exploration of effective teaching strategies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.390-399
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine university students' understanding of the nature of science, an aspect of scientific literacy, which is the goal of modern science education. To accomplish this, the differences and similarities by gender and major. on college students' understanding of the nature of science were investigated. 'Understanding of the Nature of Science' developed by Lee (2003) was implemented for this study. The instrument has three sub-scales; a scientific world view, scientific inquiry, and scientific enterprise. The instrument is only expected to give, and provides meaningful information on student understanding of the nature of science. A total of 120 college students, majoring in science education, liberal arts, and physical exercise participated in this study. Science education major students were verified to have a better understanding of the nature of science followed by liberal arts students and then physical exercise students. Moreover, men revealed slightly more comprehension that of women. More than 80% of students, majoring in science education, answered 11 out of 23 questions, approximately 50%. In the area of scientific inquiry, both science education and liberal arts students showed more comprehension that those in physical exercise. All participants showed relatively lower comprehension of the definition of scientific contribution than other subjects, but displayed a greater comprehension of the ethics of science. On the other hand, most students have relatively low apprehension in the contribution of science, while higher apprehension in the ethics of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.58-67
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• 2006

Student understanding of the nature of science is necessary not only because it is helpful for solving everyday problems with growing science literacy, but also because it influences students' science learning. Therefore, it was necessary to investigate student views on the nature of science under the 7th national curriculum and compare with those before the 7th national curriculum in order to probe the elements which contribute to changes in student views on the nature of science. A significant number of differences were found between subdimensions of views on the nature of science through the comparison. High school students under the 7th national curriculum had more relativistic, instrumental, and deductive but less process-oriented views than high school students before the 7th national curriculum. The differences between mean values which showed high school student views on the nature of science under and before the 7th national curriculum were significant, except for the subdimension of instrumentanlism/realism. In particular, high school students under the 7th national curriculum possessed a contextual view, whereas those before the 7th national curriculum possessed a decontextual view. Although other factors might be the cause for differences found in this study, we argued by discussion that differences among textbook contents seemed to be the major factor.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.249-260
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• 2010

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effects of explicit instructions on the nature of science (NOS) on the understanding of science-gifted students. Participants were engaged in 8 explicit NOS instructions spanning 6 months. Data were collected before and after the instructions from 20 science-gifted students using student worksheets, open-ended questionnaires (Views of Nature Of Science, VNOS), and in-depth interviews. The results of this study showed that explicit instructions were helpful in improving the understanding of the tentativeness in science and socially and culturally embedded aspects of science. However, participants not only still possess naive views on the nature of science about the distinction of law and theory and the empirical aspects of science, but also had conflicting views and misconceptions in some areas. The study has implication for development of science-gifted program that the explicit instructions on NOS and science inquiry should be provided concurrently, given the complementary relationship of the two activities.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.160-175
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• 2004

This study examined the knowledge and practices of scientific inquiry displayed by three student teachers and two beginning teachers at secondary levels. Observations using the instrument of OTOP designed by the research team of OCEPT (Oregon Collaborative for Excellent in the Preparation of Teachers) generalized similar teaching strategies of scientific inquiry between student and beginning teachers, such as using group work for students' first hand experience, using concrete materials for experimentation or visual tools for demonstration, using questions for factual knowledge mainly without opportunities to understand how scientific knowledge is constructed. Those scientific inquiry activities were very confirmative ones to follow the steps without opportunities of understanding nature of science or nature of scientific inquiry. However, all participants in this study hold knowledge of scientific inquiry envisioned by the National Science Education Standards [NSES] (NRC, 1996), where students identify their hypothesis, use critical and logical thinking, and consider alternative explanations through argumentation as well as experimentation. An inconsistent relationship between participating teachers knowledge and practices about scientific inquiry resulted from their lack of pedagogy skills of implementing it in the classroom. Providing opportunities for these teachers to reflect on their beliefs and practices about scientific inquiry was recommended for the future study. Furthermore, increasing college faculty interest in new teaching approaches for upgrading the content knowledge of student teachers and beginning teachers was recommended as a solution, since those teachers showed evidence of influence by college faculties at universities in their pedagogy skills.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2006

Students have often experienced difficulties in understanding the concept of the particulate nature of matter despite its importance in chemistry. Although various instructional methods have been suggested for teaching this concept, systematic studies have been rarely conducted. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of drawing and analyzing pictures. Three classes of 7th graders at a coed middle school in Seoul were assigned to the control group, the drawing group, and the analyzing group, respectively. Students were taught about the three states of matter and the motion of molecules for 8 class periods. The instructional effects on student conception, achievement, and science learning motivation were investigated by student visual learning styles. Results revealed that the scores of a conceptions test and a science learning motivation test for both the drawing group and the analyzing group were higher than those for the control group. Additionally, the scores of the science learning motivation test were also found to be higher for students with a more visual learning style than their counterparts.