• Title/Summary/Keyword: Informal knowledge

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New Directions in Communicating Better Nutrition to Older Adults

  • Guldan, Georgia-Sue;Wendy Wai-Hing Hui
    • Journal of Community Nutrition
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    • v.2 no.1
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    • pp.62-70
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    • 2000
  • Nutrition education should be an important component of ongoing health promotion for older adults and their caregivers. This is because prevention through sound nutrition and food hygiene practices and regular excercise is the most cost-effective way to reduce risks for and deal with their major health problems. nutritions education services should effectively promote optimum intake and successful self-care. Unfortunately, however relative to other vulnerable groups, nutrition education for older adults has not been systematically developed or evaluated. Usually oder adults care a lot about their health, so this should be a relatively easy group to teach - but their increasing numbers, longevity and great diversity with respect to health, physical, and economic status and educational level present challenges. Some older adults may not perceive they would benefit from nutrition education, so interesting and motivating them is a challenge. The food and nutrition knowledge of older people has been acquired through a lifetime of experience. For most older adults in the Asian region, their sources are restricted by their restricted education, so that their major sources of information have been informal sources, such as television, radio, friends, family, and perhaps newspapers and magazines if they are literature. Nonetheless, dietary advice for older people should build on their existing knowledge and ingrained values. It should provide information useful in daily food selection, and focus on food, not nutrients - the same foods and groups considered appropriate for younger people, with consistent messages as given throughout the population. Attention must also be paid to discovering learning styles in older people. When we teach in schools, the young students are a captive audience resigned to their learning role. Learning by an older adult, however, reflects an effort to meet his or her perceived needs. Therefore, nutrition education should be a positive experience in a non-threatening environment, relaxed and non-competitive, and perhaps even social environment. The messages also need to be practical and achievable. A needs assessment is essential, because our ability to provide the most effective nutrition education will depend on our success in matching the needs, both perceived and unperceived. of this vulnerable group. Therefore, go to the potential older learners to assess their interest and preferences. Nutrition education activities for older adults are widespread, but few have been evaluated. Evaluation is therefore also recommended, particularly when new methods are used. Tips from other countries for giving successful nutrition education will be given, including some examples of applications as attempted in Hong Kong. Research needs will also be described. In conclusion, successful nutrition education for older adults depends on positive needs-based messages. This is may be hard to do, as few good examples are available to illustrate these principles.

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A Case Study on the Discourse Characteristics of Docents Who Mediate Visitor's Learning in the Natural History Museum (자연사박물관에서 관람객의 학습을 중재하는 도슨트의 담화특성에 대한 사례연구)

  • Lee, Joo-Youn;Lee, Jeong-A;Kim, Chan-Jong
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.30 no.6
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    • pp.815-835
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    • 2010
  • This study aimed at understanding the characteristics of interactive discourses between docents and visitors in natural history museums. Two docents participated in this study. One worked in Seodaemoon Natural History Museum and the other in Gwacheon National Science Museum. To analyze the characteristics of interactive discourses, especially understanding the mediation of visitors' learning, Pedagogic Discourse Analysis method was adopted. The results show two contrasting types of interactive discourses, Encouraging Visitors' Meaningful Participation (EVMP) and Encouraging Visitors' Simple Participation (EVSP). In the EVMP discourse, structural cohesion is strong in thematic flow and information flow. Docent and visitors share the role of information provider and "Themes" are developed through the interactions between the docent and the visitors. On the contrary, in the EVSP discourse, structural cohesions are weak. Even though the visitors participate in the discourse, their discourse scarcely contribute to develop "Themes" in the discourse. Most of the information is developed and expanded by the docent. These results helped us to suggest that docents have to understand and use visitors' prior knowledge as a discourse "Theme." It is also suggested that docents need to have not only the competent content knowledge about exhibitions but also the capability to lead discourses that allow the visitors to participate meaningfully during the education processes.

