• 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 Chemical Society
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.271-280
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of chemistry program based on metacognitive learning strategies using realistic contents on prospective teachers' creative thinking skills and science core competencies, and their perception. In particular, it was intended to further improve the effectiveness of the program by introducing a strategy to strengthen metacognition. Participants were classified into the experimental group subject to the newly developed chemistry curriculum and traditional group subject to general programs that exclude realistic contents and metacognitive strategies. Both groups were surveyed before and after the application of the program to measure the degree of change in metacognitive competencies, creative thinking competencies, and science core competencies. It also analyzed the impact of metacognitive competencies and science core competencies on creativity thinking competencies. As a result of the study, relevance and rationality among sub-factors of metacognitive competencies and creative thinking competencies of the experimental group were improved, and all sub-factors except for scientific participation and lifelong learning ability among science core competencies were significantly improved. In addition, it was found that metacognitive knowledge among metacognitive competencies, scientific inquiry ability and scientific thinking ability among science core competencies affect creative thinking competencies. Through the results, it was suggested that realistic content that incorporates metacognitive learning strategies is needed to improve creative thinking competencies, and learning models and programs that can utilize them are needed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.934-950
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• 2009

This study attempts to identify the relationship between students' images of science and science learning, and their career choices. A total of 163 students (seventh graders) from three different middle schools participated in this study. Students' images of science and science learning were investigated using the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) and the Draw-A-Science-Learner Test (DASLT), respectively. Then, students' drawings were analyzed using the Draw-A-Scientist Test Checklist (DAST-C) and the Draw-A-Science-Learner Test Checklist (DASLT-C). The relationship between each element composing the students' images and their career choices were analyzed. Among several elements constituting the students' image of science, 'expression,' 'lab coat,' 'oddity,' 'knowledge symbol,' 'technology symbol,' 'co-work,' 'danger,' and 'STS' showed significant differences between students who chose a science-related career and students who did not. It was also revealed that the following elements - 'expression,' 'learning type,' 'inquiry symbol,' and 'learning place' - were more significantly associated with a science-related career choice compared to other elements consisting of an image of science learning.

• 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.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.763-773
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of Argument-Based Inquiry (ABI) strategy on student's character competency. For this study, 51 grade 11 students (two classes) were selected to the role assignment (ABI-R group) and 46 students (two classes) were assigned to the non-role assignment group (ABI group). In the result, the role assignment group (ABI-R group) showed a statistically higher change in character competency than the group without role assignment (ABI group). Particularly, the ABI-R group has significantly higher grade than ABI group in empathy, responsibility, and respect among the sub-factors of character competency. However, in the case of the cooperation factor of character competency, the ABI group showed statistically significant higher grade than ABI-R group. The results of this study showed that Argument-Based Inquiry (ABI) as teaching and learning strategies in science can contribute to the enhancement of human character competency. In addition, we suggest that students should be actively involved in the class through role assignment, but it is necessary to present the class situation so that they can be actively engaged according to the problem situation rather than being fixed in a given role.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.66-79
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze the effects of the educational context variables on 8th-grade science achievement of 5 top performing countries(Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan) in TIMSS 2015. TIMSS 2015 science data and questionnaire results were used for fitting Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM) in this study. According to the results, such student-level variables as home resources for learning, students' interest in science learning, valuing science, Students' Educational Expectations gave significant influence on the science achievement of Korean students. School-level variables including Student Economic Background, and School Emphasis on Academic Success gave significant influence on the science achievement of Korean students. Comparing 5 countries, home resources for learning, students' interest in science learning, Students' Educational Expectations gave significant influence on the science achievement in all 5 countries. At the school level, Student Economic Background is statistically significant in explaining students' science achievement gap in all countries except Japan, and Teaching Limited by Student Needs gave significant influence on the science achievement in all countries except Korea. Discussed in the conclusion are ways to improve middle-school science teaching and learning including reducing the education divide among socioeconomic status, teaching innovation for competency education, inquiry and reinforcement of lab activities in science classes, and so on.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.511-521
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• 2013

