The Preservice Teachers등 Understanding of the International System of Units

국제단위제도에 대한 초등학교 예비 교사들의 이해

This paper aims to examine how well university students, who are going to be primary school teachers, understand the International System of Units (SI), focusing on seven basic units such as 'm', '㎏', '㏖', 'A', 'K', 's', 'cd'. This study specifically investigates whether the students know the seven units and understand their uses and how they read and learn them. The subjects were 1030 students from the University of Education in Jinju, Geongsangnamdo. Data was collected through a questionnaire which was designed by this researcher and checked by an authority, and the frequency and percentage of reponses to each question were obtained and analysed. Findings show all the students knew very well that 'm' and '㎏' are included in the seven units, compared to the others which low percentage of the students considered as the elements. In terms of understanding of use, the units of the length 'm', the mass '㎏', and the time 's' are well understood, presumably, because they are often used in ordinary life and school, while the amount of substance '㏖', the electric current 'A', the thermodynamic temperature 'K', and the luminous intensity 'cd' are not as well understood. It is probably because 'A', 'cd', and 'K' are hardly used in everyday life. With respect to reading the units, the subjects read 'm', '㎏', '㏖', and's' much better than the others. As for the source of learning them, most students answered they learned them in schools, which implies school education is very important. From these results it is concluded that school education should be accompanied with use in everyday life for understanding and using the units. SI Base Units understanding was investigated by an academic year. According to this investigation, generally the right answer rate differed 4<2<3<1 by an academic year in order. For the Senior, Sophomore appeared the right answer rate more high. because, they learned before in deepening or elementary course on chemistry and physics related with SI Base Units. On the other hand, for the junior answered low rate by this reason that they couldn't remember about SI Base Units that learned before. For the Freshman appeared low rate by this reason that they were not learned or graduated from the department of liberal art in high school.