• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.365-382
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• 2019

This study aimed to analyze the moderated effects of mathematics test-preparation strategies in the relation between elementary school students' epistemological beliefs about mathematics and test anxiety. The moderated effects were tested by using structural equation modeling with the Ping's two-step approach. The subjects were 810 6th graders (411 male, 399 female) from 13 elementary schools situated in G Metropolitan City. Tests for epistemological beliefs about mathematics, test anxiety, and mathematics test-preparation strategies were used as measurement scales. The results of this study were as follows. The moderated effects of mathematics test-preparation strategies in the relation between epistemological beliefs about mathematics and test anxiety were statistically significant. Higher level of epistemological belief about mathematics were linked to lower level of test anxiety, while lower level of epistemological belief about mathematics led to an increased influence of test-preparation strategies levels on test anxiety. Students who had higher levels of epistemological belief about mathematics displayed lower level of test anxiety when using high levels of test-preparation strategies. Students who scored lower in the epistemological belief about mathematics had lower level of test anxiety when employing low levels of test-preparation strategies. Therefore, to lower the level of test anxiety among elementary students, the intervention program need to consider the appropriate levels of test-preparation strategies in accordance with each student's level of epistemological belief about mathematics.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.7
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• pp.1157-1168
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• 2012

This study examined the effect of simulated instruction activities based on a constructivist teaching approach on epistemological belief, science teaching efficacy belief, and teaching motivation. The RTOP (Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol) played a role to guide preservice biology teachers to obtain insights on current reformed teaching and to further practice teaching based on constructivism. The results indicated that preservice teachers changed their epistemological beliefs toward more sophisticated views, especially for 'simple knowledge'. They also improved their science teaching efficacy beliefs, both personal science teaching efficacy belief (PSTEB) and science teaching outcome expectancy (STOE). In addition, these perservice teachers decreased their scores of extrinsic teaching motivation. The Pearson correlation represented the negative relationship between personal science teaching efficacy belief (PSTEB) and extrinsic teaching motivation. After intervention, the preservice teachers mentioned inquiry, active participation and discussion as ideal science teaching methods and qualifications for science teachers.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.209-219
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• 2024

We studied the effects of science high school students on the change of epistemological beliefs in chemistry and the academic achievement of chemistry by completing 'advanced chemistry'. For seven months from July 2023 to January 2024, 80 first-year students at G Science High School in Gyeongnam were surveyed and analyzed for epistemological beliefs about chemistry before and after classes in advanced chemistry. Chemistry academic achievement was classified by 'upper' and 'lower' levels based on the end-of-semester grades of 'advanced chemistry' in the second semester of the first year and analyzed with the SPSS 28 program. After completing advanced chemistry, the epistemological belief in chemistry increased in the proportion of favorable responses. After completing advanced chemistry, the proportion of favorable responses increased in detailed factors such as 'effort', 'math link', 'outcome', 'reality link', and 'concepts', while the 'visualization' factor decreased. Although completing 'advanced chemistry' positively changed students' epistemological beliefs about chemistry, visual expression showed little contribution to understanding chemical concepts. Based on the above results, we will have to focus on the design of instructors' teaching-learning, such as learner-centered inquiry experiments, creative visual expressions, etc., for successful chemistry teaching-learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.15-25
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• 2015

This study examined pre-service secondary physics teachers' epistemological beliefs about scientific knowledge, science learning, and science teaching in two different science content topics, Lamarckism and the impetus theory. Two sets of open-ended questionnaires, for each of the topics respectively, were developed in the same format. The pre-service teachers completed the questionnaires at one month intervals. The beliefs were analyzed in two dimensions, knowledge justification and knowledge change for each belief area. The findings show that the majority of pre-service teachers held sophisticated epistemological beliefs about scientific knowledge regardless of content topics. On the other hand, more pre-service teachers exhibited sophisticated beliefs about science learning in the context impetus theory than Lamarckism. In the area of science teaching, the majority of pre-service teachers demonstrated a sophisticated view in knowledge justification but a naive view in knowledge change. When consistency across science topics and belief areas were examined, few pre-service teachers held consistent epistemological beliefs across all topics and areas. The difference in the levels of sophistication in belief areas showed that the pre-service teachers did not connect their epistemological beliefs about science knowledge to their ideas about science teaching and learning. This disconnection seems to make the consistency across topics and areas complicated. The difference in epistemological beliefs about science learning and teaching between two science topics need further inquiry. Implications for teacher education are offered.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.412-420
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• 2007

In this study, we investigated the influences of the epistemological beliefs on the conceptual change processes in respects of cognitive conflict, situational interest, attention and state learning strategies. After administering epistemological belief questionnaire as a pretest, 218 seventh graders possessing misconceptions about density were selected from the results of a preconception test. The questionnaires of responses to a discrepant event and situational interest were administered. After learning with a CAI program, attention test, state learning strategy test and conception test were also administered as post-tests. Analysis of the results revealed that fixed ability, quick learning and certain knowledge, which are epistemological factors, were highly related, but only certain knowledge exerted a direct effect on conceptual understanding negatively. It also had positive effects on attention directly as well as via situational interest, and thus increased conceptual understanding, even if the effects were relatively smaller than the direct effect. However, epistemological beliefs had little influence on conceptual understanding through cognitive conflict and/or state learning strategies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.359-374
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• 2020

