• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.453-464
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• 2019

In this study, the types of inquiry activities in the $5^{th}$ & $6^{th}$ grade science textbooks according to the 2015 revised science national curriculum were analyzed and compared according to grade level and science area. Science textbooks for elementary school $5^{th}$ & $6^{th}$ graders contain quite diverse types of inquiry activities, which are student-centered inquiry activities. There were comparatively higher proportions of inquiry types such as experiment & observation and simulation, but relatively lower of inquiry types of investigation-discourse & presentation, discussion, expression. Elementary science textbooks are expected to cultivate science key competencies for elementary school students. Considering the science area, the motion & energy, substances, earth & space, and integration areas had the most experiment & observation among activity types, while the life area had the most simulation activities. Even in some area of the 6th grade science textbook, there was little or no data interpretation, discussion, and simulation activities. In order to achieve the goal of elementary science education, science textbooks should be developed considering the revision of future elementary science curriculum.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.395-405
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to analyze the process of creative science problem solving (CSPS) in elementary school students. To do this, 6 graders (n=9) at a elementary school in Seoul were participated. In this study, fixed eye-tracker with 250 Hz sampling and observation camera were used. The results of this study, the students with higher ability to solve creative science problems had a slower saccade, and had more visual attention on core clues and a greater number of eye changes. Therefore, students with higher ability to solve creative science problems showed more effective eye movement and faster information processing to solve problems. The CSPS types of elementary students were classified as 'declarative knowledge type', 'procedural knowledge type', 'conditional knowledge type', 'knowledge lack type'. Because each type appears to be complementary, CSPS process for elementary students who have integrated the four types was devised. The results of this study can be used as basic data for understanding elementary school students' CSPS and will help to develop and guide creative science teaching and learning programs useful to elementary school students and science gifted students.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.86-92
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• 2010

Although constructivist assessment has been emphasized by many science educators, most elementary school teachers are still not familiar with this. In order to investigate the causes of this problem, we examined the perceptions of pre-service elementary school teachers toward constructivist science assessment and the relationships among the perceptions toward constructivist science assessment, the views on science teaching and learning, science teaching efficacy beliefs, and the perceptions toward constructivist science learning environment. Analyses of the results revealed that the perceptions of pre-service elementary school teachers toward constructivist science assessment were higher than those of the elementary school teachers reported previously. The results of a stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that the views on constructivist science teaching and learning and personal science teaching efficacy beliefs were the significant predictors of the perceptions toward constructivist science assessment.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.75-87
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• 1998

The problem solving processes of elementary school children who are talented in science have been seldom studied. Researchers often resort to thinking aloud method to collect data of problem solving processes. The major purpose of the study is investigating high ability elementary school students' problem solving processes through the analysis of written responses to science problems in everyday context. 67 elementary students were participated Chungcheongbuk-do Elementary Science Contest held on October, 1997. The written responses of the contest participants to science problems in everyday context were analyzed in terms of problem solving processes. The findings of the research are as follows. (1) High ability elementary students use various concepts about air and water in the process of problem solving. (2) High ability elementary students use content specific problem solving strategies. (3) The problem solving processes of the high ability elementary students consist of problem representation, problem solution, and answer stages. Problem representation stage is further divided into translation and integration phases. Problem solving stage is composed of deciding relevant knowledge, strategy, and info..ins phases. (4) High ability elementary students' problem solving processes could be categorized into 11 qualitatively different groups. (5) Students failures in problem solving are explained by many phases of problem solving processes. Deciding relevant knowledge and inferring phases play major roles in problem solving. (6) The analysis of students' written responses, although has some limitations, could provide plenty of information about high ability elementary students' problem solving precesses.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.75-89
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to get the more qualified elementary science teacher's guide as a major curriculum material for teachers and to find more improvement suggestions by analyzing of the teachers' perception and using status of it. To examine the problems of this study, 183 teachers from the elementary schools were surveyed by the questionnaire that was developed by researcher, and statistical technique for data analysis was frequency, using SPSS win(version 7.5). Teachers generally thought that the general remarks of the elementary science teacher's guide were helpful to understand elementary science education and the detailed subjects were useful, but teachers less satisfied about 'practice of teaching' of the detailed subjects. The most interested sector of the teachers' was the sector of the teaching methods. The results of this study were that the sector' the methods and evaluation of the elementary science education' of the general remarks and the sector' practice of teaching' of the detailed subjects were mostly interested. So it is necessary to be more detailedly guided when the development of the elementary science teacher's guide are considered.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.243-251
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between elementary school teachers' points of view about the organization of the science curriculum and their views on the nature of science (NOS). We surveyed 132 elementary school teachers' view points about these two kinds of views, analyzed the data by their variables, and compared the two viewpoints with their personal details. The elementary school teachers thought the science curriculum should be emphasized through the process more than contents. They thought the contents of the science curriculum should be integrated rather than separated. As teachers' career progressed, they focused on the contents more than the process. On the other hands, because elementary school teachers showed the NOS views as relativism, deductivism, decontextualism, content, and instrumentalism, when we plotted sub-viewpoints of NOS in process-content dimension, we thought it would be similar distributions with point of views on the organization of science curriculum. However, there was no meaningful relation. This showed that teachers' views on the organization of the curriculum and the NOS are totally different. These findings suggest further research is needed to find how factors influence elementary school teachers' views on the organization of the science curriculum and what inclinations can occur in science classes with their different views.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.59-67
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to investigate the elementary school students' perceptions of scientist and socio-cultural background towards science. Subjects are 120 ordinary students of elementary school and 75 participators in invention club and science camp for talented students in a metropolitan city. A questionnaire for investigating the students' perceptions and Images about scientist was developed. That contains the items for socio-cultural background and experiences towards science. The results of this study showed that the elementary students think scientist is younger than the previous students thought. But as yet, the representative image of scientist is the neat man with glasses and gown. Also, a majority of elementary students like science, science subject and science classroom, especially experiment activity. They have various experiences related in science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.163-172
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• 2019

