• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.718-736
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• 2014

This study was intended to determine PCK of the middle school science teachers on Mendelian genetics and factors influenced to form their PCKs. Two science teachers with biology major with a teaching experience over 5 years were chosen as the subject. Data were collected by class observation, semi-structured interview, teacher questionnaire survey, Content Representation and Pedagogical and Professional-experience Repertoire. The collected data were analyzed based on Magnusson's PCK for science teaching consisting of five components: (a) the orientation toward teaching science, (b) the knowledge of science curriculum, (c) the knowledge of students' understanding, (d) the knowledge of assessment, and (e) the knowledge and belief in the instructional strategies to teach science. Teachers could have the orientation toward teaching science served as an assisting role to support students' abilities. Both subject teachers seemed to focus on giving lectures. Their efforts to improve students' exploration methods and abilities were not expressed enough in their real classes and they found that students struggled to understand Mendelian genetics. Therefore, they should have explained them in an easier way and worked harder to make their students understood accurately and applied basic and advanced concepts of Mendelian genetics. They found students' preconception and misconception regarding Mendelian genetics and wished to enhance their learning effects by various teaching strategies such as correcting misconception, adding the history of science and simply assessing students' affirmative domains. It was also found that factors influenced to form PCK regarding Mendelian genetics by both teachers were as follows: teacher's personality and endeavor, textbooks and guidance books, schools and their circumstances, teaching experience, experience as a learner, interaction with their colleagues, and university curriculum. Both teachers said that it was important for teachers to make every efforts to give better classes.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.859-877
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to probe secondary science teachers' perception on scientific models and modeling. A total of 50 experienced science teachers were surveyed with 10 open-ended questions about several aspects of models and modeling: definition, examples, purpose, multiplicity, changeability, design/construction, evaluation and beliefs in the use of models and modeling as a teaching tool. The analysis of the data shows the following results: 1) understanding of models and modeling held by a majority of experienced secondary science teachers was far from that of experts as they concentrated on a model's superficial, representative, and visual functions, 2) when it comes to their view toward the use of a model, a model does not remain in the stage of 'doing science' but in the stage of being a subsidiary teaching tool for the teacher's explaining and the students' understanding of scientific concepts, 3) the subjects they majored in made meaningful differences in their contextual understanding of models and modeling, 4) though most of the teachers acknowledged the importance of teaching about models and modeling, even a lot of them showed a negative position toward the opinion that they are willing to apply modeling to their classes. Implications of the results were discussed in terms of intervention in order to enhance secondary science teachers' understanding and pedagogical content knowledge of models and modeling.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.532-543
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• 2004

The teacher appointment examination is consisted of a written test, an interview, a demonstration of teaching practices, one's academic record etc. The primary written test(full credit of 100) consists of multiple-choice test of general pedagogy(30%) and constructed response test of science(70%). The science test consists of science education($20{\sim}30%$) and science content($70{\sim}80%$). Five science exams were implemented for appointing general science, physics, chemistry, biology and earth science teachers in 2002 and 2003. The credits alloted to science education domain decreased from $25.7{\sim}30%$ in 2002 to $24.3{\sim}25.7%$ in 2003. The percentage of correct answer was similar between science education and science content domain in 2002, but the percentage of correct answer in science education domain(70.2%) was 29.8% higher than that of science content domain in 2003. Earth science exam almost reached the target mean score of 60 but the other four exams showed the mean scores ranging from 45.0 to 52.7 in 2002 and from 40.1 to 49.6 in 2003. The percentage of high difficulty items(p<40%) was 41.2% in physics and chemistry in 2002, 50% in physics and chemistry, and 45% in biology in 2003. Seventy eight percent of the items showed fairly high discrimination index(r>.30). In addition, the reliabilities of 5 tests were from .79 to .88. In conclusion, it is recommended that the credits alloted to science education domain should be increased up to 30%, and exam difficulties should be lowered to a proper level by making science content items easier.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.910-922
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• 2009