This study is a complex type consisting of survey study and self-study. The former investigated elementary teachers' epistemological beliefs on convergence knowledge and teaching. As a representative of the result of survey study I, as a teacher as well as a researcher, was the participant of the self-study, which investigated my epistemological belief on convergence knowledge and teaching and my execution of convergent science teaching based on family resemblance of mathematics, science, and physical education. A set of open-ended written questionnaires was administered to 28 elementary teachers. Participating teachers considered convergent teaching as discipline-using or multi-disciplinary teaching. They also have epistemological beliefs in which they conceived convergence knowledge as aggregation of diverse disciplinary knowledge and students could get it through their own problem solving processes. As a teacher and researcher I have similar epistemological belief as the other teachers. During the self-study, I tried to apply convergence knowledge system based on the family resemblance analysis among math, science, and PE to my teaching. Inter-disciplinary approach to convergence teaching was not easy for me to conduct. Mathematical units, ratio and rate were linked to science concept of velocity so that it was effective to converge two disciplines. Moreover PE offered specific context where the concepts of math and science were connected convergently so that PE facilitated inter-disciplinary convergent teaching. The gaps between my epistemological belief and inter-disciplinary convergence knowledge based on family resemblance and the cases of how to bridge the gap by my experience were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.259-265
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• 2015

This study examined high school students' acceptance of evolutionary theory, evolutionary knowledge, and epistemological belief. The Christian and non-Christian students' acceptance of evolutionary theory and evolution content knowledge were compared in relation to their 'scientific epistemological views' (domain-specific) and 'evolution in relation to nature of science' (context-specific). The Christian students' evolutionary knowledge was most predicted by the theory-laden exploration of science, while the non-Christian students' scores on evolutionary knowledge were most predicted by the scientific epistemological views. In addition, the Christian students' scores on scientific epistemological views and evolution in relation to evolution were not significantly related to each other, while the non-Christian students' scores on both variables were significantly related. Furthermore, 'evolution in relation to nature of science' is the strongest predictor of both Christian and non-Christian students' acceptance of evolution.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.72-86
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to examine what epistemological beliefs pre-service teachers have about science depending on the situation, and to explore in-depth changes in epistemological beliefs through disciplinary reading. For this purpose, 77 essays written by pre-service elementary school teachers after reading Feynman's 'the meaning of it all' were analyzed using an inductive analysis method. As a result of the study, the epistemological beliefs of pre-service teachers were divided into two situations: 'science in subject learning' and 'science in daily life', and the epistemological beliefs formed in the 'science handled by scientists' situation were analyzed after reading the book. Each situation was divided into sub-categories of 'Impression of Knowledge', 'Source of Knowledge', 'Justification of Knowledge', 'Variability of Knowledge', 'Structure of Knowledge', and 'Value of Knowledge Acquisition' to reveal differences in sophisticated beliefs and naive belief levels. As a result, it was derived that Feynman's science lecture influenced pre-service teachers in terms of establishing new perspectives and recontextualizing existing epistemological beliefs. This study is meaningful in that pre-service teachers' scientific epistemological beliefs may vary depending on the situation, and that the scope and depth of epistemological beliefs may be expanded to include scientists' beliefs in science through disciplinary reading.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.795-821
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• 2001

This Qualitative study investigated a preservice teacher's developing views of learning with the influence of constructivist epistemology taught in the Math, Science, and Technology Education (MSAT) Master of Education (M. Ed.) preservice teacher education program. The MSAT teacher education program employs constructivist aspects of teacher education and generates applications of constructivism to the practice of teaching, as revealed by faculty interview data. It is important at this point to emphasize that there are significant epistemological and ontological differences between different versions of educational constructivism (i.e., individual, radical, and social constructivism) and that these differences imply different pedagogical practices. For the 16 preservice teachers included in a larger study, the epistemological and ontological characteristics for each teacher's developing views of learning were identified through four in-depth interviews. Data from interviews were used to construct a constructivist profile for each preservice teacher's views of learning (i.e., a profile containing ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments, and pedagogical beliefs). Of the sixteen participants in the larger study, five significantly changed ontological and epistemological beliefs and eleven did not. Profile changes for the five who did change also resulted in changes in their conceptions of science teaching and learning (CSTL). In this article, one of the five teachers case was presented with rich quotes. This case study documents how a preservice teacher transferred his ontological and epistemological beliefs to his pedagogical beliefs and maintained the consistency between his philosophical beliefs and CSTL. It also demonstrated implications that changes in components for an educational constructivist profile have for a preservice teacher's view of himself as teacher. Data indicated the possibility that a constructivist-oriented preservice teacher education program can influence students' conceptions of science teaching and learning by explicitly introducing constructivism as an epistemology rather than as a specific method of instruction. Implications for both instructional practices of teacher education programmes and research are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.39-49
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• 2007

The objective of this paper is to investigate the development of Silhak as a Korean epistemology, to investigate the implications of Silhak in Korean society, and to discover further environmental implications. The main discussion of this paper concerns with the epistemology of environmental philosophy. Epistemology is based on the justification of certain knowledge and social philosophy. Epistemology, from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (word/ speech) is the branch of philosophy concerned with theories of the sources, nature, and limits of knowledge. Since the seventeenth century, epistemology has been one of the fundamental themes of philosophers, who were necessarily obliged to coordinate the theory of knowledge with the development of scientific thought. It is a general belief that Western ideology is substantially embedded in Eastern ideology due to physical and metaphysical colonial involvement. We argue that ecological crisis may be resulted from western epistemological mechanical view, thus we suggests a Korean epistemology as an alternative. In this paper, we seek possibility of epistemological alternative of nature in the Korean traditional epistemology incorporating the epistemology of Sung confucianism and The Silhak.