• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.599-609
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• 2017

The goal of this research is to analyze the trend of Korean fourth grade students' achievement in TIMSS 2011 and TIMSS 2015 science content domains and to suggest implications for science curriculum and teaching & learning improvement. With four elementary science teachers and three science educators, we analyzed Korean fourth grade students' percentage of correct responses in TIMSS 2015 science content and cognitive domains, and conducted item-curriculum matching analysis for test items. According to the results, Korean students performed relatively better in test topics covered in the science curriculum for 3-4 grades regardless of the science content domain (i.e., Life science, Physical science, or Earth science). Korean students showed low percentage of correct answers for items related to such topics as heat conduction, the action of electricity, the motion of the earth and the moon, etc., which were covered in the 5th-6th grades in the 2009 revised curriculum. For science cognitive domains, Korean students' achievement dropped significantly in reasoning between TIMSS 2011 and TIMSS 2015. Discussed in the conclusion are implications to reconstruct elementary school science curriculum, and ways to improve science teaching and learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.273-283
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine the potential of the use of the Classroom Response System (CRS), a kind of new ICT medium, in a quiz problem-solving oriented high school life science class. To find the usefulness of CRS as a teaching and learning strategy, the CRS group (n=34) sent prompt individual answers to the teachers' questions using the CRS terminal (Clicker), and the teacher then asked additional reasons of the individuals and gave personalized feedback. In the control group (n=35), the CRS was not used while the teacher asked overall questions and gave feedback in an undifferentiated way. As a result, the CRS increased students' interest and concentration during class, but there were no significant differences in study achievement between the two groups. However, there were significant differences between the medium-level groups when the two groups were divided into smaller ones based on their pre-scores. We suggest that, for effective use of the CRS for diagnostic and formative assessment, teachers should develop a teaching and learning strategy that can produce appropriate questions of various levels in advance, investigate the exact reasons for students' answers, and give customized feedback by individual as much as possible.

• Journal of the Health Care and Life Science
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.69-76
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• 2021

To investigate the current status of Sex Education for children with Developmental Disabilities and to effectively operate Sex Education programs, 12 teachers working in special education institutions and childcare services for Children with Developmental Disabilities were selected. Focus Groups Interview were conducted to identify opinions and requirements on the three themes through literature review. In the case of Sex Education for Children with Developmental Disabilities, difficulties in operating Sex Education were identified because the direction of education was inconsistent and individual characteristics and needs were not taken into account.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.120-129
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to provide informations for developing next elementary school science textbooks and educational implications for a spot of science class through analyzing patterns of questions in the elementary school science textbooks under the 2007 revised curriculum. To get a meaningful results, the 2,446 questions extracted by operation definition from 3~6 grade science text books were analyzed by modified analysis frame work based on Blosser's classified system. The findings of this study were as follows: First, among 2,446 questions, the propositional pattern element had the highest rate, 49.2%, the appreciable pattern element had the lowest rate, 1.4%, of all pattern elements. Second, from the results of comparing patterns of questions in each grade's science textbook, as the grade went higher, the rate of the applicable and the divergent pattern element tended to increase, and that of the other elements tended to decrease. Third, as the results of comparing patterns of questions of 4 each field in elementary science textbooks, the energy field questions were the largest in number, followed by the substance field. The rate of the propositional pattern element was the highest of all question elements in common in each field. In the reproductive and the propositional pattern element, the energy and the substance field had a little higher rate than the other fields. On the other hand, in the applicable and the divergent pattern element, the earth and the life field had a little higher rate than the other fields.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.1124-1138
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• 2012

This study investigates Korean middle school students' perceptions as global citizens (i.e. ecological worldview, social and moral compassion, and socioscientific accountability) of Socioscientific Issues (SSI). We developed questionnaires that consisted of 20 Likert-type items to gauge their preceptions of the three different SSI contexts (i.e. nuclear power generation, bio-technology, climate change), and administered them to 225 9th grade students in Seoul. The results revealed that participants showed relatively high scores for ecological worldview but scored low on social and moral compassion across the SSI contexts. In addition, participants presented much higher scores for ecological worldview and socioscientific accountability regarding the issues of climate change. The participant responses indicated that they perceived more inter-connectedness with the environment and felt the responsibility of promoting sustainable development more to prevent further devastation in the context of climate change compared to nuclear power generation or biotechnology.

• Journal of Agricultural Education and Human Resource Development
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.43-65
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to identify the Issues of the survey on employment status at the vocational high school. For this, 19 chief teachers of employment department were interviewed with the validity of the concept of employment, the appropriateness of the survey period, the effectiveness of the survey method, and the usefulness of the survey output. The main results of research were as follows. First, in the survey of current employment situation, employment is a low standard to be recognized as an ordinary standard, and the employment counts not linked to DB are likely to be inaccurate. Second, regarding the period of employment, the current February survey is difficult to distinguish between field study and employment, and there is a limit to the study of full employment. Third, the present method has limitations on reliability and work efficiency in the survey method. Fourth, current output is not useful for school use in relation to survey output.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.719-731
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• 2017

