• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.145-154
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• 2021

This study aims to investigate teachers' perceptions of the composition of high school science elective courses ahead of the 2022 curriculum revision, and to derive implications for the organization of the 2022 revised science curriculum in preparation for the full implementation of the high school credit system. To this end, a survey was conducted by randomly sampling high schools across the country. A total of 192 science teachers responded to the questionnaire. In addition, 12 high school science teachers were selected as a focus group, and in-depth interviews were conducted to investigate opinions on the restructuring of elective courses in science. Main research results include 129 (67.2%) science teachers in the survey answered that the current 2015 curriculum's science and elective courses system should be maintained. In the next curriculum, when reconstructing science elective subjects, it is necessary to provide an opportunity to experience the entire contents of each science field through Science I·II system as before, and to ensure student choice in preparation for the credit system. In addition, the opinion that general elective subjects should be organized to include all the contents of science I and II subjects was the highest. Through in-depth interviews, science teachers emphasized that the current science I subject system allows access to the content areas of science as much as possible as the number of subjects is small, and that subjects, such as physics, where the hierarchy of concepts is important, should deal with important content within one subject rather than divided by area. On the other hand, in the current I subject system, there is no subject for liberal arts students to choose from, so teachers suggested that science electives should be organized by subdividing each content area. Based on the research results, the necessity of organizing high school science elective courses in consideration of the purpose of the high school credit system, ways to organize science-convergence elective courses as subjects for all students regardless of career aptitude, ways to organize science-career elective courses, and ways to organize science elective courses in connection with the college admission system were proposed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.112-122
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• 2021

The goal of this study is to explore ways to restructure Convergence Elective Courses in science in preparation for the high school credit system, ahead of the 2022 revised science curriculum. This study started from the problem that the 2015 revised science curriculum has not guaranteed science subject choice for students with non-science/engineering career aptitudes. To this end, a survey was conducted by randomly sampling high schools across the country. A total of 1,738 students responded to the questionnaire of 3 science elective courses such as Science History, Life & Science, Convergence Science. In addition, in-depth interviews with 12 science teachers were conducted to examine the field operation of these three courses, which will be classified and revised as Convergence Elective subjects in the 2022 revised curriculum. According to the results of the study, high school students perceive these three courses as science literacy courses, and find these difficult to learn due to lack of personal interest, and difficulties in content itself. The reason students choose these three courses is mainly because they have aptitude for science, or these courses have connection with their desired career path. Teachers explained that students mainly choose Life & Science, and both teachers and students avoid Science History because the course content is difficult. Based on the research results, we suggested ways to restructure Convergence Electives for the 2022 revised curriculum including developing convergence electives composed of interdisciplinary convergence core concepts with high content accessibility, developing convergence electives with core concepts related to AI or advanced science, developing module-based courses, and supporting professional development of teachers who will teach interdisciplinary convergence electives.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.40-52
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to explore ways to change high school earth science elective courses with the introduction of the high school credit system in 2025, and ways to restructure them in preparation for the next curriculum revision. For this purpose, Delphi surveys with earth science education experts, a survey with in-service earth science teachers, and in-depth interviews with experts were conducted. According to the results, we need to consider four keywords such as cultivation of earth science literacy, connection with student career paths, emphasis on the fun of earth science itself, and student selection rate and college entrance exam in restructuring Earth science electives. Based on this direction, we composed four subjects: Earth System Science emphasizing earth science literacy, and three such subjects reinforcing career connection as Solid Earth Science, Atmospheric and Ocean Science, and Space Science. To resolve concerns about falling selection rate of earth science courses with the introduction of the high school credit system, it is necessary to re-establish the status of the earth science subjects including enhancing the career connection of the earth science electives. Follow-up studies are necessary to elaborate and publicize the titles and core concepts of Earth science electives.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.183-192
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• 2021

As part of the second-year monitoring study on the implementation of the 2015 revised science curriculum, this study investigated high school science teachers' perception and realization of instruction and assessment of elective courses to derive measures to settle and improve the science curriculum. A total of 244 high school science teachers responded to the survey questionnaire, and 9 teachers participated in interviews. In survey results, science teachers are contemplating ways to increase students' science competencies and their participation in classes, but still, lecture-oriented classes are most often used in their teaching. Regarding assessment, teachers responded that there were positive changes in all of the questions related to process-based assessment (PBA). Regarding the difficulty of managing science elective courses, teachers most often selected increased numbers of subjects being covered, overload of work, and the burden of restructuring classes considering various ways of teaching and assessment. Through in-depth interviews, teachers argued the difficulty for Science I courses to emphasize student participatory classes compared to integrated science, and the difficulty to implement student participatory classes for Science II courses, which are mainly placed in the third grade. Teachers also argue that it is necessary to secure time to implement PBA in science elective courses, and that there is no need to implement PBA for the science experiment since there are no tests on the SAT. Based on the results of the study, discussed in the conclusion are support plans for the settlement of PBA in elective courses, and the need for in-depth analysis of the direction and cause of student participatory classes and PBA at the school.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.217-226
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• 2020

