• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.501-517
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• 2021

In the present age, when the development of science and technology is leading the changes, this study supports the view that students should possess the literacy to participate democratically and critically in socio-scientific issues, and should be positioned as agentic and participatory citizens. Accordingly, we implemented a club activity that emphasize climate social action for elementary students, and explored how students were positioned in relation to climate change. In this study, position is defined as a complex cluster of rights and duties that students have in relation to climate change. The club activity was implemented throughout 46 sessions from March to July, 2019 for 11 sixth graders of 'H elementary School' in Seoul, and transcripts of video and interviews were analyzed by means of a constant comparison method. In the course of the activity consisting of three steps, the students exhibited different positioning and they are as follows: In the global warming modeling activity for Step 1, students were positioned as 'active learners', but at the same time, they showed a contradiction in being positioned as 'apprentice'. In the student-led research activities inherent to Step 2, they were positioned as 'scientists who design and conduct research' and 'bystanders' due to the controversial nature of SSI knowledge. As students participate in the social actions involved in Step 3, the position changed from 'elementary school students facing difficulty in making a change' to 'participatory citizens creating changes.' This study is significant because it shows students' potential to promote participatory and democratic citizenship through action-oriented SSI activities. In addition, pedagogical approaches were discussed dealing with the contradictions and limitations of positioning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.431-440
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of the K Teachers' Community, which brought about changes in the perception of SSI education by teachers with experience in SSI, and to explore its relevance to the development of SSI professions. This is a case study that describes in depth the characteristics of the K teachers' community. The study conducted semi-structured as well as in-depth interviews with six teachers who have more experience in SSI education activities for over 20 years. The K teachers' community has three characteristics. First, the K teachers' community formed identity by discussing the nature of science and technology, which allowed teachers to share a common orientation toward the goals of science education. Second, the teachers who participated in the K teachers' community formed professionalism and confidence in SSI teaching in the course of producing, sharing, and spreading SSI through its various practices. Third, the K teachers' community is continuously growing by opening themselves to external communities and co-evolution through solidarity. The success of K Teachers' Community may inform other teachers how the community of teaching practices can develop and maintain, and in turn can help the members of the community develop their professional identity as teachers.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.221-233
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• 2002

This study investigated preservice science teachers' understandings of philosophical foundations(i.e., ontological and epistemological beliefs) underlying constructivist notions of learning. The teacher education program these subjects participated in explicitly addressed philosophical notions consistent with different views of constructivism. For these preservice science teachers, the program provided them with the opportunity to reflect upon the implications that their ontological and epistemological commitments had for their role as a science teacher. Data from four in-depth interviews were used to explore changes in each preservice science teacher's ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments, and pedagogical preferences. Results indicated that ontological beliefs and epistemological commitments were not necessarily consistent with conceptions of science teaching and learning for these preservice teachers. While some students internalized idealist and relativist perspectives, they did not integrate these relativist epistemological views into their preferred instructional practices. Also, regarding the fallible and tentative nature of knowledge, data in this study indicated that participants' epistemological beliefs about scientific Knowledge did influence how they were thinking about their roles as science teachers. Implications for teacher education programs and research on preservice science teacher's philosophical beliefs are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2021

This study aims to explore the epistemic goals that pre-service elementary teachers can construct in their biology-related knowledge construction activities, how these goals are constructed, and how the shaping of the knowledge construction activities around the goals was afforded or constrained. The research participants were 26 pre-service teachers, divided into 11 groups of two or three to engage in the activity. Their discussions and products were collected and used as data for this study. The analysis revealed that the teachers constructed three types of epistemic goals: making sense of natural phenomena, proposing the most effective course of action, and proposing solutions to problems based on their causes. Construction of different types of goals depended on the conclusions the pre-service teachers expected to draw based on the explored natural phenomena. It was found that the elicitation of the pre-service teachers' epistemic goals could facilitate their shaping of the knowledge construction activity as an evidence-based justification. The participants planned the construction of mechanistic explanations of natural phenomena with the epistemic goals of 'making sense of natural phenomena' or 'proposing solutions to problems based on their causes.' However, enacting their knowledge construction plans with sophisticated epistemic features was constrained due to the limited resources available. This study can contribute to developing instructional strategies that facilitate learners' epistemic agency and addressing epistemic agency in the development of pre-service teacher education methods.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.791-804
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• 2015

