• 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 the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.64 no.5
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• pp.291-303
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• 2020

This study aimed to explore the patterns of college students' dialogic argumentation in the context of nanotechnology issues, and to compare these patterns based on their idiocentrism and allocentrism. Nanotechnology represents the characteristics of socioscientific issues in that it is widely used in various fields, but at the same time, it includes the likelihood of negative effects. 33 college students who enrolled in science-related course participated in this study. Participants were divided into idiocentric groups and allocentric groups based on the INDCOL scores, and they participated in group discussions on nanotechnology. All discussions were audiotaped and analyzed using the framework of discourse clusters and schemes. Results showed that participating students engaged in dialogic argumentation with the process of exchanging of individual perspectives, exploration of different perspectives, and coordination and negotiation; specifically, they spent most of their time in exploring different values and perspectives regarding nanotechnology. Results also indicated the differences in discourse clusters and discourse schemes between idiocentric and allocentric groups. Allocentric groups more often negotiated to settle on a group decision than idiocentric groups did, and discourse schemes in their negotiation process were slightly different from the ones in idiocentric groups.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.3 no.2 s.6
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• pp.83-104
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• 2003

The use of DNA in identification is growing. The criminal DNA databases are in operation in some countries including the UK, Austria, Germany, and US. The militaries and law enforcement agencies in these countries have used the DNA profile. In Korea, DNA identification has been used in determining paternity and in criminal cases since the middle 1990's, and in recent years law enforcement agencies are promoting a national DNA database for identification. The DNA database threatens our civil liberties because of its potential to be used as an instrument of surveillance. Expanding the database puts increasing numbers of people on a 'list of suspects'. Nevertheless, there is little social concern about using DNA database for identification. This paper reviews social issues related to the establishment of DNA database and investigates the features of DNA profile and DNA Database establishment project promoted law enforcement agencies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.467-480
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• 2018

This study aims to investigate how flipped learning-based socioscientific issue instruction (FL-SSI instruction) affected middle school students' key competencies and character development. Traditional classrooms are constrained in terms of time and resources for exploring the issues and making decision on SSI. To address these concerns, we designed and implemented an SSI instruction adopting flipped learning. Seventy-three 8th graders participated in an SSI program on four topics for over 12 class periods. Two questionnaires were used as a main data source to measure students' key competencies and character development before and after the SSI instruction. In addition, student responses and shared experience from focus group interviews after the instruction were collected and analyzed. The results indicate that the students significantly improved their key competencies and experienced character development after the SSI instruction. The students presented statistically significant improvement in the key competencies (i.e., collaboration, information and technology, critical thinking and problem-solving, and communication skills) and in two out of three factors in character and values as global citizens (social and moral compassion, and socio-scientific accountability). Interview data supports the quantitative results indicating that SSI instruction with a flipped learning strategy provided students in-depth and rich learning opportunities. The students responded that watching web-based videos prior to class enabled them to deeply understand the issue and actively engage in discussion and debate once class began. Furthermore, the resulting gains in available class time deriving from a flipped learning approach allowed the students to examine the issue from diverse perspectives.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.140-154
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• 2010

The core of subject matter education is determined by the choice of subject matter taught to students and by the organization of content according to educational objectives. The purpose of this research is to suggest ways to improve the present content of science education so as to prepare students and schools for a radically different future. We deduced the main issues the solution of which could lead to significant improvements in the contents of science education by analyzing previous studies and investigating the changes in content that were effected during curriculum revisions in the past. The main issues thus revealed through this study are as follows: the essence of the contents of subject matters in science education, the social and cultural background of change in the science curriculum, the rational steps on the way to choosing contents as part of the science curriculum, the processes of choosing the main contents of each subject, the international comparative study of contents, the updating of contents for the benefit of future society, and the reorganization of subject contents. In order to find a concrete improvement on the issues deduced, we organized an expert group. Then, we proceeded to collect and analyze the experts' opinions. A survey was administered to 19 science education experts working with universities and colleges of education. We examined their degree of agreement on the issues and problems, and on the steps that may be taken to us the improvements on these issues. we suggested that: collecting opinion and reaching an agreement on the essence of the contents of the subject matters in science education, the necessity to choose core contents within the scientific domain, developing a structure map in order to integrate and connect various subject domains, presenting explicitly the objective of inquiry by grades, moving toward integrating science contents, diversifying the construction of science textbooks.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.303-315
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• 2016

Socioscientific issues (SSI), by their nature, are conceptually embedded in technology. Previous research reported that nature of technology (NOT), unlike nature of science, was quite explicitly manifested in SSI decision-making, and NOT could be a promising construct for promoting SSI reasoning. In this study, authors introduced an integrated conceptual framework for NOT, which consisted of four dimensions (i.e., artifacts, knowledge, practice and system) as diverse modes of technology. We adapted the framework to investigate students' conceptualizations of NOT in the context of various SSIs. Data was collected from 45 college students enrolled in a liberal arts course on science and technology. The students participated in a team project, where they prepared and led discussions for SSI topics in class. Seven topics concerning SSIs were selected by students themselves. The preparation and class discussion of each student group were audio-recorded, and final reports were also analyzed. As a result, NOT sub-components in the dimensions of artifacts and system were explicitly represented in most contexts of SSI with various ranges of understanding. Other sub-components under the dimensions of knowledge and practice were rarely or implicitly shown in the discussion. The depth of students' understanding on NOT varied. Implications for science education were discussed.

