• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.9-15
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• 2006

Students have often experienced difficulties in understanding the concept of the particulate nature of matter despite its importance in chemistry. Although various instructional methods have been suggested for teaching this concept, systematic studies have been rarely conducted. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of drawing and analyzing pictures. Three classes of 7th graders at a coed middle school in Seoul were assigned to the control group, the drawing group, and the analyzing group, respectively. Students were taught about the three states of matter and the motion of molecules for 8 class periods. The instructional effects on student conception, achievement, and science learning motivation were investigated by student visual learning styles. Results revealed that the scores of a conceptions test and a science learning motivation test for both the drawing group and the analyzing group were higher than those for the control group. Additionally, the scores of the science learning motivation test were also found to be higher for students with a more visual learning style than their counterparts.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.864-875
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate high school students' understanding of acid-base related concepts using three different titration technologies. The test population was composed of 209 students from three classes in the 10th grade. The different titration experiments using indicator, or pH-meter or MBL were performed in each class unit, respectively. The analyses of the effect on the understanding of different titration technologies were carried out by comparing the mean scores of the concept test taken before and after the titration for the three groups. The results of the acid-base related concept test indicated that statistically significant effects on the understanding of the concepts were shown by all groups. Comparing the effect on the comprehension of the three groups, the MBL group showed the most significant effect, while the pH-meter group showed the least significant. It was also attempted to analyze the effect on comprehension of the concepts by the cognitive and the motivational levels of students. This study revealed that the students in the formal operation stage showed higher understanding of the acidbase related concepts, while those in the concrete operation stage showed lower comprehension. It was also shown that the students at the active motivational level scored higher in comprehension than those who had a low score. The results of this study implied that each group showed differently enhanced comprehension of concepts by titration technologies. Therefore, teachers need to promote an appropriate experiment technology for the cognitive and motivational levels of students as well as try to help students express freely their own perspectives.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.699-706
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• 1999

The purpose of this study was to investigate high school students' conceptions and conceptual types on molecular kinetic theory of gases. Data was collected by a series of semi-structured and in-depth interviews, and has been analyzed. This study showed that the students came to science classes with various prior conceptions of many disciplinary topics. Their conceptual types of their prior knowledge were distinguished as superficial terms-speaking, partial sense-making, and causal sense-making by the degrees of organization and elaboration of conceptual networks. These conceptual types had influence on the ways students understand and think of science, a stability of their conceptions, a tendency to distinguish school science from everyday science, and building a meaning of concept in contexts. It was referred that the students didn't have proper understanding on the nature of scientific knowledge and had been limited their participations as active learners. Therefore, in order for students to experience conceptual change, they must have opportunities of manifesting their own thinking, taking part in discussions, and promoting their motivations and metacognition of knowing and learning science.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.65-72
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the 7th national science curriculum (chemistry domain) regarding the meanings of ‘mulgil' (Korean), the particulate nature of matter, and the state of matter. It was found that the term of ‘mulgil' was being used vaguely as representing material, matter, or substance without clear definition. This was problematic by reason that it could hinder students from having the concept of substance. Regarding the particulate nature of matter, molecule was introduced as a basic unit of matter at grade 7, prior to atom and ion, which were introduced at grade 9 and 10, respectively. It is necessary to reconsider the sequence of each particle concept to provide students with more consistent and comprehensive understanding of structure of matter. In the case of change of state, key concepts such as conservation of matter or reversibility were omitted in the curriculum document, and explanations based on various aspects of particles were somewhat insufficient. The concept of matter is fundamental to chemistry, and we must recognize it as a concept that needs to be taught clearly. Implications for curriculum revision were discussed.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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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 Chemical Society
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.73-83
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate the types of conceptions of mixing phenomena related to dissolution and diffusion in high school students. The subjects of the investigation consisted of 108 students who took chemistry I course at 11th grade and 29 students who took chemistry II course at 12th grade. For this study, it was found that the many students had the alternative conception that chalk didn't dissolve in water because chalk was a nonpolar material. Most of the students understood the phenomena which carbon tetrachloride and water will not mix as the attraction conception. But many of the other students understood the phenomenon as characteristic of the materials such as difference of density. Many of the students understood the phenomenon of mixing ethanol and water constantly as ‘Attraction conception'. The phenomenon which is mixed ink and water was just accepted by the most students as the spreading of ink in water without understanding the reason of mixing. The phenomena of mixing iodine and carbon tetrachloride was understood as ‘Space conception' or ‘Attraction conception'. It could be inferred that the diverse alternative conceptions related to dissolution and diffusion phenomena were generated by the absence of entropy concept. Therefore, the explanations of science textbooks related to dissolution and diffusion phenomena need to change for students to understand them correctly.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.621-637
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• 2004

