• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.404-411
• /
• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the types of explanation about different experimental data on students' preconceptions on physical experiment. 45 students were selected from P University by examining their pre-test. The subjects had a scientific conception about a simple pendulum's period of movement, and expected that there was no change in the movement even when the mass of water increased in the can. The students were presented data about pendulum movement inside a can. They recorded this in a blank table and drew a graph about the movement of the pendulum. The responses of students were tested by presenting written anomalous experimental data. Students' recognition, trust about the anomalous data, cognitive conflict, belief change about their preconceptions were examined with written tests also. To measure students' cognitive conflict levels, CCLT (Cognitive Conflict Levels Test) developed in a previous study was used. Some students responded based on preconceptions and regarded the data as manufactured data or experimental error. The students who recognized the anomaly in the situation showed higher cognitive conflict levels than those who didn't recognize the anomaly in the situation. The students who changed their beliefs about preconceptions recognized the data as anomalous situations and showed high cognitive conflict levels than those who didn't abandon their preconceptions. The students who have unchanged beliefs about their preconceptions regarded the data as experimental error.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.239-266
• /
• 2004

This article presents new perspectives for analysing and diagnosing students' mathematical errors on the basis of Pascaul-Leone's neo-Piagetian theory. Although Pascaul-Leone's theory is a cognitive developmental theory, its psychological mechanism gives us new insights on mathematical errors. We analyze mathematical errors in the domain of proof problem solving comparing Pascaul-Leone's psychological mechanism with mathematical errors and diagnose misleading factors using Schoenfeld's levels of analysis and structure and fuzzy cognitive map(FCM). FCM can present with cause and effect among preconceptions or misconceptions that students have about prerequisite proof knowledge and problem solving. Conclusions could be summarized as follows: 1) Students' mathematical errors on proof problem solving and LC learning structures have the same nature. 2) Structures in items of students' mathematical errors and misleading factor structures in cognitive tasks affect mental processes with the same activation mechanism. 3) LC learning structures were activated preferentially in knowledge structures by F operator. With the same activation mechanism, the process students' mathematical errors were activated firstly among conceptions could be explained.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.21-33
• /
• 1999

The purpose of this study was to develop an Instrument for the Measurement of Cognitive Conflict Levels of students who confronted with an anomalous situation in science teaming. Anomalous situation is generated when students' prediction is disconsistent with the observed fact. In this study, the researchers identified 4 components of cognitive conflict and developed three items for each component. The items were developed and revised by four pilot tests. In the first pilot test, 55 elementary school students participated in the test In the second pilot test, 88 students of the 5th and 6th grader participated in the test. The instrument of measuring cognitive conflict levels was given to the subjects right after demonstrating anomalous situation. For the demonstration, two different problem situations were developed: one was a pulley problem and the other was electric bulbs in parallel. Answered reasons for each items were analyzed to assess students' understanding on each items. In third pilot test, 125 elementary school students participated in the test. A factor analysis of the responses was carried out and reliability of the test was assessed by calculating internal consistency values. The items were finalized by three pilot tests. After 1 month after the third pilot test, researchers conducted the finalized test items to 323 students of the 5th and 6th grader. The final instrument showed moderate reliability (Cronbach-α 0.82∼0.87) and good content validity(0.93). A factor analysis of the response was carried out. 4 main factors completely coincided with 4 components that we supposed to be the conducts of cognitive conflict. The instrument can provide a means for both teachers and researchers to assess the cognitive conflict of a large number of students within a single class period. The results can be used by teachers to better understand the process of conceptual change of their students and to match instruction and materials accordingly.

• The Mathematical Education
• /
• v.62 no.2
• /
• pp.257-268
• /
• 2023

The purpose of the study is to analyze the characteristics of open-ended tasks in terms of cognitive demands. For this purpose, we analyzed characteristics of open-ended tasks presented in the sequence units of three high school mathematics textbooks. The results of the study have revealed that low cognitive demand levels of open-ended tasks had characteristics including procedures within previous tasks or within those tasks. On the other hand, high cognitive demand levels of open-ended tasks had characteristics of actively exploring new conditions to gain access to what is being sought, requesting a basis for judgement, linking various representations to the concepts of sequences, or requiring a variety of answers. These results are significant in that they not only specified the characteristics of open-ended tasks with high cognitive demands in terms of the intended curriculum, but also provided a direction for the development of open-ended taks with high congitive demands.

