• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.361-380
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• 2010

Some 400 Secondary One (i.e. seventh-grade) students from 10 schools were provided with non-routine mathematical problems in their normal mathematics classes as exercises for one academic year. Their attitudes toward mathematics, their conceptions of mathematics and their problem-solving performance were measured both in the beginning and at the end of the year. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the introduction of an appropriate dose of non-routine problems would generate some effects on the students' conceptions of mathematics. A medium dose of non-routine problems (as reported by the teachers) would result in a change of the students' conception of mathematics to perceiving mathematics as less of "a subject of calculables." On the other hand, a high dose would lead students to perceive mathematics as more useful and more as a discipline involving thinking. However, with a low dose of non-routine problems, students found mathematics more "friendly" (free from fear). It is therefore proposed that the use of non-routine mathematical problems to an appropriate extent can induce changes in students' "lived space" of mathematics learning and broaden their conceptions of mathematics and mathematics learning.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.231-243
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate misconceptions regarding the structure of flowers and the function of the course based on the 'Flower' section of 5th grade elementary school science courses. It also sought to investigate how misconceptions are changed before and after the application of a Driver learning model, and finally analysing any differences in the correction of misconceptions. A questionnaire was created for 199 5th grade elementary school pupils. The major results before and after using an applied Driver learning mode teaching plan are as follows: In the response for questions, 13.6% and 14.5% of misconceptions were corrected for male and female pupils, respectively. For rural and urban pupils, 14.8% and 11.2% of misconceptions were corrected, respectively. In the comparison of male and female pupils according to the reasons for selection of responses before and after using an applied Driver learning model teaching plan, 27.8% of male and 30.0% of female pupils scientific conceptions showed improvement. For rural and urban schools, 26.6% and 32.2% of scientific conceptions were improved, respectively. Data from this study may help teachers to reconsider their own conceptions regarding the study of the flower as it is presently conducted in elementary school.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.61-76
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• 1992

The purpose of this study was to develop the instructional model and teaching material to change the middle school students'conceptions of electric current into the scientific ones and to investigate the effects of the model in actual classrooms. We identified the students' ideas and their misunderstanding about the concept of eIectic current through reviewing the literatures and our in this study. Based on the above results, we developed the instructional model and designed the teaching sequence and prepare the learning materials about the unit of the electric current in middle school Our instructional model was based on 'learning cycle' developed by Lawson, but the new stage called "exploration through qualitative questions" to elicit the students' own conceptions was inserted to it. To investigate the effects or the new teaching model, the pre- and post-test using the POE type were administered to experimental group(52 students) taught with learning cycles and control group(52 students) taught with traditional styles. The results are as follows; 1) The rates of correct. predictions was varying according to the kinds of problems. And the rates of the correct. reasons of their predictions were lower than those of the predictions. 2) The mean scores of the post-test of both groups were significantly higher than those of the pre-test. We could not find statistically significant difference in theme an score between experimental group and control group after implementation of the model. But the experimental group gained higher scores than those of the control group on two problem. Therefore, although we cannot show the prominent effects of our teaching model based on learning cycles, there are some effects of our model on changing the middle school students' conceptions of electric current.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.35-44
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to estimate teachers'conceptions of mathematics through the conception on compositions of mathematical knowledge, the conception on structure of mathematical knowledge, the conception on status of mathematical knowledge, the conception on mathematical activity, and the conception of mathematics learning. This study reached the following conclusions: Most of teachers has more internal viewpoint than external viewpoint on the compositions, structures and status of mathematical knowledge, mathematical activity and mathematics learning.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.217-228
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• 2001

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of learning cycle model on the changes of electricity conceptions of elementary students. Four classes in forth grade of an elementary school in Busan were selected and two of them were served as experimental group and the others as control group. The experimental group were taught the unit of "Light an electric bulb" in elementary science textbook with teaching model based on teaming cycle and the control group with traditional teaching style. The instruction effects were analyzed through pre and post-test results using questionnaire on the electricity. The results of pre-test showed that there was not a significant difference between experimental group and control group at .05 level, so two groups could be regarded as homogeneous. The mean score of experimental group was significantly higher than that of control group on the post-test at .05 level. And within-group comparison revealed that both groups made improvement on the mean score and that the improvement of each group had significant difference at .05 level. Above results said that the teaching model based on learning cycle, which focuses on hands-on activity and considers each student as an active subject, was more effective than traditional teaching style in improving the formation of scientific conceptions on electricity.ectricity.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.214-225
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• 2014

