• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.62 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analysis total number of 123 SSI programs by SSI criteria. The criteria was consisted of subject, school level, starting point, scientific evidence, social content, use of scientific knowledge, level of conflict of interest, and evaluation and reflection. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, elementary school programs were the most and middle school programs were relatively few. Second, starting point was mainly in the actual situation, the fiction and nonfiction situation, and the situation including the controversy and conflict was less than 10%. Third, it was based on scientific evidence but mainly influenced by individual values and perceptions. Fourth, social contents were developed mainly in ethics/morality/value, political/social life/economy, environment contents. Fifth, the use of scientific knowledge mainly consisted of scientific decision making, scientific critical thinking, and information search. However, science inquiry, risk assessment, and cost effectiveness were less than 10%. Scientific inquiry is the essential factor of science education, and one of core competencies of national science curriculum. SSI program should be able to experience various kinds of conflicts, and to evaluate and reflect through reflection.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.12-26
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• 2018

This study examined the effects of SSI argumentation program on the preservice biology teachers' decision-making types and communication ability. The SSI argumentation program was developed based on 'Social Decision-Making & Problem-Solving strategy' and Toulmin's argumentation pattern. The preservice teachers had opportunities of SSI argumentation through small group discussions. They were asked to identify the issues regarding SSI, think of solutions, and make a decision along with claims, warrants, data, and rebuttals. The preservice biology teachers experienced four SSI topics of abortion, euthanasia, gene manipulation, artificial intelligence. The results indicated that the preservice biology teachers significantly improved the communication ability after the intervention, but they did not change their types of decision-making. In addition, after the intervention, the Pearson correlation results indicated that 'the logical type' of decision-making significantly relates to the communication ability(p<.01). The preservice biology teachers mentioned that they improved their ability of considering warrants, data, background information, context, and rebuttals. Further, the preserivce biology teachers mentioned that they became take an interest in socioscientific issues and improved their ability of accepting criticism from others as well as caring about others when they argue each other. This study implicated that the SSI argumentation program has effects on improving personality education in school science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.895-905
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• 2015

Citizens should be sensitive to the complex and controversial SSIs (Socioscientific Issues), be able to make a responsible decision with evidence and empathy, and furthermore take political action for the larger welfare. The premise of this research is that understanding the nature of science (NOS) takes an important role when students and adults participate in the discourse on SSIs because SSI reasoning requires individuals to examine information and counter-information with skepticism. We therefore designed SSI programs that were incorporated with NOS by adapting a contextualized-reflective approach. The leading research question was to what extent SSI contexts contributed to promoting students' understanding of NOS. A total of 71 11th grade students participated in this program. The school was located in an urban city near the capital city of Seoul, South Korea. We designed SSI programs to cover the issues of genetically modified organisms, climate change, and nuclear energy. Each issue required four to six class periods to complete. We conducted pre- and post-program tests using the revised VNOS-C, recorded group discussions or debates and collected student worksheets to observe the increase of student NOS understanding. As a result of this program, students showed moderate improvement in their understanding of NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.59-70
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• 2021

Ability to make informed decisions by critically evaluating media information on socioscientific issues (SSI) is one of the crucial elements of scientific literacy that citizens should obtain. This study aims to investigate how middle school students evaluated media information about socioscientific issues (SSI) when they faced two different types of information (i.e., numerical and empathic information). To achieve the aim, 96 middle school students responded to the questionnaires asking them to evaluate reliability and persuasiveness of SSI media information. The questionnaires consisted of two sets of newspaper articles on each SSI (pro-numerical/empathic, against-numerical/empathic). After reading the articles, the students evaluated reliability and persuasiveness of each article and wrote the reasons for their evaluation. The results were as follows: First, the students believed that news articles with numerical information were more reliable than the ones with empathic information in all SSI contexts. They tended to trust scientific evidence and data from numerical information, and real cases, societal problems, expressions, and values from empathic information. In addition, they evaluated their reliability based on the logic of information, accuracy of information, breadth and depth of data, and quantity and quality of sources both numerical and empathic information. Second, in case of evaluating persuasiveness of the articles, they focused more on the values that information contained, richness and logicality of the information, rather than the types of information, regardless of the type of information.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.933-952
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• 2010

This study aims to characterize debate on a socio-scientific issue in the Internet and to provide implications from a postmodernist perspective. This study concentrates on disentanglement of the complex relationship among society, economy, politics and science in an issue and characterization of the given text centering on its originality, the relationship between writer and reader, and the purpose of utterance. Sixty-six most read articles on a web message board were chosen and analyzed as a typical case of a socio-scientific issue in the internet. In them, five scientific disputes were identified: the cause of mad cow disease (MCD), specified risk material and the incubation period, the cause of new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (vCJD), vulnerability of vCJD and the relation of Alzheimer and vCJD in American patients. Each argument is intertwined with social, economic and political problems such as its impact on the domestic beef market, feeding environment of imported cattle and the retaliation against denial of importation. With regard to originality, it is found that the originality of an author is weakened but communal through repetitive quotation of 'Peom', cutting and pasting, and engagement of readers with their comments. Furthermore, in order to close the gap between writer and reader, identity and personal narrative of the writers are often introduced into their writing. In terms of purpose of utterance, these are intended to deliver one's feelings or facilitate human behavior rather than inform through verification of a principle.