• Korean Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.40-45
• /
• 2014

Objectives : Mild cognitive impairment(MCI) and dementia of Alzheimer's type(AD) are characterized by progressive decline of cognitive abilities and a wide range of neuropsychiatric symptoms like depression. Among various diagnostic tools of AD, many studies showed that elevated levels of serum total homocysteine are associated with increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders. We investigated whether elevated homocysteine concentrations are associated with depressive symptoms in MCI and AD. Methods : A total of 86 patients diagnosed with MCI or AD participated. Total serum homocysteine levels in fasting blood samples were measured. We examined cognitive symptoms by MMSE-KC, Global Deterioration Scale(GDS), Clinical dementia rating(CDR) and depressive symptoms by Korean version of Geriatric Depression Scale(K-GDS). Results : The total serum homocysteine levels were significantly higher in MCI with depression than in MCI without depression. There was no significant difference in the mean homocysteine levels between AD patients with depression and AD patients without depression. The total homocysteine levels showed a negative correlation with MMSE-KC and a positive correlation with CDR, GDS. Conclusions : These findings suggest that elevated homocysteine level is a risk factor for the decline of cognitive function and depression. We found a significant relationship between elevated serum homocysteine level and depressive symptoms in MCI. But our study had several limitations, thus more research is needed to confirm this finding.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.61-76
• /
• 1996

The purpose of this study was to apply the instructional strategies for conceptual change prescribed by Posner et al(1982) to the astronomic content domain taught in the elementary and middle school and to analyze the characteristics of students' knowledge revealed in the test before, during and after the instruction. Also, it was to investigate the intercorrelation of cognitive levels, spatial ability and science achievement. The major findings of this study are as follows: 1. Students had a great variety of misconceptions related to the motion of the moon before the instruction, that is, the phases, the names of phases and the cause of changing phases by the moon's orbit about the earth, the moon's appearance and location at the given time, the relative positions of earth, moon and sun during a lunar eclipse, the cause that a full moon is not at the line of node once a month. In the analysis of students' responses concerning the cause of changing phases of the moon and a lunar eclipse, the results indicate that the great majority of students had rote learning rather than meaningful learning in the middle school. 2. Students' reponses during the instruction concerning the changing phases of the moon and the predictive knowledge about the motions of the earth and the moon were analyzed. 1) According to the results of the test given before and after experiment, after discussion, achievement score of the whole of subjects and groups in both preformal and formal cognitive levels appeared to increase linearly. 2) There was no statistically significant differences of achievement scores before and after experiment, after discussion between preformal group and formal group in cognitive levels. 3. Distribution of achievement scores according to the whole of subjects and groups in preformal and formal cognitive levels shows that there was a statistically significant difference between pretest and posttest. 4. Types of conceptual changes concerning the cause of changing phases of the moon that occurred from pretest to posttest were classified as accommodation, incomplete accommodation, assimilation, no change and no model. Six of the seven students starting instruction with alternative frameworks didn't sustain those alternative models throughout instruction. Five of these six students accommodated completely and the last one partially. Seventy-nine percentage of students taking instruction with fragmental models assimilated correct propositions at the end of the instruction. These results suggest that conceptual change model prescribed by Posner et al(1982) has promised the meaningful learning to students taking with fragmental models, especially in cases where students with misconception enter instruction. 5. High correlation between achievement score of simple-recall items and that of written items in pretest and posttest indicates that the higher students got the score in simple-recall items the better they also performed in written items. However, there was no statistically significant differences among cognitive levels, spatial ability and science achievement in the whole of subjects and groups according to the cognitive levels.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Cognitive Science Conference
• /
• 2010.05a
• /
• pp.2-7
• /
• 2010

Formally, we may define cognitive science as the convergent study between symbolic and connectionist approaches at macro and micro levels. Since what we refer to as the human mind is regarded as a mathematical product of the human brain and the computing machine, we can obtain two mathematical dynamical projections: one from the set of human brains to the set of mind, the other from the set of computing machines to the set of mind. Then, we are having a new projection from the classical models to the quantum mind.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.287-303
• /
• 2005

This study examined the effect of cognitive ability levels on skill acquisition and transfer as a function of training difficulty. Participants were classified into three groups based on the result of cognitive ability tests. They were trained with difficult or easy tasks and then transferred to novel difficult tasks. Results suggest that cognitive ability levels influenced training performance, though the effect of training difficulty on transfer performance varied with cognitive ability. The training difficulty was most effective for those who have the medium level of cognitive ability. These results were discussed with respect to individual differences and skill transfer performance.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.293-305
• /
• 2016

