• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.32-46
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to analyse the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of paper-pencil tests for exploring its appropriateness as a selection tool of the gifted in science. For this purpose, we developed two (internal and external) item analysis frameworks, and applied these frameworks to analyse qualitative characteristics. Also, we analysed the relationship between two characteristics. The results of analysing qualitative characteristics revealed that the portion of items with acceleration context exceeding middle school curriculum level was relatively large, which caused low content validity. Furthermore, there was considerable deviation in content and context by subject matter and year, which caused test unstability. Items measuring knowledge domain was the most prevalent, and too much weight on data interpretation & analysis domain in inquiry process skills. In case of creativity test, the portion of items measuring convergent thinking was much larger than that of divergent or associative thinking. Most of these items were represented by using pictures and tables rather than using graphs. Item types of multiple-choice and short answers were superior to essay types. Discrimination index, on the whole, was appropriate (above 0.3), but item difficulty showed a vast deviation ($0.01{\sim}0.90$). Correlation coefficients among subject matters and test tools were very low, and test reliabilities were also low. Low item difficulty & high discrimination index item types were distinguishable. Items with acceleration context were more discriminating than enrichment context. Implications of developing quality paper-pencil test items in the selection of gifted students are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.658-672
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• 2022

The unique teaching and learning difficulties of speed-related units in elementary school science are mainly due to the student's lack of mathematical thinking ability and procedural knowledge on speed measurement, and curriculums and textbooks must be constructed with these in mind. To identify the implications of composing a new science curriculum and relevant textbooks, this study reviewed the structure and contents of the speed-related units of three curriculums from the 2007 revised curriculum to the 2015 revised curriculum and the resulting textbooks and examined their relevance in light of the literature. Results showed that the current content carries the risk of making students calculate only the speed of an object through a mechanical algorithm by memorization rather than grasp the multifaceted relation between traveled distance, duration time, and speed. Findings also highlighted the need to reorganize the curriculum and textbooks to offer students the opportunity to learn the meaning of speed step-by-step by visualizing materials such as double number lines and dealing with simple numbers that are easy to calculate and understand intuitively. In addition, this paper discussed the urgency of improving inquiry performance such as process skills by observing and measuring an actual object's movement, displaying it as a graph, and interpreting it rather than conducting data interpretation through investigation. Lastly, although the current curriculum and textbooks emphasize the connection with daily life in their application aspects, they also deal with dynamics-related content somewhat differently from kinematics, which is the main learning content of the unit. Hence, it is necessary to reorganize the contents focusing on cases related to speed so that students can grasp the concept of speed and use it in their everyday lives. With regard to the new curriculum and textbooks, this study proposes that students be provided the opportunity to systematically and deeply study core topics rather than exclude content that is difficult to learn and challenging to teach so that students realize the value of science and enjoy learning it.