• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.47-57
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• 2021

This study aims to explore the epistemic goals that pre-service elementary teachers can construct in their biology-related knowledge construction activities, how these goals are constructed, and how the shaping of the knowledge construction activities around the goals was afforded or constrained. The research participants were 26 pre-service teachers, divided into 11 groups of two or three to engage in the activity. Their discussions and products were collected and used as data for this study. The analysis revealed that the teachers constructed three types of epistemic goals: making sense of natural phenomena, proposing the most effective course of action, and proposing solutions to problems based on their causes. Construction of different types of goals depended on the conclusions the pre-service teachers expected to draw based on the explored natural phenomena. It was found that the elicitation of the pre-service teachers' epistemic goals could facilitate their shaping of the knowledge construction activity as an evidence-based justification. The participants planned the construction of mechanistic explanations of natural phenomena with the epistemic goals of 'making sense of natural phenomena' or 'proposing solutions to problems based on their causes.' However, enacting their knowledge construction plans with sophisticated epistemic features was constrained due to the limited resources available. This study can contribute to developing instructional strategies that facilitate learners' epistemic agency and addressing epistemic agency in the development of pre-service teacher education methods.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.213-217
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• 2006

The increase of human activities has been extensively changed the breeding habitats of birds directly or indirectly, where the reproductive success of the birds has been seriously reduced. Leisure activities on water, such as fishing, influenced the breeding biology of waterfowls. However, few researches have been done for this in Korea. We examined the effects of fishing activity on nest selection and density of four waterfowl species at Namyang Lake: Coot (Fulica atra), Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), Little Grebe (Podiceps ruficollis), and Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus). We divided the Namyang Lake into three study areas. Except for the number of anglers, there were no significant differences among the three study areas in the kinds of avian predators, the water depth around study areas measured for possible territorial predatory mammals' passing over, and the values of Relative Importance Percentage of occupying plants. The results showed that waterfowls bred in Namyang Lake preferred the areas with few anglers for the nests. From this study, we recommend that leisure activities including fishing should be prohibited or restricted during the breeding periods of waterfowls for the stable breeding success and that further systematic researches and managements for the species are necessary.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.255-265
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to analyze and compare brain activation that appears in the self-regulation process of biology major and non-major college students in life science learning. The self-regulation task implemented a life science learning situation with the concept of biological classification. The brain activation of college students was measured and analyzed by fNIRS. In the assimilation process, bilateral FP and left DLPFC show significant activation, and the two groups show a difference in the left OFC activation related to motivation and reward. In the conflict process, the left DLPFC shows significantly lower activation in common, and the two groups show a difference in activation between BA 46, which is related to recent memory, and BA 47, which is related to long-term memory. In the accommodation process, a significantly high activation was found in right DLPFC in common, and the two groups show a difference in activation between right DLPFC and right FP. These areas are in the right frontal lobe area and are related to the understanding of life science knowledge. As a result of this study, it can be seen that the brain activation patterns of biology major and non-major college students are different in the self-regulation process. In addition, we will propose additional neurological studies on self-regulation and present systems and learning strategies that can be constructed in school settings.

• Korean Journal of Plant Resources
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.78-95
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• 2009

This study was examined the vascular plants and their characteristics cited in 311 science textbooks of elementary and secondary schools used in the fifth to seventh curriculum. Vascular plants were composed of 129 families, 332 genera, 383 species, 2 subspecies, 47 varieties, 6 forma, and 3 hybrid, totaling 441 taxa. The herbs and trees were consists of 280 taxa (63.5%) and 161 taxa (36.5%), respectively. Native species (241 taxa) were more cited than non-native species (200 taxa). The number of species within a family were high ranked in 35 taxa of Compositae, and 26 taxa of Gramineae. Nine species including endemic genus Hanabusaya Nakai and Abeliophyllum Nakai among the 441 taxa were Korean endemic, and the 25 rare and 12 endangered plants were also included. Based on the list of the species of specially designated plants by the Ministry of Environment, 83 taxa were recorded in the investigated textbooks, and the naturalized plants were 16 taxa. 441 taxa listed consists of 185 taxa (41.9%) of edible plants, 148 taxa (33.5%) of medicinal plants, 139 taxa (31.5%) of ornamental plants, 87 taxa (19.7%) of pasture plants, 34 taxa (7.7%) of timber plants, 13 taxa (2.9%) of miscellaneous plants, 8 taxa (1.8%) of fiber plants, and 3 taxa (0.7%) of industrial plants.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.352-362
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• 2006

Many misconceptions regarding biology and evolution have been reported by students prior to being exposed to a formal education program of evolution which challenged them. This study sought to investigate and to analyze the misconception formation process of evolution originating from TV animation and science books for children. Firstly, to identify TV animation's influence on students' misconceptions of evolution, a questionnaire including TV animation characters was constructed and administered to 146 elementary school students, 161 middle school students, and 156 high school students. The data collected was analyzed. Secondly, 17 science books for children were sampled and the contents related to evolution were selected and analyzed in terms of five evolutionary explanations: creationism internal will explanation, teleological explanations, explanations of use and disuse, mutation and finally, natural selection. Children have understood 'growth' and 'metamorphosis' on TV animation as 'evolution'. The processes by which characters on TV animation undergo some forms of change, which are in fact a kind of metamorphosis has often been understood as 'evolution'. Many respondents have defined evolution incorrectly as the process of growing and changing shape. On the other hand, some science books fur children contained descriptions of evolution including' mutation and finally natural selection explanation'; however, most of the science books fur children sampled in this study were written through the perspectives of alternative evolutionary views such as 'teleology view', 'internal will view', and 'use and disuse view'. It is apparent that TV animation and science books fur children influence the formation of various misconceptions regarding evolution by children.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.1139-1153
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• 2013

