• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.125-134
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• 2012

Interest has been studied as one of the construct to understand and improve learning in science. While informal science education is getting increasing attention as science education has been extended from formal school science to informal science learning including after-school program or science museum activity, however, little has been studied in comparing to the needs. In this study the authors investigated students' interest about learning science in the context of informal science education. For this the survey tool in the article of Im and Pak (2000) was utilized through modification, and 155 elementary students' responses were analyzed with factor analysis and basic statistics. The factor analysis showed that the students' interest about learning science in the context of informal science education has multi dimensions like subject, motivation, and activity dimension. The result showed that students' interest decreased as their grade is higher, and that the interest of intrinsic motivation, empirical activity, and descriptive subject were relatively high while the interest of extrinsic motivation, cognitive activity, and specific subjects were low. From this study the authors could infer the necessity of instructional strategy in consideration of students' interest for more effective science learning in informal science education environment.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.485-493
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• 2011

There has been increasing evidence of the positive effects in informal science programs to promote the youths' positive development. However, relatively a small number of informal science programs target specific student populations such as youth in poverty with little research done about the important program factors. This case study presents an exemplary informal science education program (focusing on Earth Science Education or more specifically, water in urban environments) for youth in poverty in a midwest city of the United States. This study explored the most important characteristics of the program that could lead to positive development for the youth. Through a number of observations of the program and interviews with the participants, this study employs inductive and interpretive research methods. Findings show that the program managers' beliefs about the youths' knowledge and experiences, their relationship building skills, and their cooperative work are very important. A concrete mission for the program and structured institutional support to hire the youth as paid museum staff are also important in assuming their responsibility and building identity as an active social member.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.293-307
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to search for the direction of informal science education research by analyzing them from the educational perspectives of informal science education. For this purpose, this study analyzed 144 journals related to informal science education that have been issued in the last six years in terms of educational perspectives. As a result, this study found a tendency for studies to be biased towards a few educational perspectives such as scientific practice participation, emotional enhancement, and understanding of knowledge, while studies on the understanding of nature of science have been conducted in a few cases. This tendency was also found in the analysis of the detailed media in each field, however, the biased educational perspectives varied from media to media. Therefore, in order to understand various aspects of informal science education itself, which is not a subsidy of formal school education, and to deeply understand what each media is trying to pursue, it should be done with various educational perspectives in each media study.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.519-528
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• 2007

Although science continues to be a key subject in the education of the majority of young people throughout the world, it is becoming increasingly clear that school science is failing to win the hearts and minds of many of today's younger generation. Researchers have begun to look at ways in which the learning that takes place in museums, science centres and other informal settings can add value to science learning in schools. Four case studies are used to illustrate the potential afforded by informal contexts to research aspects of science learning. The case studies involve: the European Union PENCIL (Permanent European Resource Centre for Informal Learning) project (a network of 14 museums and science centres working with schools to enhance learning in maths and science); a large natural history museum in England; the Tate Modernart gallery in London, and the Outdoor Classroom Action Research Project which involved researchers working in school grounds, field centres and farms. The range of research questions that were asked are examined as are the methodological approaches taken and the methods used to collect and analyse data. Lessons learned from the studies about research in the informal contexts are discussed critically.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 2014

This study aimed to find out the current conditions and the characteristics of elementary students' science-related engagement in informal education setting. For this, we conducted a survey targeting 645 $6^{th}$ grader elementary students of three elementary school in Seoul. The results were described as following aspects: first, the place, the engagement frequency, and companies of students' science-related activity in informal setting, second, the characteristics of engagement based on homogeneity analysis. Based on these results, we suggested several ways to encourage students' science-related engagement in informal education setting.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.211-220
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• 2008

