• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.399-416
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between science teaching practices and beliefs about the nature of science. Defining teachers' beliefs as a broad construct, the researcher tried to examine not only the teachers' understanding about the nature of science, but also the effect and reflection in science teaching practices with regards to the nature of science. Guiding research questions were how the teachers' science teaching practices reflected their beliefs about the nature of science. The methodology of this study was qualitative approach that included interviews, classroom observations, and instructional materials. At an urban area of Korea, five beginning elementary teacher was chosen. The cross-case and grounded theory study design were adopted as data analysis process. The results of data analysis were checked by teachers for internal validity. This study identified the teachers' beliefs about the nature of science suggested by many researchers and revealed that these teachers' beliefs reflected a little in science teaching practices. On the occasion it was reflected, restricted merely within the narrow limits the way to teach the concepts and contents presented in science curriculum. In addition, some of the obstacles that these teachers' beliefs did not reflect the science teaching practices with regards to the nature of science were investigated in this study.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.79-101
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• 1999

Astronomy is a good area to introduce a student to the study of science. The student often questions what causes the change in seasons, in the day and right, and in the rotation of stars, etc. Attempts to find answers to problems related to these astronomical observations influence the student`s intellectual development. This study is to investigate the effect of running an astronomical observations program on the preservice elementary teachers' astronomy achievement, astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs, and scientific attitude. Students consist of twenty four preservice elementary teachers. Three instruments are used: one is the astronomy achievement test, which is of an essay type, and 5 items. The other is the astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs test, which is of a Likert scale type, and 22 items. Another is the scientific attitude test, which is of the Likert scale type, and 10 items. Data are collected before and after instruction in the astronomical observations program, through the use of these tests. Data are compared. The results are: \circled1There is a significant difference between before and after instructions in the astronomy achievement test(t=11.31, p=000). \circled2There is a significant difference between before and after instructions in the astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs test(t=5.98, p=.000). \circled3There is a significant difference between before and after instructions in the scientific attitude test(t=270, pde. There fore, the a=.013). As a result, running an astronomical observations program has an effect on the preservice elementary teachers' astrono my achievement, astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs, and scientific attituuthor urges the teacher to teach astronomy through the astronomical observations in school.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.167-178
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to explore characteristics of sixth grade students' opistemological beliefs in science and the relationship to learner's characteristics: learning motivation, learning strategies, and logical thinking. The subjects were 265 sixth graders and data was collected through two types of questionnaires, translated and modified by researchers: opistemological beliefs regarding science, learning motivation & strategies. The results of this study were as follows. The students believed that the goals of science were related to activations such as 'Science is experiment', or 'Science is invention: These beliefs were connected with the emphasis of science classes or the focus of the science curriculum. However, the students' beliefs related to the changeability of science knowledge, the source of science knowledge, and the role of experiments in developing knowledge were oriented to modern opistemological views. Moreover, the beliefs were meaningfully related to students' characteristics: learning motivation, learning strategies, and logical thinking. Among the students' characteristics, logical thinking was especially related to all of the factors of students' beliefs: the changeability of science knowledge, the source of science knowledge, and the role of experiments in developing knowledge. However, the students who believed that scientific knowledge came from scientists, science teachers, or science textbooks had high levels of self-efficacy. Therefore, the belief that scientific knowledge is formed by self-discovery, in order to generate high self-efficacy, needs to be encouraged. From the results, it is possible to check the orientation of current science education based on the students' opistemological beliefs. In addition, the resources can be accumulated for persevering in our efforts to achieve a positive orientation for science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.457-470
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• 2016

We investigated the conceptual and methodological characteristics of self-study as an innovational way with reflective research methods and explored the possibility of application of self-study in the field of science education by reviewing previous researches done in foreign countries. The results show that Self-study in education means the study of self, self-practice, self-thought, and so on in the teaching and learning context. It is a kind of new research method to pursue the improvement of teaching and learning practice with integrated perspectives on the context of instruction, identities of members, their beliefs and values, innovation agenda for better education, etc. This can be attained by collective and critical reflection in doing research. Most previous articles on the methodology of self-study suggested that the self-study should be more than just daily journals written only by her/him self. To do self-study in the academic way, they requested interaction with critical and cooperative colleagues, multiple but strict qualitative research methods, and participants' efforts for making better practice in instruction. Similar features to the above are found in the previous 14 self-study papers related to science education done in foreign countries. Based on the results, we concluded that self-study could be applied usefully into the field of science education in Korea. This paper could contribute to stimulation in the innovation of science instruction in a more practical way by increasing the attention to self-study and provoking its practice in Korea.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.389-403
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• 2019

This study aims to analyze criteria and characteristics for preservice elementary teachers' critiques of their peers' inquiry-based instruction. This study reviews critiques written by 31 preservice elementary teachers enrolled in an elementary school science inquiry methods course wherein the teachers designed and implemented inquiry-based instruction. These preservice teachers participated in inquiry-based instruction as if they were elementary students and then evaluated their peers' instruction. Analysis of the critiques reveals that preservice teachers evaluated their peers' instruction on the following criteria: instruction context, science content, teaching strategies, students, instructional goals, non-verbal attitude, and assessment. Their beliefs about teaching science inquiry were reflected in the critiques. Additionally, it was found that four orientation for teaching inquiry-didactic, academic rigor, activity-driven, inquiry orientation-reflected in critiques; some of critiques held more than one of these orientations. And they did not merely criticize but suggested alternatives to general teaching strategies; furthermore, of inquiry-instruction specific teaching strategies. They showed higher epistemic understanding of inquiry-based instruction after mid-term demonstrations. The evidence demonstrated that the proportion of critiques specifically about inquiry-based instruction increased after the mid-term demonstrations. Moreover, the post mid-term critiques emphasized interaction between students as well as understanding of the nature of science. These findings could provide implication for teaching inquiry and criticizing others' instruction as part of elementary school science courses in preservice elementary teacher education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.634-641
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• 2000