Objective: This study aims to measure cognitive load levels by analyzing the EEG of Koreans and foreigners, when they read a Korean text with care selected by level from the grammar and vocabulary aspects, and compare the cognitive load levels through quantitative values. The study results can be utilized as basic data for more scientific approach, when Korean texts or books are developed, and an evaluation method is built, when the foreigners encounter them for learning or an assignment. Background: Based on 2014, the number of the foreign students studying in Korea was 84,801, and they increase annually. Most of them are from Asian region, and they come to Korea to enter a university or a graduate school in Korea. Because those foreign students aim to learn within Universities in Korea, they receive Korean education from their preparation for study in Korea. To enter a university in Korea, they must acquire grade 4 or higher level in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK), or they need to complete a certain educational program at each university's affiliated language institution. In such a program, the learners of the Korean language receive Korean education based on texts, except speaking domain, and the comprehension of texts can determine their academic achievements in studying after they enter their desired schools (Jeon, 2004). However, many foreigners, who finish a language course for the short-term, and need to start university study, cannot properly catch up with university classes requiring expertise with the vocabulary and grammar levels learned during the language course. Therefore, reading education, centered on a strategy to understand university textbooks regarded as top level reading texts to the foreigners, is necessary (Kim and Shin, 2015). This study carried out an experiment from a perspective that quantitative data on the readers of the main player of reading education and teaching materials need to be secured to back up the need for reading education for university study learners, and scientifically approach educational design. Namely, this study grasped the difficulty level of reading through the measurement of cognitive loads indicated in the reading activity of each text by dividing the difficulty of a teaching material (book) into eight levels, and the main player of reading into Koreans and foreigners. Method: To identify cognitive loads indicated upon reading Korean texts with care by Koreans and foreigners, this study recruited 16 participants (eight Koreans and eight foreigners). The foreigners were limited to the language course students studying the intermediate level Korean course at university-affiliated language institutions within Seoul Metropolitan Area. To identify cognitive load, as they read a text by level selected from the Korean books (difficulty: eight levels) published by King Sejong Institute (Sejonghakdang.org), the EEG sensor was attached to the frontal love (Fz) and occipital lobe (Oz). After the experiment, this study carried out a questionnaire survey to measure subjective evaluation, and identified the comprehension and difficulty on grammar and words. To find out the effects on schema that may affect text comprehension, this study controlled the Korean texts, and measured EEG and subjective satisfaction. Results: To identify brain's cognitive load, beta band was extracted. As a result, interactions (Fz: p =0.48; Oz: p =0.00) were revealed according to Koreans and foreigners, and difficulty of the text. The cognitive loads of Koreans, the readers whose mother tongue is Korean, were lower in reading Korean texts than those of the foreigners, and the foreigners' cognitive loads became higher gradually according to the difficulty of the texts. From the text four, which is intermediate level in difficulty, remarkable differences started to appear in comparison of the Koreans and foreigners in the beginner's level text. In the subjective evaluation, interactions were revealed according to the Koreans and foreigners and text difficulty (p =0.00), and satisfaction was lower, as the difficulty of the text became higher. Conclusion: When there was background knowledge in reading, namely schema was formed, the comprehension and satisfaction of the texts were higher, although higher levels of vocabulary and grammar were included in the texts than those of the readers. In the case of a text in which the difficulty of grammar was felt high in the subjective evaluation, foreigners' cognitive loads were also high, which shows the result of the loads' going up higher in proportion to the increase of difficulty. This means that the grammar factor functions as a stress factor to the foreigners' reading comprehension. Application: This study quantitatively evaluated the cognitive loads of Koreans and foreigners through EEG, based on readers and the text difficulty, when they read Korean texts. The results of this study can be used for making Korean teaching materials or Korean education content and topic selection for foreigners. If research scope is expanded to reading process using an eye-tracker, the reading education program and evaluation method for foreigners can be developed on the basis of quantitative values.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.160-165
• /
• 2018

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Korea is quickly becoming an aged society. Dementia is also becoming a vital public health problem in Korea. Cognitive impairment as a pre-stage of dementia shares most risk factors for dementia. The aim of the present study was to determine associations of serum levels of vitamins A, C, and E with the risk of cognitive impairment among elderly Koreans. SUBJECTS/METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, a total of 230 participants aged 60-79 years from Yangpyeong cohort were included. Cognitive function was assessed by the Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination for Dementia Screening. The logistic multivariable regression model was applied to determine the effect of serum vitamins A, C, and E on the risk of cognitive impairment. RESULTS: There was no significant association between the risk of cognitive impairment and serum levels of vitamin A and vitamin C. There was a significant odd ratio when the second tertile group of beta-gamma tocopherol level was compared to the first tertile group [odds ratio (OR) = 0.37, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.14-0.98, P for trend = 0.051]. In subgroup analyses, there were significant negative associations between beta-gamma tocopherol level and the risk of cognitive impairment in men (OR = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.03-0.87, P for trend = 0.028), non-drinkers or former drinkers (OR = 0.13, 95% CI = 0.02-0.66, P for trend = 0.025), and non-smokers or former smokers (OR = 0.27, 95% CI = 0.09-0.82, P for trend = 0.017). CONCLUSION: Serum beta-gamma tocopherol levels tended to be inversely associated with the risk of cognitive impairment. Further prospective large-scaled studies are needed to examine this association.