• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.415-427
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• 2020

This study aims to understand science education conducted in North Korea by analyzing the PCK components shown in two science teacher's guidebooks: (1) Guidebook for 1^st grade elementary school and (2) Guidebook for 1^st grade middle school. These were published after 2013, when "the first 12-year Universal Compulsory Curriculum" was implemented in North Korea. The analysis shows that both elementary and middle school guidebooks had the highest percentage of content in "Knowledge of Subject Matter", followed by "Knowledge of Instructional Strategies in Science" and "Knowledge of Science Curriculum". On the other hand, "Knowledge of Assessment in Science" and "Knowledge of Students" were significantly low in content. Within the "Knowledge of Subject Matter", both elementary and middle schools had the highest proportion of content in "Concepts and Theories", along with "Experiments and Inquiries" that was also significantly higher than other PCK components. Science teacher's guidebooks in North Korea advocates constructivist teaching style by using "discussions" as the main activity when conveying scientific concepts and theories to students or conducting scientific inquiry classes. Furthermore, "Knowledge of Instructional Strategies in Science" was mainly focused on guiding the "Instruction sequence and method" from the "Topic-specific Strategies", while only a small part of the "Subject-specific Strategies" was being presented. Also, Science teacher's guide books in North Korea included only a few theoretical elements of science education in both the general outline and the particular sections of guidebooks. "Knowledge of Science Curriculum" was mainly composed of "Lesson Objectives" with some inclusion of "Vertical Articulation" and "Horizontal Articulation". "Knowledge of Assessment in Science" and "Knowledge of Students" accounted for a small portion compared to the science teacher's guidebooks in South Korea.