• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.210-223
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to analyze the stresses of teachers for elementary science class. To do these, the Science Teacher Stress Inventory has been developed the Science Teacher Stress Inventory, which consisted of 45 stress factors with subcategories such as student characteristics, teacher characteristics, expertise of science education, school environment, and administrative procedures. 120 teachers for elementary science class have participated in this questionnaire survey. The results of this study are as follow: First, stress from teacher characteristics is perceived as having more stress factors than five stress factors (student characteristics, teacher characteristics, expertise of science education, school environment, and administrative procedures). but all of the five stress factors was under normal. The detail question of stress such as 'Having to guide educational guidance and course in life education', 'Having to cope with the demand of new curricula', 'Pace of the school day is too fast', 'No time to attend training of the experiment (preliminary experiment)', 'Not enough time to complete lesson preparation and marking', 'Having to cope with non-teaching delegated duties', 'Fear of getting injured as a result of lab accidents' are perceived as having a lot of stresses. Second, there were not statistically significant differences in their personal variables such as gender, the course of high school. but there were statistically significant differences in their personal variables such as whether elementary subject exclusive science teacher, career in education experience, teaching grade. Third, coping ways of stresses are active support for better science teaching conditions, training of the experiment for expertise of science education, developing a workbook for science class.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.183-193
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• 2015

Teacher guidebooks are practical and commonly used resources for teachers to deliver the goals and contents of science curriculum in classroom teaching. Thus, the alignment of teacher guidebooks and science curriculum could be critical to undertake the effectiveness of curriculum implication in science classrooms. This study is to investigate how the learning objectives of science curriculum are implicated in teacher guidebooks by analyzing the dimensions of knowledge and cognitive process in learning objectives in both documents. Grade 3~4 learning objectives (82 objectives in the curriculum, 459 in the teacher guidebook, 541 in total) in 2009 Revised science curriculum and teacher guidebooks were coded and analyzed based on the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. The analysis focused on how the knowledge dimensions and cognitive processes of the curriculum were emphasized and restructured in the teacher guidebooks to examine the coalition between the two important documents. The study found: 1) the learning objectives in Grade 3~4 in both documents were skewed to certain knowledge dimension (conceptual) and cognitive process (understand); 2) there was a high coalition between unit objectives and lesson objectives in the teacher guidebooks, however, relatively low coalition between the curriculum and the teacher guidebooks; and 3) learning objectives in the curriculum were delivered in teacher guidebooks in various patterns (similar, detailed, additional, in portion, and the same), and 'detailed' and 'additional' were frequently shown. There also appeared new objectives in the teacher guidebooks, which were not present in the curriculum. The findings in this study could provide some suggestions to the current project of developing 2015 Science Curriculum in regard to understanding the dimensions of knowledge and cognitive process of learning objectives and their alignments with textbooks and teacher guidebooks.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.155-167
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• 2020

This study analyzed reference data for the physics section in science guidebooks for the third-sixth grade in elementary schools, according to the 2015 revised curriculum. It analyzed the reference data by categorizing them in terms of subjects, objectives and presentation forms and the visual data used in the reference data by categorizing their types. The findings show that the ratio of the science knowledge type was highest (53.8%) among the subjects of reference data in guidebooks for the science section, followed by the application to real life, and then, supplementary inquiry experiments and activities. The ratios of other types such as advanced science, environment, scientists and science history were, however, less than 1%, so they need to be improved. The ratio of knowledge provision was highest (40.5%) among the objectives of reference data but the ratios of conceptual supplementation and deepening were similar in ratio. Meanwhile, While the expository type (88.4%) accounted for most of the present forms of reference data, and photographs and illustrations (93.6%) also accounted for most of visual data suggested with reference data. Thus more various types of presentation forms and the extension of visual data seemed to be needed. This study is expected to provide some suggestions for the meaningful use of reference data in guidebooks for teachers and for the development of science guidebooks for teachers in elementary schools.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.255-270
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the elementary pre-service teachers' views about "the purpose of science experiments". For the study, the views about the purposes of scientists' experiments and school science experiments were surveyed from 227 pre-service teachers. And the responses were analyzed based on their gender, intensive majors and school science test scores. The main results of the study are as follows. First, in relation to the purpose of scientists' experiments, the pre-service teachers considered internal values of doing experiments were more worthy than the external values of it. In particular, the pre-service teachers responded that the most important purpose of the science experiments is 'to get the evidences for the theories and arguments'. On the other hand, the views from the women and social studies major pre-service teachers were more diverse than those of the man and science major pre-service teachers. Second, in relation to the purpose of school science experiments, the pre-service teachers excessively considered that the internal values of school science experiments were more worthy than the external values. In particular, only few pre-service teachers were aware of social and personal aspects of the experiments, though they considered well that the experiments are useful tools for the school science study. Third, there were quite different aspects of pre-service teachers' views between the purposes of scientists' experiments and school science experiments. For example, the views about the scientist's experiments were relatively broad concerning the nature of scientific experiments, but the school science experiments were just regarded as an educational tool for the science study. Based on the results from the study, some science educational implication were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.372-385
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• 2012

