• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.38 no.3
• /
• pp.625-640
• /
• 2014

In 21st century, it is essential to understand Nature of Science (NOS) related to science educational curriculum. The study analyzed Earth Science components of third- through sixth-grade science textbooks in terms of incorporated NOS themes and their relative proportions. Modified analysis methods of Chiappetta et al. (1991) and Lee (2012) are devised and adapted. The results of analysis indicates that the current elementary school textbooks include and explain all the four themes of NOS, but do not include sub-areas of each theme of NOS in a balanced way. In addition, the themes of NOS in Earth Science are not treated equally among different grades. Such results warrant the efforts to include balanced themes of NOS into elementary school science textbooks with the ultimate goal of fully and properly comprehending NOS to the students.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.140-146
• /
• 2002

We have studied 73 pre-service science teachers' conceptions about the nature of science (NOS) using 120 true-false test items based on AAAS Benchmarks statements. We have found that participants have inadequate understanding of the NOS, especially in understanding of five categories of conceptions; change and continuity in science, bias in scientific investigations, hypothesis in scientific investigations, things common in science, and science ethics. The result also indicates that there is a difference between primary pre-service teachers and secondary pre-service teachers. From the analysis of consistency, we also found that this inadequate understanding comes from confusion rather than misconception. All the results support that there is a need of intense pre-service teacher education concerning thenature of science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.314-328
• /
• 2009

The purpose of this study was to examine Korean preservice science teachers' understanding of the nature of science (NOS). Thirty-one Korean preservice teachers were given an open-ended questionnaire about their understanding of NOS. The Korean preservice teachers' responses were categorized according to pattern and theme. These findings will provide information to aid in the development of curriculum and instruction to improve preservice teachers' understanding of NOS. Compared to in previous studies, Korean preservice teachers demonstrated various philosophical stances that have been suggested by philosophers of science. In addition, they were more likely to connect science to human endeavors and social needs. These results were interpreted in relation to the influence of the science methods course, secondary science curriculum, and the traditional cultural view.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.93-99
• /
• 2003

The purpose of this study was to develop a new test instrument based on AAAS Benchmarks for Science Literacy, to assess k-12 students' progress in understanding nature of science (NOS). A total of 276 items were developed including 33 items for grade k-2, 36 items for grade 3-5, 78 items for grade 6-8 and 129 items for grade 9-12 and they were reviewed for validity and reliability. Key ideas that were the foundation of test items were extended, sophisticated and enriched according to the grade level. The general score of this test represents a student's cognitive state about an understanding of NOS. The result of this test can be expected to give some useful information for follow-up investigations, improving instructional design, and conducting further studies.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.39 no.5
• /
• pp.681-694
• /
• 2019

This study intends to delineate the characteristics of various perspectives on the nature of science (NOS) through the textbook analysis. Thus, centering on a science textbook called Science Laboratory Experiments, this study analyzes the elements of the NOS from three different perspectives: the consensus view, features of science (FOS), and family resemblance approach (FRA). While the consensus view highlights the similar elements of the NOS across the topics, the FOS is concerned about empirical ways for doing science. The FRA rather focuses on socio-cultural aspects of science activities. While the consensus view is useful to reify the features of the NOS, the FRA helps to understand science from various viewpoints. Regarding the philosophical account for three perspectives, all of them are ambiguous to some extent. The consensus view holds contradictory dispositions e.g., relativism vs. (post-)positivism, and critical realism and instrumentalism. The FOS supports empirical tradition but cannot effectively cope with the anomalous situation. The FRA is useful to show up the ways of science in both microscopic (personal) and macroscopic (social) viewpoints. However, the broader concept about science may mislead understanding of the NOS. Consequently, this study provides some implication for improving the framework of the NOS and teaching the NOS in the classroom.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.29 no.3
• /
• pp.292-306
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study was to review the current state and characteristics of instruments used to assess individual understanding of the nature of science (NOS). This study conducted a series of content analyses of the articles published in a total of seven Korean and international journals from 1990 to 2009. A total of 99 research papers and assessment tools were categorized according to their features such as item type, the method of development, philosophical perspectives and others. So, evaluation domains of the instruments were also compared with the features of the NOS endorsed in some standards science education documents internationally well known, such as Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993), National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996). It was found that VNOS was the most frequently used instrument used for the last 20 years. There was a difference between characteristics of instruments used in Korean journals and these in international journal, such as philosophical perspectives, item type. Moreover, the results showed that there were only a few of instruments to ask about ethics of scientists, significance of science process skill and the context. NOS instruments focused only on limited aspects of NOS emphasized by the standard documents.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.391-405
• /
• 2011