Analyzing Regional Characteristics of Producer service Networks: Comparing the Capital region with Gyeongsang region (생산자서비스 네트워크의 지역별 특성 연구: 수도권과 경상권의 비교 분석)

  • Kim, Hyung-Joo;Lee, Jeong-Hyop
    • Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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    • v.13 no.1
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    • pp.1-18
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    • 2010
  • This paper examines characteristics of producer service networks by comparing the Capital region with Gyeongsang region in Korea and provides implications for regional policies of producer services. We employ the data of the Korea Innovation Survey, compiled by Science & Technology Policy Institute in 2006 and analyze producer service networks in the two regions. According to the results of production networks analysis, producer service firms in Gyeongsang region serve to relatively limited areas of market whereas those in the Capital region serve to a larger market. No difference is found between producer service firms in the Capital region and those in Gyeongsang region for the types of major customers. Analysis of knowledge/information networks demonstrates that firms in the Capital region mostly count on informal networks while those in Gyeongsang region primarily rely on their suppliers as a source of key information. Firms in Gyeongsand region often gain key information from the Capital region. The results of Social Network Analysis show that both of the innovation networks for two regions are poorly connected. In order to promote producer services, each region needs strategic approach reflecting regional characteristics and demands of regional industries.

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Using the METHONTOLOGY Approach to a Graduation Screen Ontology Development: An Experiential Investigation of the METHONTOLOGY Framework

  • Park, Jin-Soo;Sung, Ki-Moon;Moon, Se-Won
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.20 no.2
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    • pp.125-155
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    • 2010
  • Ontologies have been adopted in various business and scientific communities as a key component of the Semantic Web. Despite the increasing importance of ontologies, ontology developers still perceive construction tasks as a challenge. A clearly defined and well-structured methodology can reduce the time required to develop an ontology and increase the probability of success of a project. However, no reliable knowledge-engineering methodology for ontology development currently exists; every methodology has been tailored toward the development of a particular ontology. In this study, we developed a Graduation Screen Ontology (GSO). The graduation screen domain was chosen for the several reasons. First, the graduation screen process is a complicated task requiring a complex reasoning process. Second, GSO may be reused for other universities because the graduation screen process is similar for most universities. Finally, GSO can be built within a given period because the size of the selected domain is reasonable. No standard ontology development methodology exists; thus, one of the existing ontology development methodologies had to be chosen. The most important considerations for selecting the ontology development methodology of GSO included whether it can be applied to a new domain; whether it covers a broader set of development tasks; and whether it gives sufficient explanation of each development task. We evaluated various ontology development methodologies based on the evaluation framework proposed by G$\acute{o}$mez-P$\acute{e}$rez et al. We concluded that METHONTOLOGY was the most applicable to the building of GSO for this study. METHONTOLOGY was derived from the experience of developing Chemical Ontology at the Polytechnic University of Madrid by Fern$\acute{a}$ndez-L$\acute{o}$pez et al. and is regarded as the most mature ontology development methodology. METHONTOLOGY describes a very detailed approach for building an ontology under a centralized development environment at the conceptual level. This methodology consists of three broad processes, with each process containing specific sub-processes: management (scheduling, control, and quality assurance); development (specification, conceptualization, formalization, implementation, and maintenance); and support process (knowledge acquisition, evaluation, documentation, configuration management, and integration). An ontology development language and ontology development tool for GSO construction also had to be selected. We adopted OWL-DL as the ontology development language. OWL was selected because of its computational quality of consistency in checking and classification, which is crucial in developing coherent and useful ontological models for very complex domains. In addition, Protege-OWL was chosen for an ontology development tool because it is supported by METHONTOLOGY and is widely used because of its platform-independent characteristics. Based on the GSO development experience of the researchers, some issues relating to the METHONTOLOGY, OWL-DL, and Prot$\acute{e}$g$\acute{e}$-OWL were identified. We focused on presenting drawbacks of METHONTOLOGY and discussing how each weakness could be addressed. First, METHONTOLOGY insists that domain experts who do not have ontology construction experience can easily build ontologies. However, it is still difficult for these domain experts to develop a sophisticated ontology, especially if they have insufficient background knowledge related to the ontology. Second, METHONTOLOGY does not include a development stage called the "feasibility study." This pre-development stage helps developers ensure not only that a planned ontology is necessary and sufficiently valuable to begin an ontology building project, but also to determine whether the project will be successful. Third, METHONTOLOGY excludes an explanation on the use and integration of existing ontologies. If an additional stage for considering reuse is introduced, developers might share benefits of reuse. Fourth, METHONTOLOGY fails to address the importance of collaboration. This methodology needs to explain the allocation of specific tasks to different developer groups, and how to combine these tasks once specific given jobs are completed. Fifth, METHONTOLOGY fails to suggest the methods and techniques applied in the conceptualization stage sufficiently. Introducing methods of concept extraction from multiple informal sources or methods of identifying relations may enhance the quality of ontologies. Sixth, METHONTOLOGY does not provide an evaluation process to confirm whether WebODE perfectly transforms a conceptual ontology into a formal ontology. It also does not guarantee whether the outcomes of the conceptualization stage are completely reflected in the implementation stage. Seventh, METHONTOLOGY needs to add criteria for user evaluation of the actual use of the constructed ontology under user environments. Eighth, although METHONTOLOGY allows continual knowledge acquisition while working on the ontology development process, consistent updates can be difficult for developers. Ninth, METHONTOLOGY demands that developers complete various documents during the conceptualization stage; thus, it can be considered a heavy methodology. Adopting an agile methodology will result in reinforcing active communication among developers and reducing the burden of documentation completion. Finally, this study concludes with contributions and practical implications. No previous research has addressed issues related to METHONTOLOGY from empirical experiences; this study is an initial attempt. In addition, several lessons learned from the development experience are discussed. This study also affords some insights for ontology methodology researchers who want to design a more advanced ontology development methodology.