The purpose of this research is to draw suggestions on the settling of the 2015 revised curriculum and the direction of science curriculum improvement by identifying the current status of science general elective courses for high school sophomores, and examining teachers' perception. To this end, with 12 city and provincial education offices' cooperation, we analyzed the status of science elective subjects that freshmen took in 2018 by school year, school type and region. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine science teachers of the focus group to discuss ways to improve curriculum operation and implementation of science general elective courses, and ways to raise the selection rate. The number of science general elective courses for high school students in 12 municipal and provincial education offices was confirmed to be 163,710 for Physics I, 216,754 for Chemistry I, 290,736 for Bioscience I, and 200,861 for Earth Science I. By school type, autonomous high schools have the highest completion rate, while specialized schools and vocational schools have very low rates. Units completed per semester for general elective courses were mostly three units (61.5%) and two units (28.7%). High school science teachers suggested reconstruction of three-unit elective courses that can be completed in one semester, content development focused on competences rather than knowledge, and the need for a teacher community to improve teachers' teaching competences. Based on the results of the research, ways to operate high school science elective curriculum in preparation for the high school credit system were suggested.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.609-620
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to examine school-level science elective-centered curriculum operation and teachers' perception of their instruction of elective-centered science courses. Data were collected from 12 science teachers in 12 high schools in the metropolitan Seoul area through semi-constructed interviews. The results showed that students were supposed to select science subjects under insufficient guidance and their choices on subject were also restricted due to school administrative processes such as teacher's instructional time allocation. Participants were well-perceived different group characteristics among humanities course and science course students toward science learning, still, they felt difficulties in valuing students' variety by differentiating contents and teaching methodologies due to school assessment system and workload of extra instructional material preparation. Influenced by the current college entrance examination system, low motivation for humanities course students and students' choice concentrated in chemistry and life science for science course students, were pointed out as main problems. As a way to improve science education for 11th - 12th graders, developing customized science curriculum for humanities course and science course respectively, changing of entrance system into increasing importance of science for students who will major in non-science fields, and designations of essential prerequisite science subject for students who will major in engineering & science fields, were suggested.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.836-847
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• 2011

This study investigated the effects of taking elective science courses in high school on studying science at the university level. The research methods undertaken for this study included surveys of college students in science areas. For physics and biology major students, no significant differences in achievement in the basic courses at the university level were found between the groups that took only Science I courses and the group took Science I and II courses. For chemistry major students, achievement for the group that took Chemistry I and II courses was significantly higher in the basic courses, while no significant differences between the two groups was found in the advanced courses. The perceptions of college students regarding the effects of their science learning experience in high school on learning science at the university level were investigated. All the college students perceived that whether or not they took Science II courses in high school, it did not affect their learning in basic science courses in college. They also perceived that students were able to overcome difficulties by making extra effort even if they did not take Science II courses in high school.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.143-155
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• 2021

The goal of this study is to examine the Integrated Science and Science Laboratory Experiments of the 2015 revised curriculum applied since 2018, and to explore ways to improve these two subjects in preparation for the 2022 revised curriculum. A survey was conducted by randomly sampling high schools across the country, with a total of 192 science teachers participating. In addition, 12 high school science teachers were selected as focus group, and in-depth interviews were conducted to investigate ways to restructure common science courses for the next curriculum. Main research results include that most schools were operated in 6~8 units for Integrated Science, and the teachers in charge of Integrated Science per class averaged 2~3 over the three years. For Science Laboratory Experiments, it has operated for a total of two semesters, one unit per semester, and it was found that several science teachers are in charge of Science Laboratory Experiments to fill the insufficient number of hours regardless of major. In the in-depth interview, science teachers argued that Integrated Science should be reduced and restructured by strengthening key competencies in preparation for the high school credit system. Based on the research results, ways to reorganize Integrated Science focused on big ideas, ways to construct common science courses based on fundamental science concepts that can guide elective courses, the necessity of career guidance through common science courses, and the necessity of strengthening teacher professionalism for teaching interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary subjects were suggested.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.321-330
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• 2014

Changes are expected in the future, and the future society will expect changes in education. Science curriculum needs to reflect such demands for changes in the future of education. Hence, this study explored ways to reflect the changes demanded by the future society in science education. In this study, we investigated the major issues and directions for improvements based on the findings from questionnaires given to 447 primary and secondary school science teachers as well as in-depth interviews with 12 experts. We explored the problems of the 2009 revised national science curriculum including organization of science elective courses, fusion 'science' as an elective course, intensive course-taking of science, career-focused science curriculum, variation of completion units in science elective courses, and fairness of science elective course selection in college entrance. In addition, we proposed ways to organize science curriculum around core competencies and STEAM education suggested by science teachers. According to the results, we need to add such key competencies as basic learning abilities, self-identity, and moral competencies to science curriculum in addition to existing key competencies including problem solving and communication. Regarding the fusion science, experts contended that convergence of science courses should come before that of science and other subjects, and that STEAM with science as the axis was the desired form of convergence. We also need to establish a curriculum development center that exclusively focuses on science curriculum research and development.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.165-172
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• 2009

Korean 7th national curriculum gave the right to elect the advanced subject such as physics II, chemistry II. Students could elect the subject by their aptitude and interest. But, actually, the choice was constrained by school circumstances such as the number of teacher and the number of class. high school students. We investigated the demand about school science and perception about scientifically specialized high school in which the students could have all advanced science subjects by the survey of 336 middle school students including 148 students in the science education center for the gifted, 220 high school students, and 70 science teachers in capital region. As results of this study, most of the high school opened chemistry and biology advanced subjects, but only 37.1% of them opend physics advanced subject. This constrained students' right of elect the subject by their interest. While most of middle school and high school students normally demanded the more experiment in the class and the easier science content, the students in the science education center for the gifted demanded more science class time. The students who wanted to have science career had very positive recognition of scientifically specialized high school and science teachers agreed to running the scientifically specialized high school.