The purpose of the study was to investigate the professional level of the Korean non-physics major middle-school science teachers in 'force and motion' content knowledge. For the study, nine science teachers who majored in chemistry, biology, or earth science were sampled from middle-schools in a big city in Korea. The physics concept test-tool (subjective type), which the authors developed, were administered, and then followed by in-depth interviews. The research findings are as follows: Firstly, non-physics major science teachers' correct answer rate in physics knowledge test of secondary school level was not so high that they may have difficulty in teaching correct concepts in physics to middle-school students. Secondly, some teachers show that they can not apply some physics concepts from one to another situation. That means that they may have difficulty in teaching physics conceptual application in various situations to students.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.167-185
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• 2012

This study aimed at finding points of improvement in teaching expertise by analyzing the question patterns that appeared during teaching demonstrations which applied science teaching models prepared by a pre-service biology teacher. The question analysis frame for analyzing question types were categorized largely into the question types of Category 1 (questions in cognitive domain, questions with research function, questions in affective domain), Category 2 (repeated questions, questions for narrowing the range, practice questions), and Category 3 (questions on student activity progress, memory questions, and thinking questions). The results of analyzing question patterns from five different science teaching models revealed a high frequency of questions in the fields of cognition and memory. For the circular learning model, questions from the cognitive field appeared the most often, while, student activity progressive questions in particular were used mostly in the 'preliminary concept introduction stage' of the circular learning model and the 'secondary exploratory stage', in which experiments were conducted, and displayed the characteristics of these stages. The discovery learning model combined the courses of observation, measurement, classification and generalization, but, during teaching demonstrations, memory questions turned up the most, while the portion of inquisitive function questions was low. There were many questions from the inquisitive learning model, and, compared to other learning models, many exploratory function questions turned up during the 'experiment planning stage' and 'experiment stage'. Definitional questions and thought questions for the STS learning model turned up more than other learning models. During the change of concept learning model, the five concepts of students were stimulated and the modification of scientific concepts was very much aided by using many memory questions.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.173-183
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• 2009

We aimed to examine difference between the brain activation pattern based upon hypothesis-generating and hypothesis-understanding among the pre-service teachers not majoring in biology, the pre-service teachers majoring in biology and the biologists using fMRI. We have designed two sets of task paradigm on the biological phenomena: hypothesis-generating and hypothesis-understanding and thirty six healthy participants (twelve participants per group) performed the tasks. The result was showed that 1) there were significant differences of brain activation patterns in hypothesis-generating on the biological phenomena among three groups, 2) the left middle frontal gyrus in the part of DLPFC region was play an important roles of hypothesis-generating and make a significant differences among three groups. The superior ability of biologists were based upon the activation of middle frontal gyrus which has secondary integration of abstract information, and 3) there were no significant differences of brain activation patterns in hypothesis-understanding on the biological phenomena among three groups. These findings provided that scientist might be skillful in generating a new scientific knowledge.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.1 no.1 s.1
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• pp.105-122
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to understand how a teacher's teaching can be changed while he or she teaches the same contents in different classes. The qualitative research method was used in this study. Data were collected from classroom observations, several in-depth interviews, and stimulated-recall interviews after each class. All the data were transcribed and analyzed interpretively, and then, the results of the analysis were checked by each participating teacher. The results are as follows: First, changes appeared in each class in terms of the teaching items, tools, sequence, and time, even though the same teacher taught the same contents. It showed that the teacher's teaching practice changed immediately and intuitively in class. Second, teachers tried to implement "exploratory teaching" or "move-testing teaching" to address the emerging problems during their teaching. They then reflected on and modified their own teaching. This type of change, which happened during the teaching practice, can be an example of "Reflection-in-practice." Thus, the results of this study can provide helpful insights into how teachers might adapt and reflect in their teaching. It suggests that teachers need to recognize their subconscious teaching changes and learn "Reflection-in-practice."