The degree of cognitive conflict, conceptual change, and the retention of conception in studying 'the cause of rising water at burning a candle in a bottle' with anomalous data were compared by age and gender. According to 'change of belief in initial theory', 7 types of responses to anomalous data were ordered by 4 levels. In comparing the results by age, producing cognitive conflict by anomalous data, conceptual change, and the retention of conception were found to be more effective for older students than younger students. However, the degree of cognitive conflict was not significantly correlated with the conception and retention tests scores. The results of Mann-Whitney U test revealed that there were no significant differences by gender in the degree of cognitive conflict, conceptual change, and the retention of conception.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.854-869
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• 2007

In this study, we investigated secondary science teachers' internalization of constructivistic science teaching who participated in a collaborative program between teachers and researchers designed by researchers according to constructivist views. The program consisted of lecture, workshop, and small group activities. New trends in science education and framework for science teaching were introduced during lectures, and understanding about the framework were deepened by analyzing school science classes recorded during workshops. In small group activities, participating teachers and researchers cooperated to design science lesson plans using science teaching frameworks. Five secondary science teachers participated in collaborative workshops. Collaborative programs were video-taped. Semi-structured interviews were conducted before and after workshops. All data recorded were transcribed and analyzed. In the process of internalization, participating teachers attended on different parts. Various and discernable factors such as there own background, beliefs, values, and school context produced tensions with or facilitated internalization of constructivistic science teaching. Teaching experiences and student understanding affected teachers' lesson planning activities. Teachers also showed different understandings on inquiry, application, and model from the framework, and they interpret those concepts in the framework based on their prior understanding. They perceived that too much content should be dealt within relatively limited time. Therefore, they tended to separate science class into two parts when developing science lessons: explaining science content by lecture and science laboratory as a constructivistic activity. The results of the study provide meaningful implications to the constructivist teacher education and professional development.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.279-292
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to find the concept of life, the categories of living things and the systems of categorizing them contained in Buddhism, a sort of metaphysical philosophy. For this, monks who devotes themselves to Buddhism were interviewed, and the differences of the definition of life, the categorizing of living creatures and categorizing systems between biology and other subject teachers and students who are Buddhist and ones who are not were inquired. The result shows that in Buddhism, they use 'being' and 'sentience being' as the terms for creatures and they believe creatures are not individual ones but one collective existence connected with each other, which is very different from the biological definition of creatures. Buddhist include metaphysical beings in categories of living things rather than plants. Buddhist criteria for categorizing things which have life, that is living beings, are how they are born, whether they have a certain form and, lastly, whether they are conscious or not. Through this research results we could expect to identify the misconceptions about concept of life and the categories of living things.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.354-365
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to understand the undergraduate students' response characteristics by their cognitive conflict levels and result predictions when they were confronted with the learning tasks of action & reaction and electric circuits. The 147 engineering college students who were enrolled at the introductory physics classes were selected as the subjects for this study. The students were grouped by cognitive levels and result predictions. First, in action and reaction task, the trend of suspecting experimental results and finding the reasons was dominant; however, in electric circuits, the trend of accepting the results was dominant. Second, the reasons for the responses on the subcategories of cognitive conflict were different by the level of cognitive conflict. The responses were influenced by students' preexisting knowledge, former experiences, learning habits, learning motivation, and epistemological beliefs, etc. The high conflict group recognized what they do not consider and was positive to reappraise their preconceptions, while the low conflict group showed the tendency of accepting the situation without doubt and low interest on learning physics. In conclusion, students responses showed differences in cognitive conflict levels, result predictions and presented conflict tasks. The research results, especially the response characteristics, suggest that more research on effective cognitive conflict strategies appropriate for different tasks and students' conflicts are necessary for effective physics teaching.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.237-250
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• 2021

Teachers play a key role in designing a students' learning experience. Teachers are asked to interpret the context in which they are located and to adjust their practice to fit circumstantial needs based on their teacher agency. In this study, we explore the emergence of teacher agency in distance learning caused by COVID-19 and we analyze factors shaping the teacher agency. For this purpose, we interviewed six secondary science teachers who practiced distance learning in 2020. Semi-constructed interviews and their artifacts were collected and analyzed. This study shows that teacher agency is captured when they respond to circumstantial change and modify their practice to achieve their professional purpose or adjust their practice in space for maneuvering or keep their practice consistent. This study also analyzes the factors that affect the emergence of teacher agency in two dimensions. One is individual and the other is contextual. In the individual dimension, educational values shaped by his/her experiences and short/long-term goals for the future support the emergence of teacher agency. In the contextual dimension, there are collaborative and flexible culture shared by the community, co-operation within the teacher community, and material support. On the other hand, in the individual dimension, the teachers' sense of their role, and no reflection for own practice constrain the emergence of teacher agency, and in the contextual dimension, performativity discourse and strong requirement without guidance constrain the emergence of teacher agency. We suggest an effective lens for establishing a strategy that support teachers' professional practice and the emergence of teacher agency.