• School Mathematics
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.473-491
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• 2010

In the TIMSS assessment goal and open TIMSS 2007, Singapore recorded a lower overall achievement level compared with Korea; however, the excellent results shown by Singapore furnished an opportunity for various countries to research into the education in Singapore. This paper conducted a comparative analysis of the "Proportion, Proportional Expression, and Percentile" area out of the three topics involving "Fractions and Decimals", "Proportion, Proportional expression, and Percentile", and "Measurement", in all of which Singapore exhibited a higher percentage of correct answers than Korea. The paper was able to discover the following differences through a comparative analysis of how Korean and Singaporean textbooks deal with the open questions of TIMSS 2007 after looking into them according to four assessment goals. First, the Singaporean textbook introduced the concept of proportion one year ahead of the Korean textbook. Second, the Singaporean textbook repeatedly coped with the topic of "Proportion, Proportional Expression, and Percentile" in depth and by academic year, and its volume was larger than that of the Korean textbook. Third, there was a difference in the introduction and definition of the concept of proportion. Fourth, the way of introducing a proportional expression was also different, and the Singaporean textbook proposed many more questions that utilize this expression in ordinary life. Based on these differences, the paper suggested implications that could be applied to the Korean curriculum and textbook.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.4 no.11
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• pp.509-520
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• 2015

College Scholastic Ability Test(CSAT) is a primary test to evaluate the study achievement of high-school students and used by most universities for admission decision in South Korea. Because its level of difficulty is a significant issue to both students and universities, the government makes a huge effort to have a consistent difficulty level every year. However, the actual levels of difficulty have significantly fluctuated, which causes many problems with university admission. In this paper, we build two types of data-driven prediction models to predict correct answer rate and to identify significant factors for CSAT English test through accumulated test data of CSAT, unlike traditional methods depending on experts' judgments. Initially, we derive candidate question-specific factors that can influence the correct answer rate, such as the position, EBS-relation, readability, from the annual CSAT practices and CSAT for 10 years. In addition, we drive context-specific factors by employing topic modeling which identify the underlying topics over the text. Then, the correct answer rate is predicted by multiple linear regression and level of difficulty is predicted by classification tree. The experimental results show that 90% of accuracy can be achieved by the level of difficulty (difficult/easy) classification model, whereas the error rate for correct answer rate is below 16%. Points and problem category are found to be critical to predict the correct answer rate. In addition, the correct answer rate is also influenced by some of the topics discovered by topic modeling. Based on our study, it will be possible to predict the range of expected correct answer rate for both question-level and entire test-level, which will help CSAT examiners to control the level of difficulties.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.123-145
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• 2013

This study was expected to yield the meaningful conclusions from the experimental group who took lessons based on inductive activities using GeoGebra at the beginning of proof learning and the comparison one who took traditional expository lessons based on deductive activities. The purpose of this study is to give some helpful suggestions for teaching proof to mathematically gifted elementary students. To attain the purpose, two research questions are established as follows. 1. Is there a significant difference in proof abilities between the experimental group who took inductive lessons using GeoGebra and comparison one who took traditional expository lessons? 2. Is there a significant difference in proof attitudes between the experimental group who took inductive lessons using GeoGebra and comparison one who took traditional expository lessons? To solve the above two research questions, they were divided into two groups, an experimental group of 10 students and a comparison group of 10 students, considering the results of gift and aptitude test, and the computer literacy among 20 elementary students that took lessons at some education institute for the gifted students located in K province after being selected in the mathematics. Special lesson based on the researcher's own lesson plan was treated to the experimental group while explanation-centered class based on the usual 8th grader's textbook was put into the comparison one. Four kinds of tests were used such as previous proof ability test, previous proof attitude test, subsequent proof ability test, and subsequent proof attitude test. One questionnaire survey was used only for experimental group. In the case of attitude toward proof test, the score of questions was calculated by 5-point Likert scale, and in the case of proof ability test was calculated by proper rating standard. The analysis of materials were performed with t-test using the SPSS V.18 statistical program. The following results have been drawn. First, experimental group who took proof lessons of inductive activities using GeoGebra as precedent activity before proving had better achievement in proof ability than the comparison group who took traditional proof lessons. Second, experimental group who took proof lessons of inductive activities using GeoGebra as precedent activity before proving had better achievement in the belief and attitude toward proof than the comparison group who took traditional proof lessons. Third, the survey about 'the effect of inductive activities using GeoGebra on the proof' shows that 100% of the students said that the activities were helpful for proof learning and that 60% of the reasons were 'because GeoGebra can help verify processes visually'. That means it gives positive effects on proof learning that students research constant character and make proposition by themselves justifying assumption and conclusion by changing figures through the function of estimation and drag in investigative software GeoGebra. In conclusion, this study may provide helpful suggestions in improving geometry education, through leading students to learn positive and active proof, connecting the learning processes such as induction based on activity using GeoGebra, simple deduction from induction(i.e. creating a proposition to distinguish between assumptions and conclusions), and formal deduction(i.e. proving).