The nature of science has been recognized in a great deal in the field of science education. However, only few innovative programs are offered for science-gifted students to improve their recognition of the nature of science. The current study describes and analyzes science-gifted students' understandings of the nature of science (NOS). In addition, the study looks into contradictory views among the aspects of NOS, which are fundamental data in constructing target programs on NOS for science gifted students. Data used in this study were collected from 73 middle school science-gifted students using an open-ended questionnaire, VNOS. The results of this study showed that the participants' understanding of NOS was significantly distributed on naive or transition view except for 'tentative NOS', and the results revealed inconsistent view among the aspects of NOS. This study proposes two suggestions to enhance the recognition of science-gifted on NOS of science to informed state and to have consistent perspectives with other areas. First, the role of experiment has to be changed-it should be the process in constructing scientific knowledge rather than an instrument to check scientific knowledge to transform perspective on experimental data and scientific knowledge. Second, various opportunities must be provided to science-gifted students, so they can experience the culture and community of scientists and science to gain a wider insight of science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.24 no.5
• /
• pp.558-570
• /
• 2005

The importance of teaching the nature of science (NOS) has been always emphasized in science education. However, the NOS is hardly taught in elementary science class. We are lacking in the strategies and materials for teaching NOS. So we designed the science drama teaching, and investigated the effects on pupils' perceptions about NOS. The subjects of this study were 185 third graders from a elementary school. The treatment group was provided with science drama lessons and the control group was provided with traditional lecture-type lessons. Their perceptions about NOS were investigated before/after the science lessons and after 3 months following them, and both of two groups were compared. The pretest results revealed that the pupils of both groups were found to have similar views on NOS. Dey had traditional views of the most items except for social construction of theories, mathematical knowledge and decision-making. After science lessons, they tended to change their views toward modem views, but the pupils of the treatment group showed more modem views than those of the control group on the observation, model, social construction of theories, predictions. After 3 months, the pupils of the control group tended to come back to their traditional views, but those of the treatment group showed tendencies that their changed views were kept up on the observation, scientific model, scientific knowledge, scientific methods, decision-making, social construction of theories, mathematical knowledge. Therefore this study suggests that science drama teaching could be one of the effective ways for teaching NOS.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.28 no.6
• /
• pp.685-695
• /
• 2008

An analysis on the Inquiry unit of Science 10 textbooks was conducted in terms of nature of science (NOS). The subject of the analysis was instructional objectives, activities and sentences in the unit of ten Science 10 textbooks. Contents of the instructional objectives could be grouped into nature of science, nature of scientists, scientific methods, and Science-Technology-Society. The concrete nature of scientific knowledge (SK) and constructing scientific theory or model, however, were not found in the objectives. The total number of activities in the Inquiry unit was 38. Seventeen out of them were presented without any supplemental or introductory materials, and 21 activities were provided with information followed by questions, discussions or investigations. For the most activities, any clear statements about NOS elements and desired/informed views of NOS were not made. The sentences of the Inquiry units were mixed up with constructivist and inductive views on NOS. The definition of science tended to be described based on the inductive view. And the generation of SK tended to be described as discovering regularities in natural phenomena rather than constructing theories. For science teachers who want to teach NOS effectively, stating clear learning objectives and elements of NOS and presenting reading materials with relevant views on nature of science were necessary.

• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.41 no.1
• /
• pp.60-79
• /
• 2017

The purpose of this study was to develop a program for the history of science and technology in order for the technical high school students to understand the nature of science (NOS). The program was composed of the six topics based on the textbooks such as convergence science and physics I, and was taught to 290 10th graders at a technical high school located in the metropolitan area. The questionnaire about NOS was asked the students before and after the instruction, so as to investigate the effect of the program on improving their understandings of NOS. The analysis followed t-test and ANOVA using SPSS 23.0 for Windows program. The questionnaire based on the conceptual framework of the four themes of the NOS (Lee, 2014). The research findings were as follows. First, the program was effective in improving their understanding of NOS since the t-test result was significant statistically for the overall domains of NOS (p<.01). Second, there was no significant gender differences in the understanding of NOS among technical high school students (p<.05), neither did their majors (p<.05). Third, all domains in NOS were statistically correlated (p<.01), and in a particular, each domain was consistently correlated with the aspect of the nature of the interactions among science, technology, and society. Hence, the further studies should be conducted to examine how the history of science and technology effects the understanding of the NOS and how the domains in NOS affected each other.