In science education, the research on students' conceptions has been started in early 1970. From the early 1980, the research on students' conceptions stimulated the research on conceptual change. Recently, mental model has been a theoretical background in concrete arguments on "how students' conceptions are constructed or created?" Mental model has been studied early in cognitive psychology, and several researchers have studied it partially in science education area. In this study, we compared different theories that explained students' conceptions in, mainly, physics. Further we discussed the possibility of mental model as a theory that could integrate different explanations about students' conceptions from different theory.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.444-454
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• 2002

In this study, we analyzed the explanation of the concepts related to osmotic pressure and semipermeable membrane that were represented in chemistry and biology textbooks of high school and general course of college. There were 4 types of explanation in osmotic pressure and 3 types of semipermeable membrane concept. Students can understand the concepts with different meaning because there are different viewpoints on the explanations of the concepts. We must consider the various types of explanation when we design science textbooks because these confusions disturb students' understanding of the concepts.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.21-37
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• 2018

The purpose of the study is to visualize the concept of water circulation in elementary school students through science behavioral system. Elementary school students found it difficult to understand concepts related to the water cycle. Most of the elementary school children think it rains because the clouds are heavier. It is most difficult to explain invisible concepts to elementary school children. Also, experiments in current textbooks are likely to disrupt scientific concepts. Accordingly, conventional water cycle, dew, fog, and cloud experiments were integrated into one system. The researchers then developed a device that allowed students to see the water's circulation at a glance. It is intended to enable integrated thinking on evaporation, condensation and precipitation. In addition, a instruction program to guide students using the system has been developed to demonstrate its effectiveness. Employing a quasi-experimental design, the participants were measured on their concepts of evaporation, condensation, and water circulation before and after participation. The findings indicated that the experiment is more effective in changing the concepts of evaporation, condensation, and water circulation than in previous experiments. Also, the optimal conditions for making use of the device were found, and there were no various experimental parameters, such as condensation.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.122-135
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• 2024

The purpose of this study was to analyze the examples presented in the "Separation of Mixtures" section of the 2015 revised science authorized textbook introduced in elementary schools in 2022 and to see how the teachers and students understand the concept. To do that, 96 keywords were extracted through three cleansing processes to separate the elements of the mixture presented in the textbook. In order to analyze the teachers' perceptions, 32 teachers at elementary schools in Gyeonggi-do received responses to a survey, and a survey of 92 fourth graders who learned the separation of the mixture with an authorized textbook in 2022 was used for the analysis. As a result, as for the solids, 54 out of 96 separations (56.3%) showed the highest ratio, and the largest number of cases were presented according to the characteristics of the development stage of students. It was followed by living things, liquids, other objects and substances, and gasses. By analyzing the mixture, the structure and the interrelationships between the 96 extracted keywords were systematized through the network analysis, and the connection between the keywords, which were a part of the mixture was analyzed. The teachers partially responded to the separation of the complex mixture presented in the textbook, but most of the students did not recognize it. Because the analysis of the teachers' and students' perceptions of the seven separate categories presented in the survey was not based on a clear conceptual perception of the separation of the mixture, but rather they tended to respond differently for each characteristic of each individual category, it was decided that it was necessary to present clearer examples of the separation of the mixture, so that the students could better understand the concept of separation of mixtures that could be somewhat abstract.