• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.66 no.1
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• pp.50-60
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to explore the Nature of Argumentation in Science education (NAS). For this purpose, we collected previous studies conducted on the argumentation in science education, and then collected previous studies were analyzed to extract the overall characteristics of argumentation in science education. Based on the results, an expert review was conducted, then the nature of argumentation in science education was finally derived to a total of seven components: 'evidence based', 'linguistic interaction', 'context dependency', 'public decision-making', 'tentative agreement', 'methodological diversity', and 'enculturation of scientific culture'. Understanding the nature of argumentation in science education can promote the practice of argumentation in science learning. Therefore, further studies will be necessary to conduct research to expand and refine the nature of argumentation in science education in order to effectively practice it in science learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.895-905
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• 2015

Citizens should be sensitive to the complex and controversial SSIs (Socioscientific Issues), be able to make a responsible decision with evidence and empathy, and furthermore take political action for the larger welfare. The premise of this research is that understanding the nature of science (NOS) takes an important role when students and adults participate in the discourse on SSIs because SSI reasoning requires individuals to examine information and counter-information with skepticism. We therefore designed SSI programs that were incorporated with NOS by adapting a contextualized-reflective approach. The leading research question was to what extent SSI contexts contributed to promoting students' understanding of NOS. A total of 71 11th grade students participated in this program. The school was located in an urban city near the capital city of Seoul, South Korea. We designed SSI programs to cover the issues of genetically modified organisms, climate change, and nuclear energy. Each issue required four to six class periods to complete. We conducted pre- and post-program tests using the revised VNOS-C, recorded group discussions or debates and collected student worksheets to observe the increase of student NOS understanding. As a result of this program, students showed moderate improvement in their understanding of NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.721-738
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• 2018

Nature of Science(NOS) has been a well-organized focus of science education and one of the key elements in defining and cultivating scientific literacy for more than a century. In recent years, a specific description of NOS, which is often known as 'the consensus view of NOS', has become very influential and has gained ready acceptance as an arrangement for both curriculum building and research into understanding of NOS by students and teachers in many countries around the world. This study has two purposes; one is to review some debates and criticism on the consensus view of NOS which consists of a list of sentences to describe nature of refined and general science, which have been heated up for the last few years by many prominent science education researchers, and the other is to consider alternative perspectives on NOS for the purpose of a new direction of NOS education. As a result of an investigation into such views as 'Teaching about NOS', 'Critical NOS', 'Critical Thinking-NOS', 'Whole Science', 'Features of Science' and 'Reconceptualized Family Resemblance Approach to NOS', some implications which focus on the generality and plurality of content knowledge of NOS based on current philosophy of science and sociology of scientific knowledge are suggested for the improvement of teaching and learning NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.169-179
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• 2008

In this study, 46 teaching materials for understanding the nature of science (NOS) were developed based on the 42 statements describing the NOS. Each teaching material involves scientific knowledge and scientific inquiry skills as well as NOS statements. Teaching materials consist of students' learning worksheets and teachers' guides. Among the materials, 11 materials for understanding the nature of scientific thinking (NOST) were applied to 3 scientifically gifted students. As results, the degree of difficulty was appropriate and students showed interests in scientific thinking rather than new concepts or inquiry activities involved in the materials. It was expected that understating the NOST would be helpful for conducting scientific inquiry in more authentic way. And similarly to the Park's (2007) theoretical discussions about the relationship between the NOS and scientific creativity, students actually responded that undertrading the NOST could help their creativity. Therefore, it was expected that teaching the NOST would be plausible elements for teaching scientific creativity.