For decades, reflection has been recognised as a meaningful tool to bring forth teachers' ownership as well as knowledge and action empowerment in teacher education. Yet there have been few studies on elementary teachers' reflection on their science teaching in Korea. In this study, 71 reflective journals of 24 elementary teachers on their science teaching were analyzed. The characteristics of reflective journals were analyzed in terms of 'productive reflection', a concept suggested by Davis (2006). Unproductive reflection is mainly descriptive without analysis, whereas productive reflection can promote teachers' learning by integrating four aspects of teaching (learner/learning, subject matter knowledge, instruction and assessment). The result showed what elementary teachers consider and emphasize and how they integrate their ideas. Most of reflective journals included aspects of 'instruction', 'learner/learning', and 'subject matter knowledge'. However 'instruction' was emphasized most frequently (69.0%) than 'subject matter knowledge' (33.8%) and 'learner/learning' (26.8%). 'Assessment' was hardly included nor emphasized. More than half of the journals (56.3%) showed no integrations, which were unproductive reflection. A third of the journals (32.4%) integrated only two aspects among four. Average score of integrations was 1.6 on a scale of 4 points. The integrations were not affected by the length of reflective journals and the teaching experience. These findings suggest that productive reflection would not increase naturally with teaching experience and there needs more tactful guidance to develop elementary teachers' productive reflection on their science teaching.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.334-346
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• 2012

For teachers' conceptions and understandings are critical to their decision making and classroom practice, this study attempts to understand pre-service elementary teachers' views and practices of science inquiry during peer teaching practice. Fifteen 4th year university students in teacher education program participated in peer teaching practice. Their teaching and reflective discussion were video and audio recorded and written lesson plans were collected for data analysis. Five science teacher educators individually looked into the data and shared their comments and interpretations on pre-service teachers' views and practice. The study findings suggest that pre-service teachers emphasized the importance of providing students with motivating resources in the beginning of lesson, employing certain inquiry teaching models, the process of predicting and dis/proving via experiment, and teachers' minimal intervention as the important features of inquiry teaching. Science teacher educators emphasized that it is critical to help children understand inquiry questions in the beginning of inquiry process, to be mindful of children's problem solving and critical thinking rather than following instruction models or simply going through prediction and test process. They also commented that teachers' guidance could lead a good inquiry process in classroom practice, not always interfering students' inquiry. Based on the findings, the study suggests science teacher educators need to understand what and how pre-service teachers view and practice science inquiry teaching and consider these as useful resources where they can start effective teaching for pre-service teachers at the university level.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.22-31
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• 2010

