• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.465-473
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of scientific inquiry-based peer teaching experience on pre-service elementary teachers' science teaching efficacy, anxiety to science and attitude toward science. The participants of this study included 118 pre-service teachers. The pre-post paired t-test design was implemented to examine the effect of this program. In addition, the semi-structured interviews were carried out for investigating their changes of affective characteristics. The result of this study showed that inquiry-based peer teaching provided pre-service teachers with the opportunities to enhance their science teaching efficacy and attitude toward science and reduce their anxiety to science. The findings imply that it is possible to meaningfully change elementary teachers' affective characteristics when effective strategies are adequately adopted.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.84-91
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• 2020

In this study, we investigated the elements of knowledge and information processing competence of science inquiry activities in grades 3-6 science textbooks. For this purpose, the elements of knowledge and information processing competence were extracted and a framework for analysis was created. Analysis of eight science textbooks for grades 3-6 in elementary school was carried out using the analysis framework. The following results were obtained by the analysis framework: First, we divided the knowledge and information processing competence into five elements: 'collection,' 'analysis,' 'expression,' 'selection,' and 'evaluation.' Second, the elements of knowledge and information processing competence of science inquiry activity of elementary science textbooks were not evenly composed. The science inquiry activities of elementary science textbooks focused on 'collection' and 'analysis' among the five elements of the knowledge and information processing competence, followed by 'expression,' 'selection,' and 'evaluation.' As a result, we found that a science inquiry model or a science instruction model is needed to develop the knowledge and information processing competence in elementary school science curriculum.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.475-493
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• 2020

In Korea, the lower elementary grades are applying a topic-oriented integrated curriculum. It causes a lack of science content and inquiry experience for young children. The purpose of this study is to understand the scientific experiences and perceptions of the lower elementary graders and to inquire about the meaning of those experiences in their science learning. Four students (male 2, female 2), their parents, and their first-year homeroom teachers participated in the study. The data collection was mainly conducted through in-depth interview of them. Results showed that the 'experiments' were the student's the main perception of science, and the epistemic emotion that students mainly feel about science was 'curiousness'. Since most experiences were dependent on non-formal educational experience, the parents were an important factor to determine their experiences about science. Various factors, such as students' scientific experiences, their epistemic emotions, and the parents, interacted to form children's perception of science. The positive perception of science affected the level of motivation and expectation for science learning as the third grade. It is suggested that improvement of curriculum and textbooks should emphasize scientific exploration for the lower graders of elementary school, which provides them meaningful scientific experience in school.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.719-731
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• 2017

The aim of this study was to analyze a group of pre-service elementary teachers experience on the cognitive terms of biology inquiry subjects, and experience on living materials related with the domain of life in the Korea elementary school science textbook. Firstly, elementary school pre-service teachers had the confidence of inquiry subjects related with the domain of life such as 'when we take breath what will happen in human body?' and 'Can we make the model of human body?' But they did have the most diffidence of 'The search for pieris rapae, a cabbage butterfly's life', 'Can we grow the little creature?' The reason why pre-service elementary teachers had diffidence of comprehending experiment procedure and planning ability was that 'they focused on understanding the scientific concepts instead of planning experiments by themselves', and 'they carried out the least amount of experiments' Secondly, elementary school pre-service teachers had never experienced biology materials related with the domain of life in the Korea elementary school biology science textbook such as 'tradescantia reflexa', 'Caddis larva', 'hydrilla verticillata', and 'Plantain lily.' According to the findings obtained from the study, the reason why they had never seen the biology materials was that they had the least opportunity of immediately observing life creatures due to memorization-intensive classes.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.67-78
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to identify the basic scientific knowledge of in- and pre-service elementary school teachers, specific areas having insufficient knowledge and the reason for the lack of understanding. For the study, we analyzed the survey asking basic scientific knowledge to in-service elementary school teachers within an urban communities and pre-service elementary school teachers enrolling the first, the second and the third year in National University of Education. The results shows that there is the lack of understanding about scientific knowledge such as boiling points, perihelion, substances, and elements, which elementary school teachers should have exactly known. With regard to the age, an effort is required to increase scientific knowledge of the in-service teachers in 50's, compared to those in 20s' and 30s'. In the pre-service teachers, the average in the third year was significantly higher than that in the first and second year. Regarding the major background in high school, both of in- and pre-service teachers who completed the science course showed significantly higher average than those who completed the liberal arts course. In addition, regarding the major in the university, the average of the group with science and engineering major was higher than that of the group with other majors.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.736-750
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• 2014