The aim of this study was to analyze a group of pre-service elementary teachers experience on the cognitive terms of biology inquiry subjects, and experience on living materials related with the domain of life in the Korea elementary school science textbook. Firstly, elementary school pre-service teachers had the confidence of inquiry subjects related with the domain of life such as 'when we take breath what will happen in human body?' and 'Can we make the model of human body?' But they did have the most diffidence of 'The search for pieris rapae, a cabbage butterfly's life', 'Can we grow the little creature?' The reason why pre-service elementary teachers had diffidence of comprehending experiment procedure and planning ability was that 'they focused on understanding the scientific concepts instead of planning experiments by themselves', and 'they carried out the least amount of experiments' Secondly, elementary school pre-service teachers had never experienced biology materials related with the domain of life in the Korea elementary school biology science textbook such as 'tradescantia reflexa', 'Caddis larva', 'hydrilla verticillata', and 'Plantain lily.' According to the findings obtained from the study, the reason why they had never seen the biology materials was that they had the least opportunity of immediately observing life creatures due to memorization-intensive classes.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.21-29
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• 1997

Many middle school students have difficulty in understanding biological concepts because too many concepts are presented in the textbook compared to limited school hours. So, it is necessary to select concepts which are indispensable. The purpose of this study is to select key concepts in the unit 'The Continuity of Life' by surveying students' and teachers' cognition on the concepts. In this study, 78 concepts were extracted from 'Science 3', unit II 'The Continuity of Life'. To survey how students and teachers think the concepts, Likert type questionnaires were made. 300 third grade middle school students and 34 biology teachers were selected by random sampling and the questionnaires were applied. The following results were obtained:1. Students thought 59 concepts out of 78 were important and the mean score of important level of the concepts was 3.60. Students thought 26 concepts out of 78 were difficult and the mean score of diffculty level'of the concepts was 3.26. The more they think the concepts important, the more they think them difficult (r=0.7462, p<0.001). 2. Teachers thought 55 concepts out of 78 were important and the mean score of important level of the concepts was 3.82. Teachers thought 33 concepts out of 78 were difficult and the mean score of diffculty level of the concepts was 3.31. The more they think the concepts important, the more they think them difficult (r=0.6138, p<0.001). 3. The selected concepts were considered more important by teachers than by students(t=2.0150, p<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in evaluating the difficulty level of the concepts(t=0.7327, p>0.05). 4. It was found that students have difficulty in understanding concepts when they are presented in the textbook to require formal preparation than concrete preperation(t=2.6612, p<0.05).

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.157-172
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of number of targets on common knowledge generation and brain activity during the common life science discovery task performance. In this study, 35 preliminary life science teachers participated. This study was intentionally made a block designed for EEG recording. EEGs were collected while subjects were performing common discovery tasks. The sLORETA method and the relative power spectrum analysis method were used to analyze the brain activity difference and the role of activated cortical and subcortical regions according to the degree of difficulty of common discovery task. As a result of the study, in the case of the Theta wave, the activity of the Theta wave was significantly decreased in the frontal lobe and increased in the occipital lobe when the difficult difficulty task was compared with the easy difficulty task. In the case of Alpha wave, the activity of Alpha decreased significantly in the frontal lobe when performing difficult task with difficulty. Beta wave activity decreased significantly in the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, and occipital lobe when performing difficult task. Finally, in the case of Gamma wave, activity of Gamma wave decreased in the frontal lobe and activity increased in the parietal lobe and temporal lobe when performing the difficult difficulty task compared to the task of easy difficulty. The level of difficulty of the commonality discovery task is determined by the cingulate gyrus, the cuneus, the lingual gyrus, the posterior cingulate, the precuneus, and the sub-gyral where it was shown to have an impact. Therefore, the difficulty of the commonality discovery task is the process of integrating the visual information extracted from the image and the location information, comparing the attributes of the objects, selecting the necessary information, visual work memory process of the selected information. It can be said to affect the process of perception.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.520-544
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• 2021

This study aims to develop a scientific creativity test for exploring the relationship between elementary students' creative process and product. For this, the researcher reviewed the literatures of scientific creativity and developed the items based on the constructs of creative process and product. After a review conducted by nine science education specialists, a pilot test, and additional revision and supplementation of observation test, the test, consisting of two sets-"animals" and "plants"-was finally conducted on 105 fifth-grade students. The test results were analyzed by using statistical analysis software. WinSteps, SPSS, and AMOS. The main findings from this study are as follows. First, when it comes to scientific creativity, creative process consists of science knowledge, inquiry skills, and creative thinking skills (divergent, convergent, and associative thinking skills). Creative product in science is a new and scientifically useful idea realized in a certain form. Second, observation, which was selected as a representative inquiry skill in this research, should not be related to creative thinking skills. Third, among the rest of the items, usefulness had the lowest averages, as it was, perhaps, difficult to satisfy the teachers' criteria for the scientific validity and usefulness. Fourth, the Spearman correlation coefficients between the items of "animals" and "plants" to find out the parallel-form reliability were significant, except for the item of originality. Fifth, the test was satisfactory with regard to the three aspects of construct validity-convergent, discriminant, and nomological. This study concludes by discussing the usefulness of this test, which has the possibility of exploring the relationship between creative process and product and of playing a role as an authentic evaluation tool in school.