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.77-86
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• 2014

By PISA 2007, TIMSS 2011, Korean high school students had high academic achievement to science and mathematics, while they had low attitude. Prospective college students are increasingly avoiding natural science and engineering. Moreover, the opportunities to learn to computer science in middle and high school are disappeared rapidly. The necessity of STEAM program based on Physical computing arise under these situation. Therefore, we developed STEAM program and studied the effects of the program in 2012. The result showed that students' scientific interests and attitude, scientific problem solving ability, scientific creative problem solving ability, personality test for children, and satisfaction of school life were enhanced. This study is follow-up study for the same students who improved every domain of the measurements. They were administerd pre-test at start of 2012, post-test at end of 2012, and delayed post-test at the end of 2013, on same test. The result of the study showed that only attitude to Scientific Inquiry was enhanced, but there was no significant result on the other domain of the test in comparison with start of 2012. But this result demonstrate the effect of STEAM education conversely.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.179-185
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• 2008

purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between high school students' Problem Finding Ability (PFA) and chemistry problem solving ability. To achieve this purpose, the interrelationship between the results of PFA in ill-structured scientific problem situation and the scores of sham examination in chemistry I of College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) was analyzed. The results of this study turned out to be as follows: There was correlation (r=.346) between the score of PFA test and that of sham examination in chemistry I of the CSAT. And a little correlation (r=.390) between PFA and students application ability which is one of the sub factors in sham examination of the CSAT. Especially, in the high achievers group there was high correlation (r=.446) between students fluency which is one of the sub factors in PFA, and application ability. This implies that the application ability of high achievers has something to do with their PFA for a variety of problems. As for the PFA between high achievers and low achievers, there was no significant difference (t=.830, p=.411).

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.191-198
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• 2013

There are many studies about cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics of gifted children in the areas of math and science until now. Also, there is a lot of research for about cognitive and non-cognitive characteristics of gifted children. But, it lacks a lot of research on the characteristics of gifted children for information science area. So, characteristics of gifted children in the areas of information science are defined as structured information recall ability, regularization ability, reasoning ability, efficiency ability, structured ability, generalization ability, and abstract ability. And real problems for each ability are proposed. To make the evaluation questions proposed in this study on the cognitive gifted characteristics when compared with student achievement and prove that there is a correlation. The results of this study can be utilized in the evaluation of information giftedness children and can be utilized in the development of gifted education programs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.122-131
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• 2002

Recently, performance assessment that makes growing use of free response items in a large scale assessment has been emphasized. This study is an empirical examination of the effectiveness of free response items in comparison with multiple choice items. Using the information function in Item Response Theory (IRT) framework, item information of free response items and multiple-choice items from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study-Repeat (TlMSS-R) were obtained. Test information of the whole science area as well as each area of science contents was computed. On average, free response items yielded more information than multiple choice items, especially in earth science, physics, chemistry, and life science. This study also showed that free response items were appropriate for students in high science ability. Also, free response items estimated students' science ability more accurately than multiple choice items with smaller number of free response items.

• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.21-29
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to develop the academic and career counseling program for students of engineering college who don't have aptitude in engineering. Therefore we began with analyzing the outcome of Holland career aptitude test from enrolled students of engineering college. The method of this study is first, we classified between students who have aptitude on engineering and who don't. Next, we compared grades of between them. Lastly, we studied the needs of the students who don't have aptitude in engineering. The final result and analysis of study were used for suggestion of develop academic and career counseling program for students of engineering college who don't have aptitude on engineering.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.2251-2261
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• 2013

The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate learning smartphone application for improving drug dosage calculation ability of nursing students. We evaluated the contents based on the sufficient teaching materials and developed the process for implementation of the educational system. The participants were 37 nursing students. After implementation during 4 weeks, data was analyzed with the SPSS WIN 18.0. There were significant differences of achievement of learning objectives(${\chi}^2$=10.90, p=.004), application to work(Z=2.86, p=.004), mathematical confidence (Z=3.07, p=.002), according to the frequency of program use, but there was no difference in academic self-efficacy. Based on the results of this study, developed smartphone application will help to strengthen the drug dosage calculation ability of nursing students. And also, the results suggest that more powerful application for improving academic efficacy and increasing participation should be developed.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.243-262
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• 2010

CRESST(the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at UCLA) is now carrying out the research, which was scheduled for a five year period from 2007 to 2011. This research aimed at testing the effectiveness of the formative assessment program by continuously conducting the program on the target group and steadily applying the recurring feedback, in order to reform the teachers' teaching and to facilitate students' learning. To do this, CRESST has set out to develop the material for 7th graders since January 2007, and KICE(Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation) have been running a collaborated research since July 2007, while sharing the instructional materials developed by CRESST. In 2008, the pre-test was conducted prior to this study in 2009. Especially, this paper deals with the Korean 7th graders' scholastic achievements in algebra domain measured by PowerSource(c). In addition, this study would examine the responses of teachers and students on its application.