Misconceptions are one of the most important and long-lasting studied themes on science education. It is because their nature is obstinate and settled as well as they corrupt students' understanding of science concepts. This study examines whether preservice elementary school teachers enrolled in biology teaching material research course changed positively on science teaching efficacy and correcting life science misconceptions when they used the handbook developed for this study. The handbook comprises 203 life science concepts surveyed among preservice teachers holding from advanced researches and arranged by 2007 Revised Science Curriculum. 107 preservice elementary school teachers participated in the study. Forty-six (46) of them were assigned to the experimental group and the other 61 to the control group. ANOVA was conducted for analyzing data. Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) and the life science misconception test which was developed for this study, were administrated as assessing instruments for pretest and posttest. The experimental group, using the handbook, acquired higher scores in both tests on statistical significance level than the control group who were not using the handbook. The results indicate the handbook developed for correcting life science misconceptions for this study is effective in enhancing science teaching efficacy and correcting life science misconceptions.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.803-811
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• 2023

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Nutrition knowledge has been reported to have a weak positive effect on healthy eating behavior. This study aimed to determine if there was a difference in nutrition knowledge depending on the choice of science subject in high school and whether that affected the actual eating habits of college students in Japan. SUBJECTS/METHODS: The subjects were 514 college students, the majority first-year students, in 3 cities in Japan. A questionnaire survey was conducted on elective subjects in science in high school, diet (11 items), lifestyle (5 items), and nutrition knowledge (34 questions). The preliminary survey was conducted on 47 students in the fall of 2019, and the full-scale survey was conducted in May-June and October-November 2021 at the end of lectures for the first-year students. RESULTS: The students in the high-score group (24-31 points, n = 180) had a higher intake of vegetables (odds ratio [OR], 1.78; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.12-2.82; P = 0.015) and breakfast (OR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.03-2.60; P = 0.035), and a reduced intake of fast food (OR, 0.27; 95% CI, 0.14-0.51; P < 0.001) than those in the low-score group (6-19 points, n = 150). Only the biology and chemistry students had significantly higher nutrition scores than the other groups (all: P < 0.001), but no significant difference was found between the other groups. Understanding nutrition learned in elementary and junior high school is appropriate, while molecular structure, recommended amount, and food poisoning were insufficient. CONCLUSIONS: Knowledge of nutrition appears to have a positive effect on the actual eating habits of college students. Although biology and chemistry in high school may help students understand the foundations of good nutrition, specialized food education may be required to make informed dietary choices.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2199-2202
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• 2015

The aim of the present study was to determine whether endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) gene polymorphisms play a role in development of bladder cancer in the Turkish population. The study was performed on 75 patients (64 men, 11 women) with bladder cancer and 143 healthy individuals (107 men, 36 women) with any kind of cancer history. Three eNOS gene polymorphisms (T-786C promoter region, G894T and intron 4 VNTR 4a/b) were determined with polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment lenght polymorphism methods. In our study, GT and TT genotypes for eNOS G894T polymorphism were found to significantly vary among patients with bladder cancer and control group (OR: 0.185, CI: 0.078-0.439, p=0.0001 and OR: 0.324, CI: 0.106-0.990, p=0.026). Also, the frequency of the 894T allele was significantly higher in patients with bladder cancer (51%). No association was identified for eNOS T-786C and intron 4 VNTR 4a/b polymorphisms between patients with bladder cancer and control groups in our Turkish population.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.585-594
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to examine the concept of Greenhouse Effect as understood by middle school high school university students using a closed-form questionnaire. Based on results of the questionnaire which was administered to 619, the extent to which alternative concepts were held was quantified and compared the difference of various group based on grade level. gender, text and major. Also, subjects were divided into two groups, one is middle school students and the other is high school university students and common themes within conceptual framework of each group were identified by factor analysis. The result showed that students confused Greenhouse Effect with ozone layer depletion in stratosphere and linked familiar contamination around everyday life. acid rain. radioactive contamination, nuclear arsenal to Greenhouse Effect. These trends were more appreciable in female than male, biology major than any other major and text did not make any significant difference. In addition, the result of factor analysis showed that two groups linked familiar contamination around everyday life to Greenhouse Effect and high school university students understand the consequences of an increase in the Greenhouse Effect more systematically than middle school student, perceived the relation between the origin of an increase in the Greenhouse Effect and human activity but confused Greenhouse Effect with ozone layer depletion in stratosphere.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.144-152
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• 2007

In this study, high school science teachers' and students' various conceptions related to osmosis phenomena were compared with and analyzed in relation to the content of science textbooks used in high school science classrooms and college science courses. The questionnaires developed by the researchers were administered to science teachers and students. Differences can be found between the explanations of science textbooks on osmotic pressure and semi-permeable membranes. Many science teachers and students thought of osmotic pressure as 'membrane pressure occurred by the movement of a solvent'. Moreover, the types of teachers of semi-permeable membranes were similar regardless of their academic majors. Many of the teachers thought of a semi-permeable membrane as a membrane that 'passes small-size particles'; however, many students thought of this type of membrane as being 'selectively permeable'. Also, the salt-pickling cabbage phenomenon seemed to cause significant confusion to science teachers and students. These study results show that teachers and students possess various conceptions related to the osmosis phenomena. These different conceptions related to osmosis phenomena might cause confusion and diverse conceptions including misconceptions among teachers and students.