• Annual Conference of KIPS
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• 2012.11a
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• pp.1720-1723
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• 2012

과학기술,사회(STS, Science and Technology in Society)란 과학과 기술을 역사적이고 사회학적인 시각으로 바라보자는 관점을 뜻한다. 이는 시민들이 이런 시각을 가져야 과학기술과 관련된 사회 쟁점에 대한 올바른 판단이 가능하다는 의미이다. 이를 위해 국가 교육과정체제 이후의 평생교육으로써 성인을 대상으로 하는 과학문화 소통 프로그램이 필요하다. 본 논문은 국내와 해외의 성인 대상의 과학 문화 프로그램을 분석하여 올바른 과학문화 소통을 위한 프로그램 과정은 어떤 모습으로 설계되어야 하는지를 제안한다. 제주대학교 과학기술사회연구센터(STS연구센터)에서 연구하고 있는 제주 특성을 활용한 과학기술문화교육 프로그램을 소개하고, 향후 정보과학 기반의 연구방향도 소개하고자 한다.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.94-118
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to explore the multi-faceted understanding and issues of science subject matter competencies from the trends of competency-based curriculum discourse, and to examine the relationship between general core competencies and science subject matter competencies. First, we examined the theoretical background of competency-based curriculum focusing on behaviorism, humanism, and its comprehensive synthesis. After that, we reviewed OECD's competency-related projects (DeSeCo; OECD Education 2030), US Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Korea's 2015 Revised National Curriculum from the viewpoint of competency-based curriculum. After that, we summarized and systematically analyzed a list of competencies, 105 general core competencies and 45 science subject matter competencies proposed by 15 important documents from home and abroad. The results of this study are as follows: First, the issues of the proper number, appropriate dimension, and how individual competencies should be unique and independent were pointed, in terms of defining and categorizing competencies. Second, it was suggested that the competency items are presented in various dimensions such as personal-micro dimension, community meso-dimension, and social-macro dimension. Meso-dimension was placed on both general core competencies and subject matter competencies. Third, in the relationship between general core competencies and subject matter competencies, the former emphasizes macro-dimension, and the latter emphasizes micro-dimension, revealing an existing gap, and where the two can meet each other is the meso-dimension. These discussions are thought to provide insight into the understanding of competencies in the national curriculum, including the 2015 Revised National Curriculum.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.159-172
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• 2023

In general, social problem-solving research aims to create important social value by offering meaningful answers to various social pending issues using scientific technologies. Not surprisingly, however, although numerous and extensive research attempts have been made to alleviate the social problems and issues in nation-wide, we still have many important social challenges and works to be done. In order to facilitate the entire process of the social problem-solving research and maximize its efficacy, it is vital to clearly identify and grasp the important and pressing problems to be focused upon. It is understandable for the problem discovery step to be drastically improved if current social issues can be automatically identified from existing R&D resources such as technical reports and articles. This paper introduces a comprehensive dataset which is essential to build a machine learning model for automatically detecting the social problems and solutions in various national research reports. Initially, we collected a total of 700 research reports regarding social problems and issues. Through intensive annotation process, we built totally 24,022 sentences each of which possesses its own category or label closely related to social problem-solving such as problems, purposes, solutions, effects and so on. Furthermore, we implemented four sentence classification models based on various neural language models and conducted a series of performance experiments using our dataset. As a result of the experiment, the model fine-tuned to the KLUE-BERT pre-trained language model showed the best performance with an accuracy of 75.853% and an F1 score of 63.503%.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.323-334
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• 2017

Current science education aims to guide students as future responsible citizens to make informed decisions on socioscientific issues (SSI). In the authors' previous study, it was found that conceptions of nature of technology (NOT) were explicitly represented in various contexts of SSI with differentiated levels of understanding, and cases of the informed NOT understanding included the key features of well-reasoned SSI decision-making. Therefore, enhancing NOT understanding could be one of the elements to leverage students' informed SSI decision-making. In this study, we developed a rubric to assess NOT understanding in the context of SSI and applied it to evaluate the impact of SSI instruction. Participants were 58 college students who took an SSI course for 6 weeks. Before and after the SSI course, they were asked to write decision-making essays on the Golden Rice issue (a type of genetically modified food). As a result of analyzing the pre- and post decision-making essay using the rubric, it was found that NOT understanding was improved after the SSI course; in addition, the salient patterns of NOT changes were analyzed in detail in order to gauge the influence of the SSI classes. Implications for science education were discussed.