• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.207-212
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• 2014

The national reform document, Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1990), and the Next Generation Science Standards (NRC, 2012) emphasize the importance of the nature of science in guiding science educators in accurately portraying science to students. Therefore, it is important that textbook materials convey an accurate conception of the nature of science. This study employs content analysis to examine the content of textbooks in US and Korea elementary science textbooks with regard to the four aspects of the nature of science: (a) nature of scientific knowledge; (b) nature of scientific inquiry; (c) nature of scientific thinking; and (d) nature of interactions among science, technology, and society (Chiappetta, Fillman, & Sethna, 2004). Intercoder reliability was determined by calculating Cohen's kappa (Cohen, 1960). Findings show that while US elementary science textbooks are not balanced in presenting the four aspects of the nature of science regardless of the publishing companies, the presentation of the nature of science in Korean elementary science textbooks have better balanced treatment of the four themes across the grade levels. On the other hand, both US and Korean elementary science textbooks are attempting to convey an idea of what science is by emphasizing scientific knowledge and investigation.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.178-188
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• 2011

This study was to find the effects of science activity activating spatial ability on spatial ability and creativity of the elementary school students. The survey was conducted with 30 second grade students in one class of "J" elementary school located in "C" City, Chungcheong-bukdo province. The students were taught with the program of science activity activating the spatial ability. According to the result, the science activity had significantly influence on the improvement of spatial ability of the elementary school students. It had also significantly influence on the improvement of spatial relationship ability. The science activity was also effective in the improvement of creativity, and especially in the subdomain of originality and sensitiveness. The students who has right brain preference showed much more improvement in the spatial ability compared to left brain preference students after science activity class. However there is no difference between the students who had the right brain preference and left brain preference in the creativity.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.80-91
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• 2018

The visualization materials in science textbooks are very important in students' learning. Recent visualizations are increasingly emphasizing the importance of infographic visualizations. The purpose of this study is to analyze the visualization materials in $5^{th}$ and $6^{th}$ elementary science textbook focusing on infographics. Visualization materials were classified into infographic and simple illustration. Infographics were classified into 8 sub-types. Findings are as follows. First, infographics were 19.0%, and simple illustrations were 81.0% among elementary textbooks' visualization materials. The portion of infographic varied by content areas. In Biology and Earth Science area, the portions of infographic were high. Second, several types of infographics were used in elementary science textbooks. Timeline infographic were the most frequent, and emphasis infographic, concept mapping infographic, comparison infographic were used frequently. The most frequent types of infographic were different by content area. Third, infographics used more than simple illustrations in the role of concept explanation. Educational implications on science textbook's infographics were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.149-158
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to analyze the analogies used in elementary science textbooks. For this, the analogies were classified into the following criteria : analogy-related contents included in elementary science text-books, types of representation style, and the role of analogy. The results of this study were as follows : the total of analogies was 154 in the 6th and 166 in the 7th curriculum. Most of them were expressed in textbooks and experimental texts. More structural/functional, verbal/pictorial, concrete/concrete, concrete/abstract, simple and enriched analogies were included in the science textbooks of the 7th than those of the 6th. Most of them took the role as an aid to understanding. According to the domain of science content, energy, material, life domains were increased in the 7th than the 6th, with the exception of the earth science domain. The ratio of used analogies in the life domain was higher than the others, and in the material domain it was the lowest. From these results, it can be said that, in order to help students' understanding, further research into the application of analogies is needed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.340-352
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to analyze effects of teaching materials for elementary science gifted conception about object recognition. Elementary science gifted have misconceptions that they can see in lightness. They can not explain how a shadow is made. This paper reports in-depth investigation on elementary science gifted's understanding of object recognition focusing on process of light. A program is developed to elementary science gifted in the subject matter. The tutorial emphasizing the process of light consists of pre-test, worksheet, and post-test. The Tutorial has 4 steps; darkness and light, light on things, light reached eyes, structure of the eyes. Each steps has 2~4 experiments. Through the tutorial, we expect their misconceptions can be changed into scientific conceptions. For the research and analysis, a questionnaire is posed to 39 elementary science gifted at M Elementary School in D Metropolitan City. The first method of product analysis makes a comparative study of pre-test, post-test score, and hake gain each test. As a result, total score of all student was raised. And hake gain of pre-test(II) is 0.6, hake gain of post-test is 0.68. It is Medium gain. Also, elementary science gifted could understand how we see through the tutorial emphasizing process of light. And their misconceptions can be changed into scientific conceptions.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.374-382
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• 2006

