• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.15-25
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• 2015

This study examined pre-service secondary physics teachers' epistemological beliefs about scientific knowledge, science learning, and science teaching in two different science content topics, Lamarckism and the impetus theory. Two sets of open-ended questionnaires, for each of the topics respectively, were developed in the same format. The pre-service teachers completed the questionnaires at one month intervals. The beliefs were analyzed in two dimensions, knowledge justification and knowledge change for each belief area. The findings show that the majority of pre-service teachers held sophisticated epistemological beliefs about scientific knowledge regardless of content topics. On the other hand, more pre-service teachers exhibited sophisticated beliefs about science learning in the context impetus theory than Lamarckism. In the area of science teaching, the majority of pre-service teachers demonstrated a sophisticated view in knowledge justification but a naive view in knowledge change. When consistency across science topics and belief areas were examined, few pre-service teachers held consistent epistemological beliefs across all topics and areas. The difference in the levels of sophistication in belief areas showed that the pre-service teachers did not connect their epistemological beliefs about science knowledge to their ideas about science teaching and learning. This disconnection seems to make the consistency across topics and areas complicated. The difference in epistemological beliefs about science learning and teaching between two science topics need further inquiry. Implications for teacher education are offered.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.72-86
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to examine what epistemological beliefs pre-service teachers have about science depending on the situation, and to explore in-depth changes in epistemological beliefs through disciplinary reading. For this purpose, 77 essays written by pre-service elementary school teachers after reading Feynman's 'the meaning of it all' were analyzed using an inductive analysis method. As a result of the study, the epistemological beliefs of pre-service teachers were divided into two situations: 'science in subject learning' and 'science in daily life', and the epistemological beliefs formed in the 'science handled by scientists' situation were analyzed after reading the book. Each situation was divided into sub-categories of 'Impression of Knowledge', 'Source of Knowledge', 'Justification of Knowledge', 'Variability of Knowledge', 'Structure of Knowledge', and 'Value of Knowledge Acquisition' to reveal differences in sophisticated beliefs and naive belief levels. As a result, it was derived that Feynman's science lecture influenced pre-service teachers in terms of establishing new perspectives and recontextualizing existing epistemological beliefs. This study is meaningful in that pre-service teachers' scientific epistemological beliefs may vary depending on the situation, and that the scope and depth of epistemological beliefs may be expanded to include scientists' beliefs in science through disciplinary reading.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.147-154
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• 2020

The purpose of this study was to analyze epistemological beliefs in science as perceived by elementary school students and to examine the purpose of science, the nature of scientific knowledge, the source of scientific knowledge, and the role of experimentation. The subjects of this study were 99 elementary school students. As a tool for examining epistemological beliefs in science, we used adapted questionnaires comprising elements constituting epistemological beliefs, as proposed by Elder (1999). The results of the analysis are as follows: First, in terms of the purpose of science, sixth graders had the most modern beliefs compared to other grades. Second, a statistical significance was found between fourth graders and students in other grades based on the analysis of the nature of scientific knowledge. Third, there was no significant difference in each grade's beliefs concerning the source of scientific knowledge or the role of the experiment.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.931-938
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• 2015

In the study, epistemological beliefs, metacognition, and scientific inquiry skills all directly affected the science academic achievement levels of high school students. Also, epistemological beliefs indirectly affected science academic achievement mediated by scientific inquiry skills and metacognition, while metacognition had an indirect effect on science academic achievement level mediated by scientific inquiry skills. We found that scientific inquiry skills had the biggest direct effect, while epistemological beliefs showed the most robust indirect effect on academic achievement level. Thus, we argue that students' scientific inquiry skills should be nurtured for the advancement of their academic achievement. In addition, more careful scholarly attention must be given to both epistemological beliefs and metacognition, which directly and indirectly affected academic achievement level. We believe that epistemological beliefs, metacognition, and scientific inquiry skills should all be considered in an integrative manner when developing educational programs and strategies.

