• Journal of Science Education
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• 제34권2호
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• pp.246-259
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service biology teachers' perception of the evolution. This study was to compare the views of pre-service biology teachers with no religion with those of christian preservice teachers. Subjects were 77 pre-service biology teachers who enrolled in an university and graduate school of education located in Seoul. The instrument of this study was a questionnaire which consisted of 14 items on 2 domains: the nature of science, the origins of human beings. The key results are as follows. Most pre-service teachers showed highly understanding of the characteristics of science. However pre-service biology teachers still possessed naive views on the distinction of law and theory. In terms of the methods of science, many of the pre-service biology teachers considered scientific theories to progress through the accumulation of observation and experiments or through changes and modifications in existing theories. Compared with the pre-service teachers with no religion, christian pre-service teachers had conflicting views and misconceptions about the origins of human beings. The factors of religion were found to be one of the important barriers which prevent them from understanding the origins of human beings. The results suggested that the education program for pre-service biology teachers integrating the concepts and development process of the scientific knowledges should be effective for understanding the nature of science. For pre-service biology teachers, It is important to understand conflicting views of the christian pre-service teachers who understand creationism as a science.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.207-220
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to verify the trends of Korean students' achievement of earth science, especially the gender differences, in recent two international comparative studies, TIMSS-R (The Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat) and PISA 2000 (Programme for International Student Assessment). To achieve this purpose, the 33 earth science items in TIMSS-R and 13 earth and environmental science items in PISA 2000 were analyzed. As a result of the comparison between Korean- and international percent correct, Korean students showed especially higher achievement in close-ended items or items required 'understanding of simple information.' Korean students, in particular Korean male students, also showed higher achievement in items of data interpretation. On the other hand, Korean students, in particular Korean female students, showed relatively lower achievement in astronomy items. The serious gender differences occurred in all aspects of items, regardless of item content, item format, and performance expectations.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• 제36권1호
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• pp.87-101
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• 2016

This study analyzes the content validity of descriptive tests developed for elementary schools, in order to acquire basic data to improve them. Various descriptive tests were collected and tested for differences in proportions between two-dimensional classification of educational objectives and the level of behavioral objectives. Results show that the descriptive tests developed by elementary school teachers mainly focused on "knowledge" and "understanding," and that content validity for behavioral levels to be low. Nine elementary school teachers were interviewed to understand the result. From the interviews, we found both internal and external factors that cause low content validity. The main internal factors were teachers' ability to make two-dimensional classification of educational objectives, the teachers' consideration of students' level, item level of difficulty, the ease of scoring, and path dependence. The main external factors were curriculum, parents, and administration. Based on the results, we suggested the factors related to elementary school teachers' PCK of descriptive tests.

• Journal of Science Education
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• 제42권3호
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• pp.308-321
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• 2018

The purpose of the study is to develop a questionnaire that examines unskeptical attitudes in scientific inquiry context. The questionnaire items were developed through literature research, expert review, and statistical analyses for validity and the differences in scores were identified by gender and tracks. A total of 363 high school students participated in the study. To explore the validity evidence of items, the Rasch analysis and the reliability of internal consistency were performed, and the two-way ANOVA was performed to compare the scores of the unskeptical attitudes between gender and academic track. Self-reporting and Likert-scaling 23 items were developed to measure unskeptical attitudes in scientific inquiry context. The items were developed in the sub-domain of scientific inquiry: 'questioning and hypothesis generating,' 'experiment designing,' and 'explaining and interpreting.' Second, the validity and reliability of the unskeptical were identified in a rigorous method. The validity of items were identified by multi-dimensional partial score model analysis through the Rasch model, and all 23 items were found to be fit to model. Various reliability evidences were also found to be appropriate. It was found that there were no significant differences of unskeptical attitude score between the gender and academic track except one comparison. The developed questionnaire could be used to check an unskeptical attitude in the course of scientific inquiry and to compare the effects of scientific inquiry classes.

• Journal of Science Education
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• 제40권3호
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• pp.189-202
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• 2016

