• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.38-54
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to compare the concepts and inquiry activities of textbooks in Korea and Singapore textbooks focused on the field of geology, and to provide implications for the future development of Korean curriculum and textbooks. For the study, it was selected as the 2015 revised science textbook in Korea and 'My pals are here' that is the most used textbook in Singapore. The results of this study are as follows: First, Korea had a lower level of concept than Singapore. Second, we could confirm that Korea is composed of 'inquiry' centered compared to Singapore. Third, Korea deal with only one concept in one grade, however Singapore is structured so that concepts are divided hierarchically into several grades. Fourth, Singapore has been instructing students to learn how the learned concept interact with the Earth, which is different from Korea. These results may give implications for the curriculum composition and textbook development in Korea.

• School Mathematics
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.45-68
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• 2006

Singaporean students have demonstrated their superior mathematical achievement and positive mathematical dispositions. Against this background, this study compared Korean elementary mathematics textbooks with Singaporean counterparts focusing on the geometry and measurement strand. The analysis was conducted in many aspects, including an overall unit structure, the contents to be covered in each grade, and the methods of introducing essential learning themes. The textbooks were also compared and contrasted with regard to the main characteristics of constructing mathematical contents. Whereas Korean textbooks used block teaming, Singaporean textbooks used repeated teaming. The latter also employed the activity of classifying multiple figures as the main method of introducing concepts. Whereas Korean textbooks consist of typical examples of figures, Singaporean counterparts include various examples consistent with the principle of mathematical variability.

• 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.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.375-382
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• 2015

Textbooks corresponding to curriculum goals are necessary because they are specific products of curriculum and are the most important materials for teaching, learning, and evaluation. In particular, learning objectives written in textbooks should be clearly described because they play a role in promoting learning by showing learning goals to learners clearly. This study analyzed the characteristics of verbs used as predicate of learning objectives written in high school physics I and II textbooks of Korea and compared them with physics textbooks of Singapore and the United States. Results show that Korean textbooks have less kinds of verbs compared to those of Singapore and the United States, and the verbs with abstract and comprehensive meaning such as 'understand' and 'know' were mainly used. In American textbooks, it was noticeable that no verbs have been used by more than 10%. When classifying the learning objectives in the two Korean textbooks, cognitive domain accounted for 98 to 99%, and inquiry domain accounted for only 1% to 2%. With regard to physics textbooks of the United States, inquiry domain accounted for a large proportion of domains in learning objectives compared with physics textbooks of Korea and Singapore. Physics textbooks of Singapore were similar to those of Korea in that learning objectives were biased toward cognitive domain, but differed from those of Korea in that learning objectives were specifically described using action verbs.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.547-558
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to compare inquiry activities in science textbooks' physics contents for Korean secondary schools with those of Singapore in order to provide a reference for further improvement of inquiry activities in Korean science textbooks. We analyzed inquiry activities using the framework of Millar et al.(1998) and Chinn & Malhotra (2002). The results of this study are as follows: There are differences between Korean and Singaporean inquiry activities in the area of 'learning objectives', 'students' thinking activities' and 'degree of openness'. In the area of 'learning objectives', the Korean textbooks have more activities associated with the learning of science content than those in Singaporean, whereas the Singaporean textbooks have more activities associated with the processes of scientific inquiry than in Korean textbooks. In the area of 'students' thinking activities', the Singaporean textbooks have activities like 'test a prediction', which Korean textbooks lack. The 'degree of openness' is higher in Singaporean textbooks than in Korean textbooks. And some differences in the area of 'authentic scientific inquiry' between Korean and Singaporean textbooks were also found. While the Korean textbooks do not have any activities associated with 'generating research questions', the Singaporean ones feature such activities. In the area of 'designing studies', the Singaporean textbooks have activities corresponding to 'selecting variables' and 'controlling variables', while the Korean ones never have such activities. The results of this study imply that it is necessary to balance inquiry activities in the area of 'learning objectives', 'students' thinking activities' and 'degree of openness', and to present activities close to authentic scientific inquiry in inquiry activities in textbooks.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.443-465
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• 2016