The purposes of this study were to investigate concepts of Korean and American elementary school pre-service teachers on combustion, and to compare the concepts of Korean pre-service teachers with those of American pre-service teachers. For this study, concept test on combustion was administered to 23 Korean and 18 American elementary school pre-service teachers. The test composed of 6 items: 'Definition of combustion', 'The reason why a candle in a glass bottle is blown out when the bottle was closed', 'The change of gases in the bottle when a candle burns in it', 'The combustion products of a candle', 'The combustion products of steel wool', and 'The combustion products of a substance'. The results showed that the rates of elementary school pre-service teachers who had scientific concepts on combustion were very low in both Korean and American pre-service teachers' groups, although they were a little different from items. However the rates of pre-service teachers who had partial concepts and misconceptions on combustion were high in two groups. The levels of Korean elementary school pre-service teachers' concepts were a little higher than those of American elementary school pre-service teachers' concepts. The contents and activities on combustion which are in Korean and American science textbooks seem to affect building up their concepts on combustion.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.54-65
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of lesson planning of pre-service elementary teachers to develop scientific communication skills for elementary school students. For this purpose, lesson plans and lesson planning journals written by the 53 pre-service teachers were collected and analyzed. The results of the research were as follows. The pre-service elementary teachers used an implicit and contextual approach to develop scientific communication skills. Teaching and learning activities for enhancing scientific communication were mainly conducted in words or in writing. There were many activities expressing elementary school students' thoughts and presenting the results of experiments in the lesson plan. There were many cases in which the pre-service teachers' lesson plans did not include the evaluation of scientific communication skills. In their lesson plans, there are a lot of mutual activities between teachers and students, team and whole students, and inter-students within teams together, and students' individual activities from requests of teachers. We found that the pre-service teachers had various difficulties when they planned the science lesson to develop scientific communication skills. The pre-service teachers were less likely to refer to specialized materials related to science education when planning their classes.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.287-295
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• 2008

Elementary students' behaviors classifying leaves have been analyzed according to the material types provided for the classification class. 199 sixth grade students were participated in the task classifying the leaves of various plants for the research. The three types of materials provided to them for the class were real leaves, photos of the leaves and explanation cards including the photos of leaves. One of the research findings was that the only material made students handle in the observed behaviors was the real leave of the material types given as classifying. Three were differences between groups in the time required and the number of using criteria for the class. The numbers of criteria had been applied to analyzing their behaviors as classifying the real leaves which were less than those with photo materials. The amount of taken time to classify the real leaves and photo materials were less than those of another material. Finally, the contents of criteria did not differ between groups except appearing properties presented to the task with photo and explanation materials. It is expected that the research can be contributed for elementary school teachers and for curriculum developers to choose appropriate instructional materials as constructing curriculum contents for elementary science to make elementary school students acquire classifying skill in science classes.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.422-434
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• 2011

The purpose of this research is to investigate the actual conditions of primary school science teaching and ways to improve it. In elementary science teaching, teachers themselves tend to have science misconceptions and insufficient science content knowledge. Experienced teachers argued that it could be hard for elementary teachers with lack of science content knowledge to provide their students with meaningful learning experiences of science. Based on the general characteristics of elementary teaching and the awareness of elementary teachers' insufficient science content knowledge, we explored the real situation of the elementary science classroom. We conducted open-ended interviews with teachers and focus group discussions on a regular basis to analyze and compare classes of five primary school teachers. Data analysis focused on why elementary students avoid science classes in upper grades of elementary school and why elementary science classes always need hands-on activities. We also discussed ways to turn hands-on investigation into minds-on investigation by connecting it to important ideas in science. Based on the results, we suggested ways to improve inservice teacher training such as designing supplementary in-service training focused on content knowledge for primary school teachers, setting up professional exchange or collaboration between primary and secondary teachers, and introducing subject-specialized teachers for the fifth and sixth graders of primary school. In particular, considering elementary teachers' insufficient science content knowledge, employing science subject matter specialists in the elementary school could be a useful strategy.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.87-101
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school teachers' perception and the status of education program on science museum field trips by using a questionnaire (188 teachers) and interview (6 teachers). The results of the research are as follows. First, factors influencing elementary school teachers who choose the science museum as a place for field trips were 'student's interest', 'teacher's own experience related to the science museum', 'science curriculum', 'suggestions from a fellow teacher', 'space available for field work' and so on. Second, 82% of the respondents conducted pre-education program, but they mainly conducted safety education. Third, the teacher conducted post-education program less than pre-education program. In the post-education program, the most activities were to express and share knowledge and experience gained from the science museum. Fourth, 52.2% of the teachers provided tasks or activity sheets during science museum field trips. Fifth, the teachers mainly served as safety guide. In addition, the teachers thought that safety guide was the most important role of teacher in science museum field trips. Sixth, the teachers thought that the method of viewing the science museum's collection, which emphasizes the role of docent rather than the teacher, was more educational.