A Study on the Impact of Employee's Person-Environment Fit and Information Systems Acceptance Factors on Performance: The Mediating Role of Social Capital (조직구성원의 개인-환경적합성과 정보시스템 수용요인이 성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구: 사회자본의 매개역할)

  • Heo, Myung-Sook;Cheon, Myun-Joong
    • Asia pacific journal of information systems
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    • v.19 no.2
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    • pp.1-42
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    • 2009
  • In a knowledge-based society, a firm's intellectual capital represents the wealth of ideas and ability to innovate, which are indispensable elements for the future growth. Therefore, the intellectual capital is evidently recognized as the most valuable asset in the organization. Considered as intangible asset, intellectual capital is the basis based on which firms can foster their sustainable competitive advantage. One of the essential components of the intellectual capital is a social capital, indicating the firm's individual members' ability to build a firm's social networks. As such, social capital is a powerful concept necessary for understanding the emergence, growth, and functioning of network linkages. The more social capital a firm is equipped with, the more successfully it can establish new social networks. By providing a shared context for social interactions, social capital facilitates the creation of new linkages in the organizational setting. This concept of "person-environment fit" has long been prevalent in the management literature. The fit is grounded in the interaction theory of behavior. The interaction perspective has a fairly long theoretical tradition, beginning with proposition that behavior is a function of the person and environment. This view asserts that neither personal characteristics nor the situation alone adequately explains the variance in behavioral and attitudinal variables. Instead, the interaction of personal and situational variables accounts for the greatest variance. Accordingly, the person-environment fit is defined as the degree of congruence or match between personal and situational variables in producing significant selected outcomes. In addition, information systems acceptance factors enable organizations to build large electronic communities with huge knowledge resources. For example, the Intranet helps to build knowledge-based communities, which in turn increases employee communication and collaboration. It is vital since through active communication and collaborative efforts can employees build common basis for shared understandings that evolve into stronger relationships embedded with trust. To this aim, the electronic communication network allows the formation of social network to be more viable to rapid mobilization and assimilation of knowledge assets in the organizations. The purpose of this study is to investigate: (1) the impact of person-environment fit(person-job fit, person-person fit, person-group fit, person-organization fit) on social capital(network ties, trust, norm, shared language); (2) the impact of information systems acceptance factors(availability, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use) on social capital; (3) the impact of social capital on personal performance(work performance, work satisfaction); and (4) the mediating role of social capital between person-environment fit and personal performance. In general, social capital is defined as the aggregated actual or collective potential resources which lead to the possession of a durable network. The concept of social capital was originally developed by sociologists for their analysis in social context. Recently, it has become an increasingly popular jargon used in the management literature in describing organizational phenomena outside the realm of transaction costs. Since both environmental factors and information systems acceptance factors affect the network of employee's relationships, this study proposes that these two factors have significant influence on the social capital of employees. The person-environment fit basically refers to the alignment between characteristics of people and their environments, thereby resulting in positive outcomes for both individuals and organizations. In addition, the information systems acceptance factors have rather direct influences on the social network of employees. Based on such theoretical framework, namely person-environment fit and social capital theory, we develop our research model and hypotheses. The results of data analysis, based on 458 employee cases are as follow: Firstly, both person-environment fit(person-job fit, person-person fit, person-group fit, person-organization fit) and information systems acceptance factors(availability perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use) significantly influence social capital(network ties, norm, shared language). In addition, person-environment fit is a stronger factor influencing social capital than information systems acceptance factors. Secondly, social capital is a significant factor in both work satisfaction and work performance. Finally, social capital partly plays a mediating role between person-environment fit and personal performance. Our findings suggest that it is vital for firms to understand the importance of environmental factors affecting social capital of employees and accordingly identify the importance of information systems acceptance factors in building formal and informal relationships of employees. Firms also need to reflect their recognition of the importance of social capital's mediating role in boosting personal performance. Some limitations arisen in the course of the research and suggestions for future research directions are also discussed.

