• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.565-578
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to search for the factors that influence students' understanding of the nature of science through the experience of the cognitive processes of authentic open inquiries. The freshmen of a science high school practiced authentic open inquiries reflecting epistemological characteristics of authentic science. The case study was conducted with four focus students who were successful or unsuccessful at learning the nature of science during the authentic open inquiry activity. Questions that the focus students asked during the inquiries as well as students' answers to pre- and post-VNOS (C type) were analysed, and then elaborated in the semi-structured interview. The findings suggest that open inquiry activities provide the inquiry contexts that help science high school students to understand the nature of science, and that the characteristics of students' cognition influence the understanding of the nature of science. For instance, designing experiments with their own research questions had an influence on the students' understanding about the scientific methods and the diversity of research types, and drawing conclusions from their own data made students experience scientific reasoning. In addition, the experience of collecting anomalous data helped students to understand the role of inferences in generating scientific knowledge and the creative nature of scientific knowledge. In this inquiry context, the reflective thinking that came from proactive discussion among students, made students think about the validity of the designing experiments and interpreting data, and helped them to understand the uncertain nature of reasoning and the diverse nature of scientific methods. Moreover, divergent thinking linked to analogical thinking helped students to understand the creative nature of science.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.53-68
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• 2017

Although the table, as one of the representations for helping mathematics understanding, steadily has been shown in the mathematics textbooks, there have been little studies that focus on the table and analyze how the table may be used in understanding students' functional thinking. This study investigated the elementary school 5th graders' abilities to design function tables. The results showed that about 75% of the students were able to create tables for themselves, which shaped horizontal and included information only from the problem contexts. And the students had more difficulties in solving geometric growing pattern problems than story problems. Building on these results, this paper is expected to provide implications of instructional directions of how to use the table as 'function table'.

• 한국지구과학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.04a
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• pp.71-71
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• 2010

대학생들의 야외 지질 실습 전과 후에 퇴적층 형성에 대한 이해도 변화를 파악하기 위해 충남대학교 지질환경과학과 3학년 재학생 27명을 대상으로 3일 동안, 참여 학생들에게 매일 실습 전과 후로 나누어 6번의 설문 조사를 실시하였다. 설문 조사 문항은 모두 주관식이며, 3일에 걸쳐 총 68문항을 제공하였다. 제시된 문항은 퇴적층 형성과 관련된 기본개념 31문항과 조사 지역의 노두관찰 37문항으로 분류 된다. 야외 실습 전과 후의 개인별 점수를 각각 비교한 결과 실습에 참여한 모든 학생들의 점수가 향상되었다. 실습 3일에 대한 전체 학생들의 평균점수는 실습 전에 28.3점, 후에 51.6점으로 실습 전보다 후에 34.2% 향상되었다. 또한 전체 학생들의 기본개념 31문항에 대한 평균점수는 실습 전에 19.8점, 후에 26.9점으로 22.9%, 조사 지역 노두관찰 37문항에 대해서는 실습전에 8.5점, 후에 24.7점으로 43.8%가 각각 향상되었다. 퇴적층은 공간적으로 넓은 장소와 시간적으로 오랜 기간 동안에 걸쳐 형성되어 학생들은 광범위한 공간적, 시간적 개념을 이해하는 것이 필요하며 대학의 지질학 교육 과정에서 야외실습은 필수적인 요소이다. 야외 실습은 학습자가 직접 자연과 같은 실제 세계를 관찰하고 조사하는 활동으로 이루어지는 학습 방법으로 교실 밖에서 일어나는 모든 학습을 총칭한다고 할 수 있다. 본 연구 결과는 야외 실습 후에 학생들의 점수가 향상된 것을 보여주었다. 이런 결과는 야외 실습이 야외에서 학습자가 주체가 되어 적극적인 참여로 학습하는 학생 중심 학습이고, 자연 환경을 학습의 장으로 하여 실물을 활용한 직접적인 조사활동과 같은 경험에 의한 체험 학습이기 때문인 것으로 해석된다. 또한 야외 실습에서 그룹 활동은 학생들이 지질조사를 하면서 발견된 문제나 내용에 대해 공유할 수 있는 토론 학습인 동시에 야외 활동에서 교수는 전문가 혹은 학습 촉매자로서 문제에 대한 해결책을 주거나 학생들에게 질문이나 토론의 기회를 주어 학생들의 지적, 정신적 향상에 영향을 미치기 때문인 것으로 보인다. 그러므로 야외 실습은 계획, 실행, 정리 단계가 매우 중요하다. 우선 장소 선정에 있어 강의실에서 토론된 주제 및 개념과 관련된 장소를 선정해야 하며, 야외에서는 학생과 학생, 학생과 교수 간의 그룹 활동, 토의 및 질문 시간을 충분히 가져야 함은 물론 실습 후에는 세미나를 통해 야외 활동에서 새롭게 발견하거나 조사 및 학습한 내용, 해결하지 못한 문제 등을 토론하고 정리하는 과정을 갖는 것이 필요하다고 판단된다.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.895-905
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• 2015

Citizens should be sensitive to the complex and controversial SSIs (Socioscientific Issues), be able to make a responsible decision with evidence and empathy, and furthermore take political action for the larger welfare. The premise of this research is that understanding the nature of science (NOS) takes an important role when students and adults participate in the discourse on SSIs because SSI reasoning requires individuals to examine information and counter-information with skepticism. We therefore designed SSI programs that were incorporated with NOS by adapting a contextualized-reflective approach. The leading research question was to what extent SSI contexts contributed to promoting students' understanding of NOS. A total of 71 11th grade students participated in this program. The school was located in an urban city near the capital city of Seoul, South Korea. We designed SSI programs to cover the issues of genetically modified organisms, climate change, and nuclear energy. Each issue required four to six class periods to complete. We conducted pre- and post-program tests using the revised VNOS-C, recorded group discussions or debates and collected student worksheets to observe the increase of student NOS understanding. As a result of this program, students showed moderate improvement in their understanding of NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.335-347
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• 2014