In this study, elementary school teachers' needs for the website providing science instructional materials were examined. The participants were 151 elementary school teachers. The test for needs analysis consisted of fifty-three Likert-type items; 24 items for the content of website category and 29 items for the design of website category. Variables about participants' characteristics such as teaching career, the capability of using computers, and the frequencies of searching websites in obtaining science instructional materials were also examined. The results indicated that teachers' needs for the content of website category were significantly higher than those for the design of website category. Teachers' needs were relatively higher in the items concerning flawless materials, consistency of materials with science curriculum and/or learning objectives, information about target grade and/or related topics, free website, and the materials capable of immediate use in the content of website category. The items concerning the stability of website, the accuracy of links, providing easy and reliable searching methods, easy and fast downloading, and providing list of loaded materials showed relatively higher needs in the design of website category. In several items, teachers' needs were also changed with their individual characteristics.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.262-276
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate and analyze the elementary teachers' views and students' views about the difficulties in teaching and learning on open inquiry activities of elementary school science. Semi-structured interviews were conducted individually with three elementary teachers who have serviced more than three years, and with twenty four elementary students attending schools located in Cheongju City. And their anecdotes were collected and analyzed. The interview questions were developed through Seidman's steps to acquire the reliability in the interview data. From the interviews and anecdotes, we found that elementary teachers' views about the difficulties of teaching open inquiry activities: the difficulties of teaching in finding inquiry problem and planning inquiry, the difficulties of managing group activities, the difficulties of managing class hours for inquiry, the lack of the students' inquiry abilities, and problems on students' affective characteristics. And the students have the views about the difficulties in doing open inquiry activities: the difficulties of finding inquiry problem and planning inquiry, being unaccustomed to write reports, the troubles with investigating, problems on affective characteristics, the difficulties of joining in a group, and the lack of inquiry abilities. The teachers give suggestions for effective application of the open inquiry activities: first, the teachers must encourage students' emotion and will in doing open inquiry activities, second, there must be the steady inquiry teaching and learning in ordinary elementary science classes. Based on the results, this study suggested that elementary teachers should concern specially about students' being unaccustomed to write reports and the troubles in doing scientific investigation.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.531-538
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• 2005

The primary purpose of the study was to investigate the degree of difficulty and the causes of the difficulties in science instruction reported by elementary teachers and students. The secondary purpose was to suggest the effective methods to both of them to improve the efficiency of science instruction. For this study, the survey was carried out on 322 students and 156 teachers in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. The questionnaires consisted of interest, difficulty and its factors. The results of this investigation are summarized as follows; 1. Teachers had relatively higher interest than students in science instruction content(textbook). Furthermore, the units that teachers showed interest differed from those that students had. This means that there is a significant difference of interest in instruction process between teachers and students. 2. Teachers felt much higher difficulty than students in the content of science instruction. This shows that the degree of interest might have little relation with that of difficulty, and that teaching of science seemed more difficult than teaming. Moreover, there was a difference of difficulty in the units between the teachers and students. The result shows a distinctive difference of difficulty in 8 units of the 3rd grade, 9 units n the 4th grade, and 12 units in the 5th grade (p<.05, p<.001, p<.005, respectively). It means that the difficulty depended on the units. 3. Students responded that they are responsible for difficulty factors of teaming, otherwise teachers thought that students are responsible for it, when the factors were divided into student factor, teacher factor, and curriculum factor. 4. Students demanded many experiments in the lab as well as easy and interesting instructions in order to reduce the degree of difficulty and to improve the condition of science instructions. However, teachers demanded the expansion of experimental equipments and materials as well as the improvement of the lab condition.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.252-259
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the status and science teachers' perceptions of classes for those gifted in science in elementary school. For this purpose, a number of questions were posed to teachers : 27-item-questionnaires were given to 38 teachers of students gifted in science in elementary schools located in Incheon province. The results of this study were as follows : 1. most elementary teachers were in charge of classes containing students gifted in science, but this was the case with only a few secondary teachers. Therefore, it appears to be more necessary to educate elementary teachers who majored in science content and gifted education. 2. In addition, most teachers had positive perceptions of the needs, attitudes and environments needed for gifted education. Most of them attended 60-hour training programs on gifted education. They thought that it was helpful in understanding the characteristics of gifted students, but they wanted to learn more about actual pedagogical methods through such programs. 3. The teaching methods used in classes for those gifted in science were mainly experimental activities, but there were few opportunities for creative problem solving and project learning. This may be due to limited class time of about one hour every two weeks in this class. 4. When the materials used in class were first developed, they mainly used materials made by the city board of education and selected the theme of interest by themselves. Therefore, there may be problems of duplication of materials or systems regarding the science contents for one year. 5. Furthermore, the themes of the materials used were mostly related in terms of the contents of textbooks than more generally. When planning and managing the classes for those gifted in science, the above points should be considered in order to improve the education of those students gifted in science.