Effects of the Planetarium Lesson on Students' Understanding of Astronomical Concepts (천체투영관 수업이 학생들의 천문 개념 이해에 미치는 효과)

  • Kim, Wansoo;Shim, Hyunjin
    • Journal of Science Education
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    • v.42 no.1
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    • pp.49-65
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    • 2018
  • Astronomy is the subject that can easily draw students' interest in studying science, therefore plays an important role in developing scientific core competence. However, it is difficult to develop spatial thinking that is required in understanding astronomical concepts through the classroom lessons. Planetarium, along with the science museum, is one of the most representative informal educational institution where astronomical concepts can be taught beyond time and space constraints. In this study, we developed the astronomy education program that is operated in the planetarium and applied the program to the elementary, middle and high-school students to investigate the effects of the planetarium lesson compared to the classroom lesson. The duration of this research was about 8 months, and the number of the students involved is 761, including participants of the 1 night and 2 days camps in the Daegu National Science Museum. The newly developed planetarium lesson is comparable to the previous classroom lesson of which topics are cardinal points, constellation, and the rotation of the earth. Test items were developed to evaluate the understanding of the astronomical concepts. The study was conducted based on the pre- and post-test with non-equivalent groups design comparing classroom and planetarium lessons. The results of this study are as follows. First, planetarium lesson is more effective for understanding astronomical concepts such as the cardinal points, earth's rotation, and the constellation than classroom lesson. Second, planetarium has a positive effect irrespective of gender and previous knowledge. Third, planetarium for high school students has the same effect as additional observation activities followed by the classroom instruction. Therefore, planetarium can be used as an alternative, effective tool when night observation is not available. In summary, planetarium is an effective tool that helps students to understand the astronomical concepts.

