• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.260-268
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• 2006

Students' affective attitude not only influences their achievement in a meaningful way but is also an important educational goal in its own right. This research investigated how students' interest in science varies among elementary, middle, and high-school students based on surveys and reviews of previous research results. We analyzed students learning attitude in terms of (1) interest in and enjoyment of science, (2) instrumental motivation in science, (3) science learning anxiety, and (4) self-concept in science. Major findings are that students showed more negative attitudes in intrinsic motivation, instrumental motivation, value perception of science, and confidence in science as they move in to a higher school level. According to the students' explanation, science classes get boring in higher grades because of difficult contents, lack of experiments and activities, and the teachers' monotonous explanations. Based on the results, recommendations on how to improve students' attitudes towards science are suggested. First of all, we need to secure more science instructional hours in the school curriculum than the 7th national curriculum to implement improved science teaching and learning methods.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.1-12
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• 2004

Current computer education is difficult to educate basic concepts and principals of the computer science because the 7th curriculum of computer education is focused on the application of software. According to the ACM K-12 report about the computer science education model, current computer education is taking the wrong way and we should put the highly priority on the education of the fundamentals through programming languages for a better computer education oriented to the computer science. This paper introduces a new object-oriented educational programming language "Dolittle". The design principals of Dolittle are simple syntax of Korean, incremental programming, text based programming, aliasing of function, and object-oriented programming. Being applied to middle school classes, we can confirm that Dolittle is easy to learn, and gives rise to high interest and keeps interest through a course, and also is of great practical use in class for programming novice.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1039-1048
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to analyze verbal interaction between teachers and students in order to collect qualitative data on the characteristics of the interaction to enhance teaching efficacy. Total of 12 classes of eight science teachers were observed and were interviewed. The classes were video taped and all the verbal interactions were transcribed. The transcribed content and interviews were further analyzed to draw any conclusions on the verbal interaction between teachers and students. Analysis criteria for the data on the class and interview were developed based on the literature review and applied to analyze the collected content. The analyzed data showed that verbal interactions composed of confirmation questions for memorization, students' short responses and teacher's immediate feedbacks. The results of the study also suggested that there needs to be further studies on the interactional techniques for teacher in utilizing the class materials and activities. The teachers should acknowledge the importance of the questions and feedbacks of teachers for students to stimulate their sound learning through literatures.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.93-108
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to develop a STEAM program that can be used in the high school credit system to be fully implemented in 2025, and to examine its validity and effectiveness. The STEAM program analyzed the 2015 revised curriculum centering on science, technology, and engineering through the 2015 revised curriculum analysis, and then selected the five latest issues: hydrogen fuel, climate crisis, data science, appropriate technology, and barista. In accordance with this self-developed program development format (frame), it was developed for seven months through a process of group deliberation. The draft of the STEAM program for 29 sessions of five types, developed to indirectly experience the career path and occupation of high school students, was verified through consultation with 2 STEAM education experts. It was applied at five different high schools for a pilot implementation. As a result of the pilot application, it was confirmed that the students' STEAM attitude significantly improved in the post-test than the pre-test, and the students' high satisfaction with the program was confirmed. In addition, through an interview with the pilot application teacher, it was positively evaluated that 'the content and level of the program are suitable and through experience solving real-life problems, you can apply the content knowledge of related subjects and have an opportunity to experience careers.' Based on the results of the pilot application, the high school credit system STEAM program for students and teachers was finally completed in 29 lessons of five types. Through this study, the development and operation of the next-generation STEAM program that can be applied in the high school credit system should be actively developed, and a plan to improve teachers' professionalism so that the high school credit system can be established and operated properly for blended classes triggered by COVID-19. The necessity of design was suggested. This study is expected to be used as basic data for the development and operation of STEAM programs in the high school credit system, which will be fully implemented in 2025.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.403-414
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• 2023