This study aimed to investigate pre-service science teachers' perceptions of significance and usefulness of evolution and genetics. To this end, 82 pre-service biology teachers and 159 non-biology science teachers answered the items to measure the perceptions of significance and usefulness of evolution and genetics. The validity and reliability were examined using Cronbach alpha, two-dimensional rating scale model Rasch analysis, and factor analysis. The finding illustrated that the test items met the benchmark to be valid and reliable test items. Second, pre-service teachers' perception of significance and usefulness of evolution was independent to that of genetics. The level of pre-service teachers' perception of significance and usefulness of evolution was lower than the level of genetics. Lastly, the levels of pre-service teachers' perceptions of significance and usefulness of evolution and genetics were not significantly different across academic years and majors (biology and non-biology). The findings of this study stressed the importance of teaching significance and usefulness of evolution and genetics in pre-service science teacher education program.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• 제26권2호
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• pp.200-211
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to analyze Korean middle school student achievement in environmental science based on the TIMSS 2003 (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), a student comparison of 46 participating nations. Korea ranked the fourth with a mean score of 554 in environmental science. However, all 3 environment science topics assessed in TIMSS are not included in the Korean science curriculum through 8th grade, even though they are included in most other participating nations' curricula. The average percent correct of items was analyzed according to the main topic, the item type and the cognitive domain. Items that showed differences between the average percent correct of Korea and the international average as well as differences between the average percent correct of boys and girls were further analyzed. Results revealed that Korean students performed better than the international average, especially in 'use and conservation of natural resources', multiple-choice items, and items requiring 'factual knowledge'. Also, male students demonstrated significantly higher achievement than female students. On the other hand, Korean students showed relatively lower achievement in constructed-response items, items that contained content they had not learned in science lessons and items requiring descriptions of the uses and effect of science and technology. Moreover, Korean student lacked understanding about acid rain, global warming, and ozone layer destruction. Korean female students showed relatively lower environmental conceptions and lower performance on items requiring data analysis than Korean male students. On the basis of these results, this study suggested that topics of environmental science be included in the science curriculum and taught in the science classroom to help middle school students more fully comprehend environmental issues.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• 제38권4호
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• pp.495-504
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• 2018

This study was conducted to develop items to measure scientific core competency based on statements of scientific core competencies presented in the 2015 revised national science curriculum and to identify the validity and reliability of the newly developed items. Based on the explanations of scientific reasoning, scientific inquiry ability, scientific problem-solving ability, scientific communication ability, participation/lifelong learning in science presented in the 2015 revised national science curriculum, 25 items were developed by five science education experts. To explore the validity and reliability of the developed items, data were collected from 11,348 students in elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide. The content validity, substantive validity, the internal structure validity, and generalization validity proposed by Messick (1995) were examined by various statistical tests. The results of the MNSQ analysis showed that there were no nonconformity in the 25 items. The confirmatory factor analysis using the structural equation modeling revealed that the five-factor model was a suitable model. The differential item functioning analyses by gender and school level revealed that the nonconformity DIF value was found in only two out of 175 cases. The results of the multivariate analysis of variance by gender and school level showed significant differences of test scores between schools and genders, and the interaction effect was also significant. The assessment items of science core competency based on the 2015 revised national science curriculum are valid from a psychometric point of view and can be used in the science education field.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.357-369
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• 1998

Science-related affective domain is considered as a very important domain for achieving students' scientific literacy. Most science educational objectives include some objectives about affective domain such as scientific attitudes, values, curiosity, interests and concerns about nature and science. In this research, the evaluation framework and items of science-related affective domain were developed. The evaluation framework consists of three main categories such as cognition, interest and scientific attitudes and 16 subcategories. The validity of the evaluation framework is tested by ten science educators. Forty-eight items are selected among item pool by considering item response analysis and item-test correlation coefficient. The Cronbach ${\alpha}$ of the tests is 0.83(cognition and interest) and 0.86(scientific attitudes). The results of the test are as follows. First, boys got higher scores than girls. Second, elementary students got higher scores than secondary students. Finally. students in urban areas showed higher scores than those in rural areas.

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Mathematical Education Conference
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• 한국수학교육학회 2007년도 제38회 전국수학교육연구대회 프로시딩
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• pp.51-66
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• 2007

본 연구에서는 수학영재교육의 정상화라는 측면에서 서울교육대학교 과학영재교육원의 사례를 중심으로 수학과 영재선발 과정 중에서도 수학분야 문항의 분석을 통하여 지원한 학생들의 수학 개념에 대한 반응을 알아보고 영재교육원에 지원하는 학생들의 수학 학습의 문제점을 진단하고, 수학 영재학습 대상자 선발을 위하여 보다 바람직한 수학 문항 개발 위한 개선점에 대하여 알아보았다. 지원자들의 수학 개념, 원리, 법칙에 대한 이해도는 예상보다 매우 낮게 나왔으며 향후 수학영재 선발 문항의 개발에서는 문항의 개발자들이 수학영재 판별을 위한 진지한 고민과 함께 수학영재들의 능력을 적절히 측정할 수 있는 문항을 개발할 필요성을 제기하였다.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.405-414
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• 2007

This study examined students' achievement of Earth science in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) that was conducted with 46 participating countries in 2003 and analyzed average percent-correct items for Earth science were analyzed in terms of subcategory, item type and cognitive domain. In addition, items showing a gender difference and a big difference in the test scores of Korean and international students were analyzed. Korean students performed higher than the international average, especially in the astronomy-related topic and in the cognitive domain of 'reasoning and analysis'. In an analysis of the five items that Korean students scored lower than the international average, Korean students performed not so well in demonstrating what they understood with drawings and writings. Korean female students showed a difficulty more than male students did in multiple-choice items that asked recalling of factual knowledge and demonstrated lack of confidence in the items that they have not learned yet. Based on the result content organization of Earth science curriculum and ways to improve teaching and loaming methods were recommended.