Critical Analyses of '2nd Science Inquiry Experiment Contest' (과학탐구 실험대회의 문제점 분석)

  • Paik, Seoung-Hey
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.15 no.2
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    • pp.173-184
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    • 1995
  • The purpose of this study was to analyse the problems of 'Science Inquiry Experiment Contest(SIEC)' which was one of 8 programs of 'The 2nd Student Science Inquiry Olympic Meet(SSIOM)'. The results and conclusions of this study were as follows: 1. It needs to reconsider the role of practical work within science experiment because practical work skills form one of the mainstays in current science. But the assessment of students' laboratory skills in the contest was made little account of. It is necessary to remind of what it means to be 'good at science'. There are two aspects: knowing and doing. Both are important and, in certain respects, quite distinct. Doing science is more of a craft activity, relying more on craft skill and tacit knowledge than on the conscious application of explicit knowledge. Doing science is also divided into two aspects, 'process' and 'skill' by many science educators. 2. The report's and checklist's assessment items were overlapped. Therefore it was suggested that the checklist assessment items were set limit to the students' acts which can't be found in reports. It is important to identify those activities which produce a permanent assessable product, and those which do not. Skills connected with recording and reporting are likely to produce permanent evidence which can be evaluated after the experiment. Those connected with manipulative skills involving processes are more ephemeral and need to be assessed as they occur. The division of student's experimental skills will contribute to the accurate assess of student's scientific inquiry experimental ability. 3. There was a wide difference among the scores of one participant recorded by three evaluators. This means that there was no concrete discussion among the evaluators before the contest. Despite the items of the checklists were set by preparers of the contest experiments, the concrete discussions before the contest were necessary because students' experimental acts were very diverse. There is a variety of scientific skills. So it is necessary to assess the performance of individual students in a range of skills. But the most of the difficulties in the assessment of skills arise from the interaction between measurement and the use. To overcome the difficulties, not only must the mark needed for each skill be recorded, something which all examination groups obviously need, but also a description of the work that the student did when the skill was assessed must also be given, and not all groups need this. Fuller details must also be available for the purposes of moderation. This is a requirement for all students that there must be provision for samples of any end-product or other tangible form of evidence of candidates' work to be submitted for inspection. This is rather important if one is to be as fair as possible to students because, not only can this work be made available to moderators if necessary, but also it can be used to help in arriving at common standards among several evaluators, and in ensuring consistent standards from one evaluator over the assessment period. This need arises because there are problems associated with assessing different students on the same skill in different activities. 4. Most of the students' reports were assessed intuitively by the evaluators despite the assessment items were established concretely by preparers of the experiment. This result means that the evaluators were new to grasp the essence of the established assessment items of the experiment report and that the students' assessment scores were short of objectivity. Lastly, there are suggestions from the results and the conclusions. The students' experimental acts which were difficult to observe because they occur in a flash and which can be easily imitated should be excluded from the assessment items. Evaluators are likely to miss the time to observe the acts, and the students who are assessed later have more opportunity to practise the skill which is being assessed. It is necessary to be aware of these problems and try to reduce their influence or remove them. The skills and processes analysis has made a very useful checklist for scientific inquiry experiment assessment. But in itself it is of little value. It must be seen alongside the other vital attributes needed in the making of a good scientist, the affective aspects of commitment and confidence, the personal insights which come both through formal and informal learning, and the tacit knowledge that comes through experience, both structured and acquired in play. These four aspects must be continually interacting, in a flexible and individualistic way, throughout the scientific education of students. An increasing ability to be good at science, to be good at doing investigational practical work, will be gained through continually, successively, but often unpredictably, developing more experience, developing more insights, developing more skills, and producing more confidence and commitment.

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Evaluation of an Activity-Oriented Extracurricular Science Fair (신나는 과학 놀이 마당 평가 연구)

  • Seo, Hae-Ae;Jhun, Young-Suk;Hyun, Jong-Ho;Ryu, Sung-Chul;Han, Jae-Young;Choi, Won-Ho;Kim, Hyeon-Bean;Cho, Su-Min;Ihm, Hyuk
    • Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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    • v.21 no.3
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    • pp.473-486
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    • 2001
  • The study aimed to evaluate an activity-oriented extracurricular science program as informal science education through the assessment of opinions of student participants and lead-students and lead-teachers who organized the program. An 'Exciting Science Fair' was designed by science teachers and students and provided for 857 students for two days in early 1998. Students chose a course of science activities designed by different levels of student knowledge and interests. During their own science activity courses, the participating students were grouped as pair of two students and guided and facilitated by lead-students. A survey instrument was developed by researchers and asked respondents' opinions of 121 participating students, 72 lead-students, and 19 lead-teachers to the significance of program goals, degree of goal achievement, and program planning and management system before and after the program. It was found that most student participants, lead-students and lead-teachers satisfied with the efficiency of the program. However, it was recommended that the program should place more emphases on engaging student participants in science activities, strengthening scientific inquiry through activities, and increasing science content related to student daily life. It was also suggested that advertizement of the program be publicized in advance through media, an effect teaching-learning strategy for lead-students be developed, and collaboration among lead-students and lead-teachers be improved.