This study examined pre-service science teachers' perceptions of informal learning by adopting a discourse analysis method suggested by Mortimer and Scott(2003). The guiding research questions were: (1) What are some general patterns of the discourse occurring in science museums between a teacher and a student? (2) In what ways do the pre-service teachers perceive informal learning and teacher's role in informal settings? The 7 pre-service science teachers participated in this study. Each of them shepherd an elementary student around the museum and implemented their own instruction using a pre-planed lesson plan. Results indicated that even though the teachers had learned some characteristics of informal teaming in their college courses, they tended to implement their traditional view of science teaming into the instruction and the view affected them to set up their teaching purposes and contents, and to select communicative approach, patterns of discourse and ways of intervention.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.63-75
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to explore characteristics of on-line teaching materials on websites of natural history museums, particularly with regard to educational perspectives and the nature of science. The target resources were selected from the websites of the Natural History Museum in London, the Australian Museum in Sydney, the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C.. A total of twelve on-line resources from these museums used in this study were selected as representative informal science teaching materials. For the investigation, this study developed a checklist with a total of nine items that were grounded on mostly reviewing previous literature and articles focusing on educational perspectives of natural history museums and science centers. Exciting and positive results were found in all four museums. The analyses, however, indicated weaknesses as well as strengths in on-line resources regarding their usages as informal science teaching venues.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.281-296
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• 2015

The ultimate goal of environment education plays an important role in forming knowledge, skill, attitude and a point of value along with sustainable development in the regions. Recently, however, environment education is comparatively despised due to college-entrance-exam-focused education policy. Ironically, environment education is more actively implemented at informal institutes rather than formal ones. Environment education at schools is based on the school curriculum, but at informal educational institutes enjoy much more freedom in choosing learners, places and programs. Among them, the place is one of the most important factors of environment education. Therefore, in order to maximize the goal of environment education in this study, a specified program was developed and applied to a certain place to investigate its features and effects. Also the program was checked if it reflexes the environment education goal by using environment education program analysis frame. The results are as follows; according to the analysis of the program, the program was most effective for the two goals of offering hands-on experience and presenting motivations. The second most effective result of the program lied in the goal of knowledge, functions, value and attitude. And the teachers who used this program concluded that, when the program was applied to unmanned islands, offered stronger motivation due to their natural surroundings. Furthermore, direct experience is recommended because it can give us better conditions to collect data and to enhance interpretation ability.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.329-336
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to investigate the elementary school student's recognition of informal science education program : 'Korea Junior Engineering Achievement (KJEA)'case. The subjects were 807, 4th, 5th, 6th grade elementary school students who participated KJEA program. We developed questionnaires and explored the students' preference and the reason to KJEA (compared with school science lesson), attitude on informal elements of KJEA (non-school teachers and non-curricular content), interest in the each KJEA program, outcome of the KJEA. The result of this study showed that the students' recognition of the informal science education program was strongly affirmative. Students preferred KJEA program to school science lessons for that reason why they could make and do by themselves and the KJEA program had novelty. They expected more teaming opportunities by non-school teachers on non-curricular content. Though KJEA had little effect on career interests, students showed willingness to continue to participate. We could get implication for informal science education that the quality of the program is the most important factors than others. The novelty and the doing by oneselves were also important factors for students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.532-540
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• 2012

This research investigated the motivation and interests of a sample of predominately-underrepresented populations to better understand whether informal STEM learning experiences offer support for developing STEM identities. A valid and reliable three-section self-reporting survey was administered to 169 secondary students as the primary data source. Identity was used as a theoretical lens along with descriptive statistics to reveal students' perceived benefits of the informal STEM learning experience, a Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program in the western U.S., for improving their understanding of science, mathematics, and engineering concepts, increasing their interest in science, mathematics, and engineering careers, and increasing their belief of the importance of these STEM disciplines. In summary, the findings emerging, considered alongside current identity research, suggest that informal STEM learning experiences offer students from underrepresented STEM populations the space needed for successful STEM identity bids, either for future career pursuits or participation in a STEM literate populace as a non-STEM professional societal member.