The study aims to compare our newest mathematics curriculum with Singapore's and analyse the differences of them. Because the levels of our mathematics education have been evaluated to be difficult to our students, we try to find that the evaluation is appropriate and there are other characteristics we have to notice carefully, and provide some implications for our mathematics curriculum. We mainly compared both mathematics curriculums focussed on the national documents of mathematics curriculum, and textbooks in the level of middle school. The results are following. Firstly, Singapore has three tracks based on students' abilities and there are three kinds of textbooks on the tracks. This is a different from our teaching on students level. Secondly, the introductions of our mathematics curriculum contents are not faster than Singapore's, but they have more concrete ranges of contents than us. Thirdly, the focus of Singapore's mathematics education lies on problem solving, and we can find some good examples of contents of textbook focussed on problem solving. Some mathematical concepts are introduced simply without any process of students discoveries or investigations, and the focus lies on the problem solving using the concepts. Fourthly, Singapore's mathematics textbooks are more emphasis on the internal connections than ours.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.505-525
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• 2021

In this study, we investigated how multiplication by 2-digit numbers had been taught in elementary mathematics textbooks of Korea, Japan, Singapore, and USA. As a result of analysis, we found as follows. Korean textbooks do not teach the multiplication by 10 and the multiplication by power of 10, but Japanese, Singapore, and US textbooks explicitly teach related content. In the '×tens' teaching, Japanese and American textbooks teach formally the law of association of multiplication applied in the process of calculating the partial product of multiplication. The standard multiplication algorithm generally followed a standard method of recording partial product result according to the law of distribution, but the differences were confirmed in the multiplication model, the teaching method of the law of distribution, and the notation of the last digit '0'. Based upon these results, we suggested some proposals for improving the multiplication teaching.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.283-308
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• 2021

This study aims to analyze statistical tasks in Korean and Singaporean textbooks with the mathematical modeling perspective and compare the learning contents and experiences of students from both countries. I analyzed mathematical modeling tasks in the textbooks based on five aspects: (1) the mathematical modeling process, (2) the data type, (3) the expression type, (4) the context, and (5) the mathematical activity. The results of this study show that Korean and Singaporean textbooks provide the highest percentage of the "working-with-mathematics" task, the highest percentage of the "matching task," and the highest percentage of the "picture" task. The real-world context and mathematical activities used in Korean and Singaporean textbooks differed in percentage. This study provides implications for the development of textbook tasks to support future mathematical modeling activities. This includes providing a balanced experience in mathematical modeling processes and presenting tasks in various forms of expression to raise students' cognitive level and expand the opportunity to experience meaningful mathematizing. In addition, it is necessary to present a contextually realistic task for students' interest in mathematical modeling activities or motivation for learning.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.537-555
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• 2017

This paper compared and contrasted Korean and Singaporean textbooks in order to explore the direction and possibility of teaching the big ideas related to the addition and subtraction of fractions with different denominators proposed by Lee & Pang (2016a). Firstly, we examined the teaching sequences related to the addition of fractions with different denominators in a series of elementary mathematics textbooks of Korea and Singapore. We then analyzed what types of representations are used and how the representations are presented for the big ideas related to the addition of fractions with different denominators. The results of the analysis showed that the contents related to fraction addition are addressed more gradually and systematically in Singaporean textbooks compared to Korean counterparts. The graphical representations appeared in the Singaporean textbooks provide specific implications for teaching the big ideas of the addition of fractions with different denominators. Based on such implications, we expect that the big ideas related to the addition of fractions with different denominators will be addressed explicitly and systematically in Korean textbooks.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.453-473
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• 2018

In this study, we analyzed the contents of speed concept presented in Korean, Japanese, Singapore, and American elementary mathematics textbooks, and drew implications for the teaching of speed concept in elementary schools. We developed a textbook analysis framework by theoretical discussions on the characteristics of the speed concept based on the proportional relationship and the previous researches on the speed in elementary mathematics. We analyzed the textbooks of four countries and drew some suggestions for improving the teaching of speed concept in Korean elementary schools.