This study aimed to investigate the high school students' conceptions about the plate tectonics through visual representation. For this purpose, the subjects were 67 students in 11th-grade high schools in Chungbuk. In order to in-depth understand the students' conceptions about plate tectonics, so the investigator conducted a semi-structured interview. The conclusions were as in the following. After learning the plate tectonics, the students had the alternative conceptions associated with terminology, colors' meanings, plate-related melting, plate's movement, plates' boundaries, mantle's physical conditions, driving forces for plate movement, and they had the organic relations about colors' meanings, mantle's physical conditions, and driving forces of plate movement. Also, the visual representation used to teach plate tectonics influenced on the students' responses about terminology, plates' boundaries, plate-related melting and the mantle's physical features, also this study found the factors of visual representation causing the learners to create alternative conceptions. These results implicated the importance of teacher's role in identifying the students' interpretation process on visual representation, and it needed to improve the factors creating students' alternative conceptions about visual representation and to study the factors further.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.484-497
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• 2014

This study aimed to investigate high school students' conceptions of plate tectonics. Seventy students (N=70) in their 2 year of high schools in the province of Chungcheong-do participated in this study, and they took a conception test of visual representation. We conducted a semi-structured interview with 10 volunteering participants out of seventy. After learning about the concept of plate tectonics, this study found that participants ended up having alternative conceptions relating to terminology, meaning of colors, plates' movement, plates' boundaries, position and cause of melting, mantle's physical conditions, and driving forces of plate motion. The conceptions that the participants held after class were organically related, which included the meaning of colors, mantle's physical characteristic, and driving forces of plate movement. In addition, the visual representation used for teaching plate tectonics influenced the students' understanding about terminologies, plates' boundaries, position of melting, and the physical characteristic of mantle. The study found that there were the factors of visual representation that caused the learners to create alternative conceptions in learning about plate tectonics.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.79-88
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• 2006

This study investigated the effects of computer-assisted instruction adapting to the level of students' conceptual understanding upon students' conceptual understanding, retention of conceptions, learning motivation, and perception about computer-assisted instruction in concept learning. 94 seventh grade students from a coed middle school in Seoul were randomly assigned to control, CAI, adaptive CAI groups, and were taught about 'motion of molecules' for 7 class periods. Two-way ANCOVA results revealed that the scores of a conception test and a learning motivation test for the adaptive CAI group were significantly higher than those for the control group. The scores of a retention test of conceptions for the adaptive CAI group were significantly higher than those for other two groups. There were no significant interactions between the instruction and the level of previous achievement in the scores of the conception test, the learning motivation test, and the retention test of conceptions. The perception about computer-assisted instruction for the students of the adaptive CAI group were more positive than those for the students of the CAI group.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.55-62
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to examine the pre-service elementary teachers' views on the necessity of science learning. The eighty five student teachers in their second year of studies were participated in this study. The participants freely wrote their thoughts on a question'Why should students learn science?' The results of the study are as follows: (1) The participants' responses were very diverse, so their responses contained almost all kind of values or arguments about the science learning suggested by researchers, and there was no difference in their response ratio between views of focusing on intrinsic values and views of focusing on extrinsic values; (2) About 30% of the participants had the biased conceptions on the necessity of science learning and they would be likely to explain their biased conceptions to their future students. The educational implications and the suggestions for further studies are also presented in this paper.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.179-189
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• 1997

In this study, a conceptual change model for effective laboratories was developed and its instructional effect on students' achievement, the acquisition of scientific conceptions, and the attitudes toward science was investigated. Considering several conceptual change models in literature and Korean educational situations, the conceptual change model was developed. The model consists of 5 stages; preliminary, prediction, exploration, consolidation and reconstruction, and application. The treatment and control groups (2 classes) were selected from a middle school in Seoul, and taught about the changes of states, density, and dissolution for three weeks. Prior to instruction, the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking and the Learning Approach Questionnaire were administered, and their scores were used as covariate and / or blocking variable. To examine students' alternative conceptions before the instructions, a pre-conceptions test was also administered. After the instructions, students' achievement, the acquisition of scientific conceptions, and the attitudes toward science were measured with a researcher-made achievement test, a post-conceptions test, and the subtests of the Test of Science-Related Attitudes, respectively. The results indicated that the score of the treatment group was significantly higher than that of the control group in the post-conceptions test. The students in the treatment group had also less alternative conceptions than those in the control group. However, there were no significant differences for the achievement and the attitudes toward science. Educational implications are discussed.