In this study, we examined the adaptive practices of science teachers in their classrooms and their perspectives on the distinguishing features of these practices within science subjects. Our analysis comprised 339 cases from 128 middle and high school science teachers nationwide, and 199 cases on the characteristics of adaptive practices in science disciplines. The primary findings were as follows: First, the most significant characteristic of adaptive practice in science disciplines pertained to experimental procedures. Within the 'suggestion of additional materials/activities' category, the most frequently cited adaptive practice, teachers incorporated demonstrations to either facilitate student comprehension or enhance motivation. Additionally, 'experimental equipment manipulation or presentation of inquiry skills' emerged as the second most common adaptive practice related to experiments. Notably, over 50% of teacher responses regarding the characteristics of adaptive practices in science pertained to experiment guidance. Second, many adaptive practices involving difficulties experienced by students in learning situations were presented, particularly in areas such as numeracy and literacy. Many cases were related to the basic ability of mathematics used as a tool in science learning and understanding scientific terms in Chinese characters. Third, beyond 'experiment guidance', the characteristic adaptive practices of science subjects were related to 'connections between scientific theory and the real world', 'misconception guidance in science', 'cultivation of scientific thinking', and 'convergence approaches'. Fourth, the cases of adaptive practice presented by the science teachers differed by school level and major; therefore, it is necessary to consider school level or major in future research related to adaptive practice. Fifth, most of the adaptive action items with a small number of cases were adaptive actions executed from a macroscopic perspective, so it is necessary to pay attention to related professionalism. Finally, based on the results of this study, the implications for science education were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.8
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• pp.793-811
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to understand how a teacher's teaching can be changed while he or she teaches the same contents in different classes. The qualitative research method was used in this study. Data were collected from classroom observations, several in-depth interviews, and stimulated-recall interviews after each class. All the data were transcribed and analyzed interpretively, and then, the results of the analysis were checked by each participating teacher. The results are as follows: First, changes appeared in each class in terms of the teaching items, tools, sequence, and time, even though the same teacher taught the same contents. It showed that the teacher's teaching practice changed immediately and intuitively in class. Second, teachers tried to implement "exploratory teaching" or "move-testing teaching" to address the emerging problems during their teaching. They then reflected on and modified their own teaching. This type of change, which happened during the teaching practice, can be an example of "Reflection-in-practice." Thus, the results of this study can provide helpful insights into how teachers might adapt and reflect in their teaching. It suggests that teachers need to recognize their subconscious teaching changes and learn "Reflection-in-practice."

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.556-564
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• 2004

Two biology modules were developed previously for the purpose of improving creativity and scientific thinking of secondary school students. A hypothetical-deductive experimental procedure was reflected in the module when students themselves can perform a series of activities of making hypothesis and designing an experiment to solve the questions. They followed a series of scientific processes to determine some characteristics regarding plant pigments and the transport process of materials in living organisms. Four classes of 9th graders in'S' Science High School were divided into the experimental and the control group. The same contents of the modules were taught to the control group by the traditional experimental way. The students' creativity, scientific thinking, scientific inquiry skill and knowledge achievement were examined before and after the interventions. As results, the experimental groups showed more significant improvement on the areas of the students' creativity, scientific thinking, scientific inquiry skill and achievement than the control groups. Results indicated that the specially designed modules in terms of hypothetical-deductive experimental procedure were effective to improve science high school students' creativity and scientific thinking abilities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.212-224
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• 2007

Metabolism is one of the pivotal biology concepts, but many students have difficulty understanding it. The purposes of this study were (1) to explore 8th graders' conceptual change of an enzyme after classes of experimenting enzyme reaction and interpreting data using systematic analogies, (2) to discover the role of systematic analogies to enhance students' understanding, and (3) to explain students' difficulty understanding concepts as the ontological features. Systematic analogies were designed to encourage students to interpret their lab activities on enzyme reaction rates. Data were collected by using the pre-test and the post-test of open-ended form, students' worksheets, and interviews with students. After classes, the number of students to engender scientific conceptions about the function of enzyme, its structure, and its mechanism has increased. But more students failed to understand the reaction mechanisms having ontological features of equilibration processes than to understand the function of enzyme having ontological features of event-like processes. Even though the concepts of enzymes are hard to grasp owing to their ontological attributes of equilibration processes, a part of students' conceptions successfully progressed from the idea belonging to event-like processes to one belonging to equilibration processes. And systematic analogies were found to contribute in enhancing students' conceptual change of the enzyme reaction.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.509-524
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• 2014

The purposes of this study were to develop a program utilizing learning strategies for underachieving middle school students in science and to identify the effectiveness of the program on the ability of using learning strategies and the improvement of science academic achievement. For this study, we developed the program of learning strategies consisting of eleven consecutive lesson plans focusing on the content of 2009 revised national science curriculum and applied the program to three underachieving students in science of 7th grade, who have weaker learning strategies that can be used for science study than other underachievers. After treatments, we analyzed the effectiveness of this program through science learning strategy tests, overall assessments, student-activity sheets, research logs, learning-transcription details, analysis of interviews with students, and observation of classes. According to this study, the enhancement of the ability of using learning strategies was limited because it was difficult for the students to change their fossilized strategies. On the other hand, their overall academic performance was considerably improved since the students became interested in studying science drawing on the learning strategies. Therefore, the program of learning strategies had a positive effect on improving the science underachievers' ability of using learning strategies and academic achievements.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.93-101
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• 2002

This study investigated the effect of small group discussion for science concept learning in cooperative learning environments that encourage verbal interaction with peers upon students' understanding of the concepts at the particulate level, application abilities, perceptions of students' negotiation, and communication apprehension. Two classes of 7th grade at a coed middle school were assigned to the control and the treatment groups. They were taught about change of states and motion of molecules for 7 class periods. Two-way ANCOVA results revealed that the scores of a conceptions test for the treatment group were significantly higher than those for the control group, and that the low-achievers in the treatment group performed better than those in the control group. However, the scores of two groups did not differ significantly in an application test. The perceptions of students' negotiation for the treatment group were more positive, but the scores of the communication apprehension for two groups were not significantly different.