• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.378-385
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• 2012

In this study, the relationship between students' out-of-school science experience and their view on the nature of science was investigated. The participants were 267 sixth graders, 281 eighth graders, and 307 tenth graders from schools in Seoul. A test of views on the nature of science which consists of five items concerning the purpose of science, the definition of scientific theory, the nature of scientific model, the tentativeness of scientific theory, and the origin of scientific theory was administered. Students' out-of-school science experiences were measured with a subscale of the modified Science Experience Survey consisting of seven items. The results indicated that no statistically significant relationship was found between students' out-of-school science experience and their view on the nature of science in sixth graders. In eighth graders, high level students in terms of out-of-school science experiences were found to possess more contemporarily epistemological view in the item concerning the nature of scientific model but more falsificationist view in the item concerning the tentativeness of scientific theory. High level tenth graders in terms of out-of-school science experiences exhibited more epistemologically sophisticated understandings of the nature of science than their counterparts in the items concerning the purpose of science, the definition of scientific theory, and the nature of scientific model.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.63 no.6
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• pp.473-485
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• 2019

In this study, we investigated the differences of graph constructed by middle school students in daily-life and scientific contexts according to the views on the nature of scientific measurement. A test consisting of three similar data sets regarding daily-life and scientific contexts was developed, and administered to 151 ninth graders. They were expected to construct proportional, inverse-proportional, and increasing and become constant form of graphs for each data set. Graphs constructed were analyzed in the aspects of constructing a trend line (types of a trend line, interpolation/extrapolation), selecting axes variables, scaling axes, and plotting points. Analyses of the results revealed that the students with set paradigm tended to construct a curved trend line, while those with point paradigm constructed a broken trend line in inverse-proportional graph questions. In the aspects of interpolation/extrapolation, most students with set paradigm performed both interpolation and extrapolation better than those with point paradigm in scientific context. Most students with set paradigm performed both interpolation and extrapolation regardless of contexts, while the proportion of interpolation of those with point paradigm was higher in scientific context than in daily-life context. In selecting axes variables, scaling axes, and plotting dots, there were no statistically significant differences between set and point paradigms. On the bases of the results, educational implications for improving graph construction skills of middle school students are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.430-441
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• 2011

We investigated the elementary students' epistemological views on the nature of scientific measurement. The Views About Scientific Measurement (Ibrahim, 2005) was administered to 117 sixth graders. The analyses of the results indicated that there was an inconsistency in their epistemological views depending on the contexts of the measurement. They also had some difficulties in understanding a distribution of the data, which is needed to understand the necessity of repeating measurements, choosing a best representative value, and comparing data sets. They were found to have some naive views on scientific measurement which influenced negatively for fostering modern epistemological views on the nature of scientific measurement. The results suggest that the nature of scientific measurement should be emphasized explicitly in the national curriculum, and an effective method which improves elementary students' epistemological views on the nature of scientific measurement also be developed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.680-692
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• 2000

An assessment instrument dealing with secondary students' views on the nature of science was developed in this study. The features in aspects of the nature of science are generally accepted as characterizing the scientific enterprise and we have focused on are: 1) the purposes of the scientific enterprise, 2) the nature of scientific enquiry, 3) the nature and status of scientific knowledge, and 4) the nature and functioning of the scientific community. The questionnaire is made of three sections; that is, "Scientific Question", "Experiment", and "Belief". The Scientific Questions probe was designed to examine the ways in which learners mark out science as a particular domain, and particularly the types of questions that they think are open to scientific investigation. The Experiment probe was designed to throw light on the ways in which learners may think about theories and their relationship to evidence in a range of contexts. A related aim concerns the sorts of activities that learners consider to be experiments, and their reasons for this. The Belief probe was designed to see whether students are able to articulate the grounds for their acceptance of a proposition and, if they are, to explore the nature of these grounds. The reliability of the instrument developed in this study was found to be 0.86.