This study aims to investigate the effects of science writing activities on the students' science-related attitude, motivation for learning science, and academic achievement. One hundred and twenty seven second graders of a middle school located in Gyeonggi province participated in this study. The experimental group performed science writing activities, while the comparative group performed problem solving activities at the end of the regular science lessons over 30 class hours. For the students' science-related attitude and motivation for learning science, TOSRA, PALS, and MSLQ were used with some modification and supplementation. For the students' academic achievement, scores on science examinations were used. The results of this study are as follows: First, the test of the science-related attitude showed that science writing activities have positive effects on the cultivation of sciencerelated attitude, as for the sub-factors, 'attitude towards scientific inquiry,' 'pleasure of science lessons,' and 'active attitude towards science'(p<.05). Second, the test of motivation for learning science showed that the science writing activities had positive effect on the improvement in students' motivation, as for the sub-factors, 'difference in values on task' and 'self-efficacy'(p<.05). Third, science writing activities are effective on improvement in the students' academic achievement(p<.05), especially on the high-level achievement group.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.740-751
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• 2021

To overcome the drawbacks of existing classes, this study developed a liberal arts education class model based on online-collaborative learning under the cloud based class environment. That will be the comprehensive model for classics reading, discussion education and foreign language education. This study started from the need of developing the college classes for embodying the collective intelligence. This course must be effective to maximize the educational effects and mutually interdisciplinary progress. Therefore, the offer of the applicable model will be able to establish collective intelligence and extend the educational effects. This study presented the proposed comprehensive model effects as follows: 1) this comprehensive model could create the learning environment so that individual intelligence may be converged into collective intelligence. 2) regarding their intellectual inquiry and the contents of thought, this model could activate the learners' participation in the discussion by mutually exchanging the feedbacks between teacher-learner and learner-learner. 3) cloud based online-collaborative learning environment could reduce learners' affective burden and overcome the drawback of offering the offline limited data. Thus, given these results, this model can be expected to allow us to draw the positive results in overall education fields along with liberal arts education, discussion education and foreign language education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.59-72
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• 2023

This study analyzed a group interview with six earth science teachers and eight middle school students to find out the evaluations and criteria they use to evaluate VR/AR contents (two virtual reality content and two augmented reality contents) in middle school science digital textbook. The study found the VR/AR contents were evaluated on four criteria as follows: VR/AR media characteristics; technical operation; user interface; and teaching-learning design. The evaluations can be summarized by each criterion. First, regarding VR/AR media characteristics, interesting features of VR/AR contents were considered relatively advantageous compared to other media like videos. However, its shortage of visual presence and inconvenience of using markers were mentioned as shortcomings. Second, in the technical operation criteria, teachers and students found the following conditions as technically challenging: failing to properly operate on a particular OS; huge volumes of contents in the application; and frequent freezing when using the application. Third, poor intuitiveness and lack of flexibility were found as negative aspects in user interface. Fourth, regarding teaching-learning design, the teachers evaluated whether the VR/AR contents delivered scientifically accurate information; whether they incorporated class goals set by teachers; and whether they can help students' inquiry. It turned out teachers gave negative feedbacks on VR/AR contents. The students evaluated VR/AR contents by assessing whether they help them with learning science but concluded they did not regard them necessary in science learning at school. Based on the findings, this study discusses which development direction VR/AR contents should take to be useful in teaching and learning science.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.457-476
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• 2009

The research aimed to investigate characteristics of middle school students in a biology class as science gifted education in terms of self-regulated learning abilities, personality traits and learning preferences. The twenty subject in the study responded to questionnaires of a self-regulated learning ability instrument, a personality trait tool, and a learning preference survey in March, 2009. It was found that the research subjects showed higher levels of cognitive strategies, meta-cognition, and motivation than those students in a previous study(Jung et. al., 2004), while environment was opposite. The level of cognitive strategies was significantly correlated with meta-cognition(r=.610, p=.004) and motivation (r=.538, p=.014) and meta-cognition with environment(r=.717, p=.000). Those students who showed highest levels of self-regulated learning ability displayed various personality traits. One male student with the highest level of self-regulated learning ability showed a personality of hardworking, tender-minded, and conscientious traits and wanted to be a medical doctor. The female student with the second highest level of self-regulated learning ability presented a personality as creative, abstract and divergent thinker and she showed a strong aspiration to be a world-famous biologist with breakthrough contribution. The five students with highest levels of self-regulated learning ability showed a common preference in science learning: they dislike memory-oriented and theory-centered lecture with note-taking from teacher's writings on chalkboard; they prefer science learning with inquiry-oriented laboratory work, discussion among students as well as teachers. However, reasons to prefer discussion were diverse as one student wants to listen other students' opinions while the other student want to present his opinion to other students. The most favorable science teachers appeared to be who ask questions frequently, increase student interests, behave friendly with students, and is a active person. In conclusion, science teaching for the gifted should employ individualized teaching strategies appropriate for individual personality and preferred learning styles as well as meeting with individual interests in science themes.