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.96-106
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to identify the actual conditions of operation in school and investigate the perceptions of science teachers and students regarding the 7th elective-centered curriculum of high school science subjects. For this study, a questionnaire survey was conducted for the selected subjects including 127 high school science teachers and 763 high school students in their third year who had experienced the 7th elective-centered curriculum. As a result of the study, concerning the way to present the elective subjects of science, many cases were the alternative way and the group-elective way in humanity courses while natural science courses had the alternative way and the free-elective way in most cases. In other words, in many cases, the right of elective was given within a limited range. The result of the investigation on science teachers' perceptions on the elective-centered curriculum was that negative views dominated as a whole. Especially, earth science teachers showed the most negative attitudes. The number of biology and chemistry teachers who supported students' right to opt subjects were lower than that of physics teachers and earth science teachers who were against it. To help students make a right choice, many viewed that the system of the college Scholastic Ability Test should be complemented in order to prevent any disadvantage to each elective subject or that it was necessary to have systematic and realistic career education. As the result of investigating the perception of high school students in their third year regarding the elective-centered curriculum, they were usually not very satisfied with it. As the reason for it, many said the selection right was limited. Many others also expressed that there were lack of public relations and education on subjects and careers. Based on these results, limits still exist in accepting all demands although there are a lot of efforts made to smoothly adjust supply and demand of science teachers as well as students' electives in the field of school. It is considered necessary to come up with counterplan and complements to prevent basic science from being neglected or lower academic achievement in the subject of science from happening, and at the same time to harmoniously deal with supply and demand of science teachers as well as the issues of students' demands given the actual conditions of school.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.227-238
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• 2022

One of the main roles of the science teacher is to help students become active agents in their learning of science. This study described how an elementary science teacher used students' emotional resources to conduct emotionally responsive teaching and what were the learning outcomes of this approach. The participants of the study included the teacher himself and his 6^th grade students, and emotionally responsive teaching was applied in the science unit of 'Various Living Things and Our Human Lives'. Multiple types of data, including the teacher's teaching logs, video recordings of the lessons in the unit, and interviews with the students, were collected. The data were analyzed qualitatively, and the results were described using a self-study method. The teacher took advantage of three kinds of students' emotional resources (i.e., character drawing, t-shirt design, and raps) to organize his emotionally responsive teaching. The learning outcome included the students' positive emotions and active participation in science lessons, their epistemic practices such as explorations and justifications of knowledge, and the students' reconstruction of knowledge in consideration of their everyday lives. It was suggested that emotionally responsive teaching can promote elementary school students' active participation in science learning, resulting in meaningful learning outcomes in emotional, cognitive, and conceptual aspects. Further studies should thus be conducted to understand the characteristics of emotionally responsive teaching and its detailed teaching strategies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.359-370
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to explore the changes caused by using smart technology in school science inquiry. For this, we investigated 12 elementary school teachers' perceptions by using an open-ended questionnaire, group discussions, classroom discussions, and participant interviews. The results of this study indicate that the introduction of technology into classroom inquiry can open up the various possibilities and can cause additional burdens as well. First, teachers explained that smart technology can expand the opportunities to observe natural phenomena such as constellations and changing phases of the moon. However, some teachers insisted that, sometimes, learning how to use new devices disrupts students' concentration on the inquiry process itself. Second, teachers introduced the way of digital measurement using smart phone sensors in inquiry activities. They said that digital measurement is useful in terms of the reduction of errors and of the simplicity to measure. However, other teachers insisted that using new devices in classroom inquiry can entail additional variables and confuse the students' focus of inquiry. Communication about inquiry process can also be improved by using digital media. However, some teachers emphasized that they always talked about both the purpose of using SNS and online etiquettes with their students before using SNS. Based on these results, we discussed the necessity of additional analysis on the various ways of using digital devices depending on teachers' perceptions, the types of digital competency required in science inquiry using smart technology, and the features of norms shaped in inquiry activities using smart technology.