• 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 Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.240-249
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• 2011

The purposes of this study is to compare the beliefs in the nature of science, science teaching and learning of the elementary teachers in charge of the gifted and the general teachers. For this study, a survey on beliefs of the nature of science, science teaching and learning was conducted to 88 elementary teachers for the gifted and 90 elementary general teachers. Data was analyzed by their academic career and major. The results of this study were as follows: There were no significant differences in beliefs in the nature of science and science teaching between the elementary science teachers in charge of the gifted and the general elementary teachers, but the former has a more constructivism in science learning than the latter. In the some sub-domains of the beliefs of the nature of science, science teaching and learning, there were statistically significant differences according to their academic career and major. Implications from findings of this study were suggested, such as recruiting and in-service training system for teachers in charge of the gifted.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.376-386
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• 2005

This study investigated to describe how the nature of science is revealed in the four natural history museums in Korea. Natural history museums are well considered as informal settings of education, and the nature of science has been one of major topics stressed in science education. Therefore, the revelation of this topic is supposedly reflected in developing museum exhibitions. In each of the four target natural history museum or natural history exhibition, the representative exhibits subtitled by scientific inquiry and cases dealing with history of science were selected for the study. The analyzing exhibits focused on whether exhibitions were labeled with emphasis on declarative description or interpretative one. In analyzing the contents, the focus was on the concerns of scientists, scientific community, social and cultural aspects, uncertainty of scientific knowledge, and providing sufficient evidences. All things considered, it was hard to conclude that every target exhibit clearly considered the nature of science as an essential element, in designing and developing their exhibitions. More deliberate input of nature of science is suggested for worldly renowned natural history museums, because previous researches keep insisting that the nature of science would be more efficiently achieved in an informal educational setting rather than in classrooms.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.563-570
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• 2005

This study investigated the relationships among middle school students' understanding about the nature of scientific knowledge, conceptual understanding, and learning strategies. Grade 7 students (N=162) in Incheon completed the nature of scientific knowledge scales (NSKS) and a learning strategy questionnaire. After learning density by way of a CAl program, a conception test was administered. Results indicated that students' conceptual understanding and both deep and surface learning strategies were significantly correlated to their understanding about the nature of scientific knowledge. A cluster analysis was used to classify students on the basis of their deep and surface learning strategies. Three clusters of students with distinctive learning strategy patterns were found; high deep-low surface strategy (cluster 1), low deep-high surface strategy (cluster 2), and high deep-high surface strategy (cluster 3). One-way ANOVA results revealed that the scores of cluster 3 were significantly higher than those of the others in the NSKS and the conception test. Additionally, cluster 1 also performed better than cluster 2 in the conception test. Lastly, educational implications were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.303-315
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• 2016

Socioscientific issues (SSI), by their nature, are conceptually embedded in technology. Previous research reported that nature of technology (NOT), unlike nature of science, was quite explicitly manifested in SSI decision-making, and NOT could be a promising construct for promoting SSI reasoning. In this study, authors introduced an integrated conceptual framework for NOT, which consisted of four dimensions (i.e., artifacts, knowledge, practice and system) as diverse modes of technology. We adapted the framework to investigate students' conceptualizations of NOT in the context of various SSIs. Data was collected from 45 college students enrolled in a liberal arts course on science and technology. The students participated in a team project, where they prepared and led discussions for SSI topics in class. Seven topics concerning SSIs were selected by students themselves. The preparation and class discussion of each student group were audio-recorded, and final reports were also analyzed. As a result, NOT sub-components in the dimensions of artifacts and system were explicitly represented in most contexts of SSI with various ranges of understanding. Other sub-components under the dimensions of knowledge and practice were rarely or implicitly shown in the discussion. The depth of students' understanding on NOT varied. Implications for science education were discussed.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.511-530
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• 2011

This study aims to find out science talented students' percentage of cognition about the views of nature of science and science inquiry which are essential for having a good understanding with science concepts. Each group of 40 science gifted students and 35 ordinary students was tested with a test of views of nature of science and science inquiry which consisted of 19 items with index of content validity 97% and reliability index 0.86, then its results being compared and analyzed. A group of science gifted students' percentage of cognition about the views of nature of science ranges from 20% to 97.5% -although it differs according to detailed views-showing its mean of 67% (50% in a group of ordinary students). Especially, the percentage of cognition about the sub view that there can be different opinions among scientists was high among woman science gifted students. A group of science gifted students' percentage of cognition about the views of science inquiry ranges from 27.5% to 77.5% -although it differs according to detailed views- showing 53% in their mean (41.8% in a group of ordinary students). Especially, the percentage of cognition about the sub view that scientists can have different research methods was high among woman science gifted students. The percentage of mistaken cognition by science gifted students about views of nature of science and about views of science inquiry was 33%, 47% respectively.