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An Analysis of Students' Understanding of Mathematical Concepts and Proving - Focused on the concept of subspace in linear algebra - (대학생들의 증명 구성 방식과 개념 이해에 대한 분석 - 부분 공간에 대한 증명 과정을 중심으로 -)

  • Cho, Jiyoung;Kwon, Oh Nam
    • School Mathematics
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    • v.14 no.4
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    • pp.469-493
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    • 2012
  • The purpose of this study is find the relation between students' concept and types of proof construction. For this, four undergraduate students majored in mathematics education were evaluated to examine how they understand mathematical concepts and apply their concepts to their proving. Investigating students' proof with their concepts would be important to find implications for how students have to understand formal concepts to success in proving. The participants' proof productions were classified into syntactic proof productions and semantic proof productions. By comparing syntactic provers and semantic provers, we could reveal that the approaches to find idea for proof were different for two groups. The syntactic provers utilized procedural knowledges which had been accumulated from their proving experiences. On the other hand, the semantic provers made use of their concept images to understand why the given statements were true and to get a key idea for proof during this process. The distinctions of approaches to proving between two groups were related to students' concepts. Both two types of provers had accurate formal concepts. But the syntactic provers also knew how they applied formal concepts in proving. On the other hand, the semantic provers had concept images which contained the details and meaning of formal concept well. So they were able to use their concept images to get an idea of proving and to express their idea in formal mathematical language. This study leads us to two suggestions for helping students prove. First, undergraduate students should develop their concept images which contain meanings and details of formal concepts in order to produce a meaningful proof. Second, formal concepts with procedural knowledge could be essential to develop informal reasoning into mathematical proof.

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Case Analysis of Problem Solving Process Based on Brain Preference of Mathematically Gifted Students -Focused on the factors of Schoenfeld's problem solving behavior- (수학영재들의 뇌선호유형에 따른 문제해결 과정 사례 분석 -Schoenfeld의 문제해결 행동요인을 중심으로-)

  • Kim, Jae Hee;Song, Sang Hun
    • Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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    • v.17 no.1
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    • pp.67-86
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this study is to analyze selection of factors of Schoenfeld's problem solving behavior shown in problem solving process of mathematically gifted students based on brain preference of the students and to present suggestions related to hemispheric lateralization that should be considered in teaching such students. The conclusions based on the research questions are as follows. First, as for problem solving methods of the students in the Gifted Education Center based on brain preference, the students of left brain preference showed more characteristics of the left brain such as preferring general, logical decision, while the students of right brain preference showed more characteristics of the right brain such as preferring subjective, intuitive decision, indicating that there were differences based on brain preference. Second, in the factors of Schoenfeld's problem solving behavior, the students of left brain preference mainly showed factors including standardized procedures such as algorithm, logical and systematical process, and deliberation, while the students of right brain preference mainly showed factors including informal and intuitive knowledge, drawing for understanding problem situation, and overall examination of problem-solving process. Thus, the two types of students were different in selecting the factors of Schoenfeld's problem solving behavior based on the characteristics of their brain preference. Finally, based on the results showing that the factors of Schoenfeld's problem solving behavior were differently selected by brain preference, it may be suggested that teaching problem solving and feedback can be improved when presenting the factors of Schoenfeld's problem solving behavior selected more by students of left brain preference to students of right brain preference and vice versa.

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