• 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 Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.396-404
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• 2010

This study aimed to investigate a perception of teachers engaged in special education for scientifically gifted regarding nature of science and identify attitudes toward teaching nature of science. The sample of this study consists of 122 science teachers who are teaching or taught students attending gifted classes of any primary school in Korea and any gifted education center of every District Office of Education. We made a partial amendment of a VOSE that was developed by Chen(2006) and then used. We tested their perception and attitudes in regard to nature of science. In terms of nature of science, we devide it into 7 sub-areas to analyse. For attitudes toward teaching nature of science, we investigate and analyse following 5 sub-areas; tentativeness of scientific knowledge, nature of observation, scientific methods, theories and laws and subjectivity and objectivity. The result showed that the generally teachers have a desirable recognitions about a nature of science. For attitudes toward teaching nature of science, the teachers showed that they have positive attitudes. However between degrees of teachers' recognition about a nature of science and attitudes toward teaching nature of science showed a low correlation. To increase their understanding of nature of science and develop attitudes toward teaching nature of science, there should be more training time for the teachers and training contents also should be changed. In addition, we hope that this study contribute to develop contents and direction of training for the teachers as a basic reference.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.184-192
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• 2009

Understanding about the Nature of Science (NOS) is element of scientific literacy. Its importance is emphasized, especially understanding about NOS was presented as goal of science education on the fifth curriculum in Korea. Attempt of teaching NOS has been continuous in school, that was limited by method of using History of Science. Except method of using History of Science, Experimenting is appropriate for method of teaching NOS. We expected that is effective to apply reflective approach method for understanding the NOS and composite lesson to emphasize reflection and discussion to general experiment class in the school. We applied experiment class to emphasize reflection and discussion to second grade students in the middle school and researched whether positive reflection and discussion is helpful understanding the NOS in science experiment class or not, through questionnaire about NOS and analysis of observation and interview. As a result, experiment class to emphasize reflection and discussion was effective for scientific inquiry skills and sociality of scientific inquiry, particularly for relation observation with deduction and possibility of variable analysis to experiment result. Therefore, experiment class to emphasize reflection and discussion is effective for understanding the NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.131-143
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• 2003

This study addresses the plan and methods of teaching/learning ethical aspects of science in the secondary schools, which were developed by the authors based on their 3 year research on ethical aspects of science and its teaching/learning. The general teaching/learning plan is composed of the instructional objectives of teaching/learning ethical aspect of science, its teaching/learning method and strategies, curricular content, and assessment. The article also attempted to describe a few words of care to keep in mind when apply the model and methods in the science classrooms.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.29-46
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• 2004

This study investigated a 7-week summer science research apprenticeship program for gifted high school students in U.S. The purpose of the study was to examine the reasons why the high school student participated in the program, the students' perceptions on the benefits of the apprenticeship program, and to investigate mentors' perceptions on assessment and mentorship of the students' projects. For this study, laboratory works and group meetings were observed, students' journal and research products were analyzed, and interviews were administrated with student apprentices and some mentors. The result revealed that the main reasons of students' participation were to perform research with university professionals, to understand the scientific research, and to explore their college/career decisions. Students' participation was strongly associated with their internal motivation and interests. The students perceived the benefits of the apprenticeship program as providing them with the experience of the nature of real scientific research, of learning of scientific knowledge on the focus area, and wiser college/career decisions. Students' projects were assessed and guided through on-going interactions and cognitive apprenticeship between mentors and student apprentices.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.59 no.5
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• pp.434-444
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• 2015

Inquiry-based experiments provide opportunities to understand scientific knowledge and acquire nature of science. In this study, the difficulties which pre-service teachers experienced in inquiry-based experiment class were investigated and analyzed. Twenty-two pre-service teachers attended course designed as ‘ill-structured inquiry’ for 13 weeks, and researchers investigated their difficulties by questionnaires and interview. They showed difficulties mostly in designing experiment and interpretation and also in understanding inquiry purpose, lack of prior knowledge, confidence in inquiry performance, and understanding of experimental instruments and facilities. As a result, it is necessary to provide opportunities to engage in inquiries and environments to properly instruct pre-service teachers the inquiry ability in college of education.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.142-157
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• 2022