• Journal of Christian Education in Korea
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• v.61
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• pp.109-129
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• 2020

This study reflects the regional context of Northeast Asian countries embodied in US-North Korean nuclear tension. The researcher uses the methodological inquiry of practical theology to analyze the political affairs and intertwine with religious education. The ecology of religious education to dismantle the threat of ethnic and racial discrimination such as white supremacy supports a shared pedagogy between students and their teachers in the narrative of Jesus to challenge all forms of oppression as the democratic presence of God.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.11-23
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• 2023

In this study, we examined the effect of socioscientific issue (SSI) based science lessons on underachieving 9th-grade students. A total of seven lessons centered on two SSIs related to the national science curriculum were developed and implemented during the first semester of 2021. Data were collected from 185 9th-grade students in one middle school in a mid-sized city of South Korea. Among them, 37 were identified as achieving far below the standards (underachieving students hereafter). Quantitative data were collected from pre- and post-tests on basic science content and attitudes and competency measures. To supplement quantitative data, lesson observation notes were recorded, and student interviews with a selected number of students were conducted. The analysis of quantitative data was conducted through the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and paired t-tests. Qualitative data were analyzed to find reasons for changing attitudes. The findings showed that the SSI-based lessons were more effective on underachieving students than the others in enhancing basic academic achievement, while there was no significant effect on all in attitudes and competency. Lesson observation data showed that underachieving students were more engaged in SSI-based lessons than before. Student interviews demonstrated several reasons why they were engaged, suggesting the aspects of SSI-based lessons that facilitated underachieving students' learning. Further research topics are suggested.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.4 no.1 s.7
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• pp.1-30
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• 2004

In this paper, I have attempted to show how the environmental controversy surrounding the Saemangeurn Reclamation Project in Korea has been framed as narrow scientific debates. First of all, science, or specifically the Expert Review Pane, has played dual roles in the controversy. On the one hand, it has contributed to illuminating the future environmental impacts of reclamation, by so doing, to providing a momentum to reconsider the project. This has significant meaning that environmental concerns successfully checked the symbolic national project of developmental era through adopting a joint-investigation scheme that guaranteed participation of environmental groups on an equal footing with the government. On the other hand, by limiting the scope and participants of discussion, it fundamentally blocked the possibilities of public debates and deliberative decision-making with full considerations of the political, social, and cultural aspects of the controversy. I have shown that this is due to the realist belief shared by both the developers and the environmentalists in Korea that 'proper' science would disclose the truth. Environmental groups, in particular, were naive in evaluating the role of scientific expertise in the controversy and neglected the political role of the Expert Review Pane as a ritual. In opposition to the realist argument, I have shown through the analysis of the water quality debates concerning the future fresh water lakes that scientific 'facts' were not discovered but constructed through complex negotiations, conflicts, and compromises among related actors. The framing of the controversy as an experts' debate has resulted in the exclusion of an important actor from the discussion. Little attention has been paid throughout the controversy to the very people who have lived in the Saemangeum area for generations and will lose their livelihood all together soon. About 20,000 fishermen are living on the Saemangeum tidal flats.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.509-521
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• 2015

Argumentation is a social and collaborative dialogic process. A large number of researchers have focused on analyzing the structure of students' argumentation occurring in the scientific inquiry context, using the Toulmin's model of argument. Since SSI dialogic argumentation often presents distinctive features (e.g. interdisciplinary, controversial, value-laden, etc.), Toulmin's model would not fit into the context. Therefore, we attempted to develop an analytical framework for SSI dialogic argumentation by addressing the concepts of 'discourse clusters' and 'discourse schemes.' Discourse clusters indicated a series of utterances created for a similar dialogical purpose in the SSI contexts. Discourse schemes denoted meaningful discourse units that well represented the features of SSI reasoning. In this study, we presented six types of discourse clusters and 19 discourse schemes. We applied the framework to the data of students' group discourse on SSIs (e.g. euthanasia, nuclear energy, etc.) in order to verify its validity and applicability. The results indicate that the framework well explained the overall flow, dynamics, and features of students' discourse on SSI.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.130-138
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions of high school students and science teachers about high school fusing science. Science teachers and high school students perceived that high school fusing science was related to various areas and they preferred to be taught separately from each area. Science teachers perceived that high school fusing science improved the understanding in the area of scientific common knowledge, advanced technology, and the history of science, but neither scientific writing nor discussion were actively involved. It also didn't contribute to the enhancement of scientific thinking and communication skill. Especially, high school students believed that they were more interested in science through fusing science. On the other hand, teachers believed that this high school fusing science might not impact student's learning and generate negative perception. Science teachers and students perceived that they were more interested in fusing science because it was combination of many areas in science. They also perceived that contents in fusing science were more related to their daily life.