This study explored elementary teachers' perceptions on the essential features of science inquiry, the appropriateness of inquiry activities to science inquiry, and the essential features of inquiry by inquiry activities. 85 elementary teachers' perceptions were investigated using Likert scale survey, and 7 teachers were interviewed. The results are as follows. First, the features that elementary teachers perceived the most essential were 'Engaging students in evaluating their explanations in light of alternative explanations' and 'Engaging students in communicating and justifying their explanations'. Second, The inquiry activities that teachers thought the most appropriate to science inquiry were 'experiment' and 'project'. On the other hand, the perceptions on 'discussion' and 'field trip' were relatively low. Third, the inquiry activity that showed the highest mean score of five essential features of inquiry was 'experiment' while the mean score of 'field trip' was the lowest. Educational implications about the science inquiry were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.201-209
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument for evaluating quality of the web site about elementary science education. Eight experienced specialists (three elementary science education specialists and five elementary school teachers engaging) in elementary science education verified content validity twice. The evaluation criteria for elementary school science were considering aspects of the characteristic and the quality of web site. The evaluation criteria can be categorized as being in five areas, fifty-seven items. The five areas were a purpose, a credibility, an efficiency, a data-type, an interactivity. Four web sites were analyzed for the subject of this study. Evaluators were nine elementary school teachers, who were educated in the use of instrument. The developed evaluation instrument in this study is considered valid and reliable. The content validity is 91.1%, and the reliability has a Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ of .82. The developed evaluation instrument in this study will verify the quality of web site, provide teachers and students with efficient information about elementary science education. In addition it suggests guidelines about design and devise web site to instructional developer or subject-matter expert.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.245-255
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• 2012

The purposes of this research are to analyze preservice elementary teachers' degree of difficulty in classes of seasonal variation and suggest the measures of classes so that preservice elementary teachers can progress classes of seasonal variation effectively. To achieve them, the research was conducted for 90 first graders completing teaching method of elementary science in P university of education from Sep. to Dec. 2012. This research was conducted, based on the results of in-depth interview for 9 preservice elementary teachers who performed classes of seasonal variation, survey on the degree of class difficulty and evaluation of classes on 8 classes theme of Earth sector in elementary science. The results of this research are as follows. The first, preservice elementary teachers had relatively high class difficulty for teaching seasonal variation among the sector of the earth in elementary science. The second, in the evaluation of preservice elementary teachers' classes, the more the subject showed high class difficulty, the more the score of class evaluation was low. The reason is analyzed that high class difficulty reduces teacher's confidence. The third, preservice elementary teachers had insufficient knowledges and concepts which are basically necessary for the classes of seasonal variation. Especially, it was more serious for preservice elementary teachers who didn't learn Earth-science during their high school time. The fourth, it is necessery that concrete and systematical teaching method should be developed so as to improving preservice elementary teachers' teaching method for the classes of seasonal variation.