• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.678-688
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• 2005

The main objective of this study was to investigate Korean university students' understanding of the structure of the atom based on a Lakatosian view. In this study, we examined twenty-three Korean university students' understandings of atomic structure using an open-ended questionnaire. The participants were all junior students majoring in chemistry education in Korea. The characteristics of students' understanding were categorized into three philosophical stances based on the classification criteria. Assertions were constructed concerning students' written descriptions of the development of scientific knowledge with respect to atomic structure: (a) characteristics of positivist response; (b) characteristics of transitional response; (c) characteristics of Lakatosian response; and (d) tendencies in students' responses.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.283-296
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• 1998

This study was to identify middle school and college of education students' preconceptions about dielectric polarization and explore the students' reponses on the supporting or conflictual evidences on their preconceptions by letting them observe the demonstrations using electroscope, charged material, six conductor rods and six insulator rods. Letting students select the demonstrations to be observed by themselves, students' evidence selection types were classified as two : to select the evidences to testify their uncertain preconceptions, and to obtain the confirmation evidences about their preconceptions. And each evidence selection types, again, could be subclassified as three and two respectively. When students observed the conflictual observations, all accepted the observation itself. For supporting observational evidences, almost of all students showed the error of 'acceptance of antecedent' in the syllogism, that is, they did not required the succeeding supporting observations. Students' reponses on the conflictual observational evidences were classified as two: to reject the hard core of preconceptions, and to modify the students' auxiliary ideas related to the hard core with preserving the hard core. The first type reponses were, again, could be classified as three subtypes but, in all cases, students introduced new concept to explain the conflictual evidences. This responses indicated that Lakatosian rather than Popperian view is more acceptable to understand the students' reponses on the conflictual evidences. The second type reponses also were classified as three subtypes, and it was found that more middle school students than college education students were involved in this second type. That is, students who did not have perfect understanding of auxiliary ideas related with the hard core of preconceptions were more apt to change or modify theses auxiliary ideas rather than reject the hard core, this means that the quality of understanding of auxiliary ideas also take an important role in the change of hard core concept.