Heuristic is a empirical method that is used quickly when uncertainty or insufficient time and information are insufficient. The purpose of this study is to find out what heuristics appear in the processing of the experimental manual among science experiment activities of elementary school students. To do this, 20 fifth-grade elementary school students (female 10 and male 10) were required to conduct scientific experimental activities as research participants to collect experimental behavior data and gaze movement data, and retrospective interviews were conducted. The collected data extracted and conceptualized behavior by heuristics. As a result of the study, there were five heuristics that appeared in the processing of the experimental manual: "reducing the difference between the target state and the current state," "guessing the experimental procedure," "paying attention to the expected results," "comparing with the picture of the experimental manual," and "using a trial and error strategy." According to each concept of heuristics, there were favorable and unfavorable aspects for experimental activities. In science experiment activities that students experience for the first time, there is a lack of information and the situation is uncertain, so behavior by heuristics appears in nature. Therefore, educators need to understand students' heuristics and guide scientific experimental activities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.1019-1030
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• 2015

This study examined the development of a teacher's teaching practice and identified argumentation-specific pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and the influence of the argumentation-specific PCK on teaching practice in an argumentation classroom. The teacher has a Ph.D degree in science education, a 19-year teaching career, and no experience in instructing in an argumentation classroom. The developed program consists of nine lessons regarding photosynthesis for 7th graders. The teacher participated in a collaborative reflection with researchers after each lesson once a week and five times in total, which lasted for thirty minutes. All of the lessons were video- and audio-recorded and the transcript of lessons and collaborative reflection, pre- and post-survey related to argumentation, and researchers' journals were analyzed. Analysis of the data showed that the teacher emphasized group interaction showing utterances of listening, evaluating arguments, counter-arguing/debating, and reflecting on argument process after the fourth lesson although the teacher focused on individual argumentation showing utterances of talking, knowing meaning of argument, and justifying with evidence in the first three lessons. Also, the argumentation-specific PCK, which was identified with the understanding of students, nature of argumentation and argumentation task strategy, also influenced the development of teaching practice. The teacher comprehended the students' challenges in argumentation, developed her understanding of the nature of argumentation from an individual plane to social plane, and demonstrated a deep understanding of the task strategy by voluntarily joining in modifying the argumentation tasks.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.997-1006
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• 2015

Perception of the experiment is one of the most important factors of students' understanding of scientific inquiry and the nature of science. This study examined the perception of middle and high school students of the meaning of 'experiment' in the biological sciences. Semantic network analysis (SNA) was especially used to visualize students' perception structure in this study. One hundred and ninety middle school students and 200 high school students participated in this study. Students responded to two questions on the meaning of 'experiment' in science and biology. This study constructed four semantic networks based on the collected response. As a result, middle school students about the 'experiment' in science are 'we', 'direct', 'principle' of such words was aware of the experiments from the center to the active side. The high school students' 'theory', 'true', 'information' were recognized as an experiment that explores the process of creating a knowledge center including the word. In addition, middle school students relative to 'experiment' of the creature around the 'dissection', 'body', high school students were recognized as 'life', 'observation' observation activities dealing with the living organisms and recognized as a core. The results of this study will be used as important evidence in the future to map out an experiment in biological science curriculum.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.521-531
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• 2023

In this study, we analyzed contextualized NOS lessons planned by preservice teachers from the perspectives of PCK. Eight preservice teachers who had completed all of the curriculum at the College of Education located in Seoul participated in the study. CoRe and teaching and learning guidance were collected. Interviews were also conducted. We used analytical induction to analyze the collected data. The analyses of the results revealed that the NOS learning goals selected by the preservice teachers were different depending on the context of the NOS lessons. In addition, the preservice teachers were unable to sufficiently explain the value of learning NOS. All of the preservice teachers were worried that their students would not understand NOS properly, and they faced various difficulties in dealing with NOS and science content. They thought that if their students conducted experiments, errors could cause problems for students learning NOS. Meanwhile, they guessed their students' preconceptions and misconceptions of NOS based on their experience. The preservice teachers also thought that their students' concept of science and cognitive development stage would affect their NOS learning. Although the preservice teachers used various strategies to teach NOS, NOS was often not explicitly addressed. Also, they were reluctant to evaluate NOS in lessons. Based on the above results, educational implications for preservice teacher education were proposed.