This study investigated the effect of the 'Chemistry in everyday life' course for 234 pre-service elementary teachers on their beliefs regarding science teaching efficacy and the nature of science. This study also examined the effect of this particular course by their field (natural science, humanities & social science, and fine arts). The results show that after the semester the pre-service teachers' science teaching efficacy beliefs were enhanced. In particular, their personal science teaching efficacy beliefs were improved across all fields. However, their beliefs regarding the nature of science remained largely unchanged. This study discussed the implications surrounding science courses for pre-service teachers.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.105-120
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• 2009

Critical Experiments (CE) in science classrooms mean, tentatively, critical situations as comparable to anomalous cases in scientific revolutions where the results of science experiments in schools are unclear, differ from the theory, or students misunderstand the purpose of the experiments. The purpose of this research is to identify what CE occurred during science classes and to investigate how elementary teachers handled them. To analyze how teachers recognized and handled CE, we selected nine typical CE from the $7^{th}$ Korean science curriculum. 125 teachers were selected from 8 districts' elementary schools in a local city. A questionnaire with photos of the nine CE above-mentioned was distributed to these teachers. The focus in this research was the way that each teacher handled the CE. We discovered that there were three basic ways in which teachers handled CE. When CE occurred, 51% of elementary teachers explained the correct result of the experiment (what should have happened) to the students while 40.7% of the teachers repeated to get the correct results. The focuses of handling CE varied. 57 % of the teachers focused on the 'materials' while 30% of the teachers focused on the 'theory'. The other focus was 'thinking'. Only 7.6% of the teachers answered that they gave students a chance to think about the reasons why the CE happened. By analyzing our survey results, we could determine what each teacher did as a follow up to the CE and their focus and reasoning for handling the CE this way. When the CE happened in the science class, few handled the CE with the point of view about purpose of doing experiment. As a result, students could not gain educational experience from the CE. If we use CE as a new method to teach science, it will be a good subject incorporating the nature of science in science education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.54-68
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to investigate how elementary teachers perceive and practice using Visual Thinking (VT) in science classes. For this, we collected 161 VT teaching materials for science that uploaded on the elementary teacher's online communities, and analyzed the characteristics. Also we interviewed four elementary teachers who have used VT in science class. The results are as follows. First, VT teaching materials shared in teacher's online communities were most often used to review the science concepts that students learned. Most of the materials required 'remember' among the Cognitive Process, and most of them provided layouts for VT activities. Second, the participants were using VT materials to review the science concepts they learned, so that students remember them. Third, the participants were satisfied because of the beliefs of effects as follows: facilitating learning and reviewing what students had learned; increasing students' positive reactions and confidence; learning through the interation among learners; the formation of habits thinking visually; indirect experiences of science class; possibility of class corresponding to learner characteristics. Fourth, the participants had difficulties in preparing for the VT science class, such as the burden of making VT materials, the long preparation time, concerns over overlapping contents, consideration of learners' VT skills, and the themselves' drawing ability. Furthermore, they also had difficulties in proceeding for the class, like different preference among learners about Visualization and loss of objectives in science class using VT. Fifth, the participants needed support as follows: platform to share students' VT results; VT case books and teachers' guidebooks; physical environment.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.382-389
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to examine the instructional effect of problem-based learning on creative problem-solving skills and academic achievement in elementary science classes. Based on the literature review, six stages for problem-based learning were applied: Orientation, Presenting problems and the process of learning, preliminary problem solving, problem solving, sharing results, and wrapping up/evaluating. The subjects were 74 students in two six-grade classes in Gyeonggi province. As a result, the following findings were given: First, the students who were engaged in problem-based learning showed better progress in creative problem-solving skills. Second, science academic achievement of experimental group were better than traditional group. Educational implications were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.440-449
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to make a preference and result analysis on the free inquiry method of pre-service elementary school teachers. Also, this study investigates how free inquiry activities effect the science-related attitudes and the self-directed learning characteristics of pre-service elementary school teachers. For this study 76, second year, science education pre-service elementary school teachers from Busan National University of education were selected. The inquiry examined the effectiveness of each of the following teaching methods: the IIM method, the PBL method, the PROJECT method, and the small group inquiry method. The students were divided into groups in which they incorporated the respective methods into their practice. In conclusion, the IIM free inquiry activities proved to be much more effective than the PBL method, the PROJECT method, and the small group inquire method in terms of developing self-directed learning characteristics and science related attitudes at the significant difference of p=0.05.