• 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 Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.805-821
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between epistemic beliefs and creativity of gifted students. To resolve the above research questions, this study used epistemic beliefs inventory and Torrance's TTCT to 87 1st grade gifted middle school students enrolled in Daegu metropolitan city. The results of this study are as follows. Firstly, sophistical epistemic beliefs of the gifted students were higher than their naive epistemic beliefs. Secondly, Pearson's correlation analysis showed significant relations between fixed ability and verbal creativity, and between provisional knowledge and verbal creativity, and showed significant relations between variables of sophistical epistemic beliefs and figural creativity. Lastly, this study revealed that fixed ability, expert authority and provisional knowledge explain considerable amount verbal creativity of the gifted students. And authority of the acceptance and provisional knowledge affect considerably their figural creativity.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.259-265
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• 2015

This study examined high school students' acceptance of evolutionary theory, evolutionary knowledge, and epistemological belief. The Christian and non-Christian students' acceptance of evolutionary theory and evolution content knowledge were compared in relation to their 'scientific epistemological views' (domain-specific) and 'evolution in relation to nature of science' (context-specific). The Christian students' evolutionary knowledge was most predicted by the theory-laden exploration of science, while the non-Christian students' scores on evolutionary knowledge were most predicted by the scientific epistemological views. In addition, the Christian students' scores on scientific epistemological views and evolution in relation to evolution were not significantly related to each other, while the non-Christian students' scores on both variables were significantly related. Furthermore, 'evolution in relation to nature of science' is the strongest predictor of both Christian and non-Christian students' acceptance of evolution.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.37-47
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence and structural relationship of variables related to science teaching professionalism. These variables set up learning organizational culture as exogenous variables and science epistemological beliefs and science teaching efficacy as endogenous variables. For this study, a survey was conducted with 499 elementary science teachers from Seoul and Gyeonggi province participating. The results of this study are as follows: Science epistemological beliefs and science teaching efficacy were found to directly affect science teaching professionalism. In addition, learning organizational culture perceived by the teachers did not show significant effects on the science teaching professionalism, but it was found that it has direct significant effects on science epistemological beliefs and science teaching efficacy. Based on the results of this study, which examines the structural relationship between learning organizational culture, science epistemological beliefs, science teaching efficacy and science teaching professionalism. we deem that it is necessary to consider internal factors of teachers as well as ways to improve learning organizational culture.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.359-374
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• 2020

This study is a complex type consisting of survey study and self-study. The former investigated elementary teachers' epistemological beliefs on convergence knowledge and teaching. As a representative of the result of survey study I, as a teacher as well as a researcher, was the participant of the self-study, which investigated my epistemological belief on convergence knowledge and teaching and my execution of convergent science teaching based on family resemblance of mathematics, science, and physical education. A set of open-ended written questionnaires was administered to 28 elementary teachers. Participating teachers considered convergent teaching as discipline-using or multi-disciplinary teaching. They also have epistemological beliefs in which they conceived convergence knowledge as aggregation of diverse disciplinary knowledge and students could get it through their own problem solving processes. As a teacher and researcher I have similar epistemological belief as the other teachers. During the self-study, I tried to apply convergence knowledge system based on the family resemblance analysis among math, science, and PE to my teaching. Inter-disciplinary approach to convergence teaching was not easy for me to conduct. Mathematical units, ratio and rate were linked to science concept of velocity so that it was effective to converge two disciplines. Moreover PE offered specific context where the concepts of math and science were connected convergently so that PE facilitated inter-disciplinary convergent teaching. The gaps between my epistemological belief and inter-disciplinary convergence knowledge based on family resemblance and the cases of how to bridge the gap by my experience were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.242-258
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• 2002

This study investigated preservice teachers' understandings of the ontology and epistemology underlying constructivist notions of teaming. Throughout this study, the epistemological, ontological, and pedagogical characteristics for each teacher's developing views of learning were identified through four in-depth interviews. Data from interviews were used to create three profiles containing ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments and pedagogical beliefs. This study has demonstrated that the notion of a constructivist profile change has significant potential for informing the analysis and description of preservice teachers' beliefs changes. Major findings include: constructivist profile changes overtime, diversification of profile components over time, features of the teachers' pedagogical belief profile changes, and teachers' unawareness of their profiles. However, changes in ontological beliefs and epistemological commitments were not easy, nor were they easily internalized for these teachers. The implications of this research are that preservice teachers should be aware of coexisting different categories of their learning-to-teach profiles, and that teacher educators should provide these preservice teachers with instruction designed to change preservice teachers' profiles towards increasing constructivist views of teaching and learning and restricting other undesirable categories.