Size/scale is a central idea in the science curriculum, providing explanations for various phenomena. However, few studies have been conducted to explore student understanding of this concept and to suggest instructional approaches in scientific contexts. In contrast, there have been more studies in mathematics, regarding the use of number lines to relate the nature of numbers to operation and representation of magnitude. In order to better understand variations in student conceptions of size/scale in scientific contexts and explain learning difficulties including alternative conceptions, this study suggests an approach that links mathematics with the analysis of student conceptions of size/scale, i.e. the analysis of mathematical structure and reasoning for a number line. In addition, data ranging from high school to college students facilitate the interpretation of conceptual complexity in terms of mathematical development of a number line. In this sense, findings from this study better explain the following by mathematical reasoning: (1) varied student conceptions, (2) key aspects of each conception, and (3) potential cognitive dimensions interpreting the size/scale concepts. Results of this study help us to understand the troublesomeness of learning size/scale and provide a direction for developing curriculum and instruction for better understanding.

• Education of Primary School Mathematics
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2024

Recently, the 2022 revised mathematics curriculum has established achievement standards for equal sign and equality, and efforts have been made to examine teaching methods and student understanding of relational understanding of equal sign. In this context, this study conducted a lesson that emphasized relational understanding in an introduction to equal sign, and compared and analyzed the understanding of equal sign between the experimental group, which participated in the lesson emphasizing relational understanding and the control group, which participated in the standard lesson. For this purpose, two classes of students participated in this study, and the results were analyzed by administering pre- and post-tests on the understanding of equal sign. The results showed that students in the experimental group had significantly higher average scores than students in the control group in all areas of equation-structure, equal sign-definition, and equation-solving. In addition, when comparing the means of students by item, we found that there was a significant difference between the means of the control group and the experimental group in the items dealing with equal sign in the structure of 'a=b' and 'a+b=c+d', and that most of the students in the experimental group correctly answered 'sameness' as the meaning of equal sign, but there were still many responses that interpreted the equal sign as 'answer'. Based on these results, we discussed the implications for instruction that emphasizes relational understanding in equal sign introduction lessons.

• School Mathematics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.139-154
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• 2008

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how sixth grade elementary school students react to the types of letters use, what levels of understanding letters students are in and what difficulties are in understanding letters, and to raise issues about instructional methods of algebra. A descriptive study through pencil-and- paper tests was conducted. The test instruments consisted of 18 questions with 6 types of letters use. According to the results of testing, students' types of letter use and the levels of understanding letters were classified. The conclusions from the results of this study were as follows: First, the higher the types of letters use, the more sixth grade elementary school students had low scores on the types. Therefore, teaching methodologies of letters and expressions in the classroom need to encourage for students to improve their ability of using and understanding letter. Second, approximately 40% of students were categorized in level 3. Accordingly it is necessary to have a program of teaching and learning to improve their understanding levels of letters. Third, approximately 15% of students were categorized in level 0. In order to develop understanding of letters, it is important that students use letter evaluated and letter used as an object. Fourth, students had the difficulties in understanding letters. It is informative for teachers to understand these students' difficulties and thinking processes. Finally, we must treat the different uses of letters and introduce them successively according to the student's understanding levels of letters.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.346-352
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• 2009

The purpose of this research was to analyze the chinese chemistry terminology in chemistry unit of 7th grade science textbooks in 7th curriculum and find relationship between student understanding and difficulty index for chinese preferred students and non-chinese preferred students. The chinese terminology in 7th curriculum was reduced less than that of 6th curriculum but still was over 70%. Students had difficulties in understanding of abstract terminologies and science terms but thought easily the concrete, common terminologies. The tendency of student understanding was similar to that of difficulty index. For chinese chemistry terminology, understanding of chinese preferred students was higher than that of non-chinese preferred students. For easily translated chemistry terminology, there was no significant difference but both were showed the improved understanding. Therefore student understanding should be improved in science if science textbooks would be written by easily translated chemistry terminology.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.419-436
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• 2007

It is significant that students understand why they have to learn mathematics, because such understanding has a powerful impact not only on affective but also on cognitive aspects in mathematics education. However, studies on in what ways students perceive the purpose of mathematics education are not sufficient. Given this background, this study examined 6th grade students' conception on the intention of learning mathematics by survey and Interview in order to raise subtle but important issues to improve mathematics education. Elementary students showed that they didn't perceive the multiple purposes of mathematics education. Their conceptions were focused on practicality, academic values and the preparation for the future of mathematics. Lower achievers had a tendency to relatively more negative responses to the purposes of mathematics education. This study underlines the importance of the purpose of studying mathematics on the part of students.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to propose instructional methods using base-ten blocks in teaching the multiplication of decimal for 5th grade students by analyzing the process of their conceptual comprehension of multiplication of decimal. The students in this study were found to understand various meanings of operations (e.g., repeated addition, bundling, and area) by modeling them with base-ten blocks. They were able to identify the algorithm through the use of base-ten blocks and to understand the principle of calculations by connecting the manipulative activities to each stage of algorithm. The students were also able to determine whether the results of multiplication of decimal might be reasonable using base-ten blocks. This study suggests that appropriate use of base-ten blocks promotes the conceptual understanding of the multiplication of decimal.