This study aims to investigate the definition of and factors in decision on socio-scientific issues and to analyze the standards for the quality of decision-making, based on the review of studies in socio-scientific issues. This study analyzed 147 articles published in journals of the social science citation index, and the research method was followed by taxonomy analysis and analytic induction. The results showed that many of the studies did not explicitly articulate the decision-making and only dealt with a specific element of the process, not as a whole. Decision-making was categorized into the steps of identification, option, criteria, information, survey, choice, and review. In terms of the factors, the literature tackled diverse things: science knowledge, nature of science, type of issue, discussion type, belief & values, and culture. This study examined the relationship between the factors and each element of decision-making. Among the relationships, only six kinds were shown as relevant and most of factors were connected to survey. With regard to the standards, the literature relied upon balance, justification and multiplicity since many of the studies made use of Toulmin-based argumentation. This study gives some implications for standards for decision-making regarding the nature of risk and uncertainty.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.320-335
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to identify the concepts of elementary school teachers related to three states of matter from activities of classifying various materials in life. The subjects were 25 teachers majored in primary science education at a graduate college of education and 10 teachers of elementary school located in a metropolitan city. A questionnaire and observation related to classification activities, and interviews were carried out and analyzed them qualitatively and quantitatively. From the analysis, we found that most elementary school teachers understood the classification criteria of three states of matter through macroscopic viewpoints and experienced difficulties in determining the state of mixture materials. After discussion of the classification results, the teachers’ concept was changed. But, when performing classification activity on the basis of the newly created concepts, it has not reached its results agreed. The result of this study shows that process of concept of science has been agreed in the same way to all people is not easy. Therefore, the teacher education programs to make possible to improve the ability capable of classifying the states of the various matters and to understand the nature of classification is required. In addition, deep discussion on the classification of the mixture is also necessary.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.25 no.8
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• pp.719-730
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• 2004

The International Astronomy Olympiad (IAO) was established and its foundation were published by the Euro-Asian Astronomical Society (EAAS), in order to spread astronomical knowledge, promote international cooperation in astronomical education area, and recognize the importance of astronomy in far-reaching field of science and human culture. In 1996, the first IAO was held at the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) of the Russian Academy of sciences (RAS) located in the north Caucasus of Russia. Since then, it has been held every year. Here, we will describe the present status of the International Astronomy Olympiad, its major results by year, related institutions, organizations, and the main regulations regarding its operation. In order to measure the levels of scientific knowledge and thinking abilities, we develop a rubric to analyze the characteristics of problems in the IAO with regards to cognitive aspects of scientific inquiry. These problems require high levels of content knowledge and scientific method knowledge. Also high order thinking abilities and high levels of convergent thinking skills, instead of divergent, are needed to solve these problems. Thus, the problems presented are set a high difficulty. Through this analysis, we can understand main purpose of the International Astronomy Olympiad and explore the future direction of the Korea Astronomy Olympiad.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2019

This study aims to explore students' epistemic practices and considerations, which are explained as underlying epistemic thoughts that guide their epistemic practices, during argumentation in science classrooms. We also investigated how collaborative reflection facilitated the development of such epistemic considerations. Two seventh-grade classes participated in this study by engaging in argumentation activities and collaborative reflection after classes. A group with students' change in epistemic aspects and the influence of collaborative reflection clearly revealed from their practices was chosen as a focus group. We recorded their class discussions and collaborative reflections with the researchers. Transcriptions of the recordings and checklists we collected during the collaborative reflections were used for analysis. Results showed evident changes in the students' epistemic considerations and practices and four factors facilitating such developments were identified. First, the researcher facilitating the students to recognize each other as collaborators during collaborative reflection led development of epistemic considerations on "audience using the knowledge products." Second, the collaborative reflection facilitated construction of context for peer interactions where the students encouraged each other to participate in the discussion, resulting in the development of other students' epistemic considerations on "justifications in knowledge products." Third, the items provided on the checklists explicitly delineated expectations on their practices in argumentation, also facilitating development of epistemic considerations. Lastly, the students' imitation of the researcher's pattern of discourse facilitated construction of causal explanation and development of epistemic considerations on "nature of the knowledge products." This study will contribute to the construction of strategies that develop students' epistemic considerations and productive epistemic practices in argumentation.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.45-61
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to explore students' epistemic goals and considerations in designing an experiment task and to investigate how a shift in the students' epistemology affected their argumentation. Four 7th grade students were selected as a focus group. According to the results, when they designed their own experiment, their epistemic goal was 'scientific sense-making' and their epistemic considerations - the perception of the nature of the knowledge product was 'this experiment should explain how something happened', the perception of the justification was 'we need to use our interpretation of the data' and the perception of the audience was 'constructor' - contributed to designing their experiment actively. When students tried to select one argument, their epistemic goal shifted to 'winning a debate', showing 'my experiment is better than the others' with the perception of the audience, 'competitor'. Consequently, students only deprecated the limits of different experiment so that they did not explore the meaning of each experiment design deeply. Eventually, student A's experiment design was selected due to time restrictions. When they elaborated upon their result, their epistemic goal shifted to 'scientific sensemaking', reviewing 'how this experiment design is scientifically valid' through scientific justification - we need justification to make members accept it - acting as 'cooperator'. Consequently, all members engaged in a productive argumentation that led to the development of the group result. This study lays the foundation for future work on understanding students' epistemic goals and considerations to prompt productive argumentation in science classrooms.