• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 2019

This study aims to examine changes in teaching and learning conceptions and sense of efficacy as well as relationships between them. Data were collected from 121 Korean preservice teachers before and after a 4-week teaching practicum. The results indicated that constructivist conceptions of teaching and learning increased over the practicum period and teacher efficacy shifted as well. In addition, correlations among the constructs were strengthened over the practicum period. Interestingly, constructivist conceptions related to differentiated education were not significant, while traditional conceptions related to teacher-guided lessons were significant after the practicum. These results imply that Korean preservice teachers still place value on the traditional perspective, even though constructivism dominates the current educational policies of Korea.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.465-494
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• 2017

Teachers' conceptions about teaching are important driving and also interfering forces which might affect their actual practice and training. This research explores preservice mathematics teachers' conceptions of teacher discourse, through tasks analyzing and evaluating teachers' moment-to-moment discourse moves which occur in authoritative and dialogical classroom discourse. Some facets of the preservice teachers' conceptions were congruent with dialogical discourse: they criticized teacher's one-way communication and ignoring students' voices; they supported teacher's questions probing students' thinking and receptive attitude to ward students' wrong answers. However, some deep and subtle facets of their conceptions were more congruent with authoritative discourse rather than dialogical discourse: they positively perceived teacher's closed, information seeking questions that funnel students' thinking to the predetermined procedure; they emotionally resisted teacher's questions which might facilitate dialogical engagement by allowing students to judge mathematical correctness of ideas from their peers. Preservice teachers' conceptions of teacher discourse explored in this research provide useful foundations on which to build continuous and coherent teacher professional development programs about classroom discourse.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.69-88
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• 2005

This study was to understand the components that influence preservice secondary teachers' conceptions about 'seasonal changes' We selected 74 university science education students among whom 23 were in the second, 23 in the third, and 28 in the fourth year. The data collected from the paper-pencil test and individual interview with students. The results of this study show that the students had considerable apparent alternative conceptions, and that the 'distance theory' had most important effects on their alternative conceptions. It can be said that preservice secondary teachers' initial models of the seasonal change have their origin in their belief sets (specific theory) related to 'seasonal change', on the basis of which they can interpret their observations and cultural information with the constraints of a naive frame-work of physics. The structures and possible sources of their alternative conceptions for overcoming these alternative conceptions were also discussed. Implications for preservice science teacher education related to the results were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.401-414
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to investigate the elementary preservice teachers' conceptions about 'plastics' focusing on non-polar property from a National University of Education. For the study, the views about plastics, relative shapes of a water droplet on plastic or glass material, and relative shapes of water surface in the plastic or glass measuring cylinder were surveyed from the preservice teachers. And the responses were analyzed based on the patterns. The results from the study are as follows: First, most preservice teachers were well aware of the plastic products which are used in daily life. Second, the responses concerning the reason why plastics can be used commonly were divided into 2 categories with 14 sub-level groups. However relatively few preservice teachers mentioned regarding 'chemical stability' and 'conductivity', which are associated with the plastics' non-polar property. Third, it was found that 50 participants (30.1%) had 'Scientific conception (Sc)', 38 (22.9%) had 'Partial-scientific conception (Ps)', 66 (39.8%) had 'Misconception (Mc)', and 12 (7.2%) had 'No conception (Nc)' on the subject of the relative shapes of a water droplet. Fourth, the distribution patterns and the ratio of the preservice teachers' conception on the survey question 3 concerning the relative shapes of water surface were quite similar to those of the survey question 2. So it was concluded that overall understanding level of the preservice teachers was pretty low on the subjects of the relative polarities of the plastic, glass, and water as well as their interactions. Fifth, the distribution percentile of 'Sc'/'Ps'/'Mc'/'Nc' was not related with the gender but highly correlated with preservice teachers' academic field and their science subjects taken in high school. Based on the results from the study, some educational guidelines were suggested.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.474-483
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• 2010

In this study, we investigated preservice elementary school teachers' awareness of students' misconceptions about several science topics, and the variables influencing their awareness. Seniors (N=106) from an university of education were asked to predict elementary school students' misconceptions on science topics such as phase changes and dissolution. Their conceptions about teaching and learning were also measured. The results indicated that the preservice teachers' predictions about the kinds and/or the ratios of students' misconceptions were different from those reported in previous studies. The low level preservice teachers in terms of the degrees of possessing traditional conception about teaching and learning predicted more students' common misconceptions. The degrees of preservice teachers' constructivist conception about teaching and learning and their major, however, did not significantly influence the numbers of common misconceptions predicted.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.871-876
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• 2015

The purpose of this research was to investigation of elementary preservice teachers' understanding of the image observed in a diverging lens. To achieve the research purpose, Scientific inquiry activity of 'Observing Objects through a Diverging Lens' in the 2009 Revised Science Curriculum was carried out by 29 junior elementary preservice teachers, and preservice teachers' difficulties were analyzed during scientific inquiry activity. The results were as follows. First, preservice teachers had difficulties in comparing the size of the images. Second, preservice teachers couldn't correctly explain the reason about the changing of the image size according to distance from the lens to the object. Third, preservice teachers couldn't correctly explain the changing of the image size according to distance from the lens to the eyes. Fourth, preservice teachers were classified into five levels according to their conceptions of the image formation by the diverging lens, and most of them stayed in the first level. The result of this research suggests that reformations in text and preservice teachers' education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.795-821
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• 2001

This Qualitative study investigated a preservice teacher's developing views of learning with the influence of constructivist epistemology taught in the Math, Science, and Technology Education (MSAT) Master of Education (M. Ed.) preservice teacher education program. The MSAT teacher education program employs constructivist aspects of teacher education and generates applications of constructivism to the practice of teaching, as revealed by faculty interview data. It is important at this point to emphasize that there are significant epistemological and ontological differences between different versions of educational constructivism (i.e., individual, radical, and social constructivism) and that these differences imply different pedagogical practices. For the 16 preservice teachers included in a larger study, the epistemological and ontological characteristics for each teacher's developing views of learning were identified through four in-depth interviews. Data from interviews were used to construct a constructivist profile for each preservice teacher's views of learning (i.e., a profile containing ontological beliefs, epistemological commitments, and pedagogical beliefs). Of the sixteen participants in the larger study, five significantly changed ontological and epistemological beliefs and eleven did not. Profile changes for the five who did change also resulted in changes in their conceptions of science teaching and learning (CSTL). In this article, one of the five teachers case was presented with rich quotes. This case study documents how a preservice teacher transferred his ontological and epistemological beliefs to his pedagogical beliefs and maintained the consistency between his philosophical beliefs and CSTL. It also demonstrated implications that changes in components for an educational constructivist profile have for a preservice teacher's view of himself as teacher. Data indicated the possibility that a constructivist-oriented preservice teacher education program can influence students' conceptions of science teaching and learning by explicitly introducing constructivism as an epistemology rather than as a specific method of instruction. Implications for both instructional practices of teacher education programmes and research are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.351-359
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• 2005

The aims of this research are to analyze elementary preservice teacher's conception and causes of their misconceptions on biological reproduction and inheritance. In future, it would be also to provide useful data for the effective teaching-teaming method in the elementary school as well as opportunities to correct their misconceptions, which help elementary preservice teachers have the appropriate scientific conceptions. Thirty kinds of test questions were designed in science curriculum for elementary students and biology textbook for university students in order to develop reproduction and inheritance's concepts. The questionnaire was given to 166 junior students of university of education in a local city. All statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 10.0 program. The major results are as follows: Among 30 test questions, 2 questions in plants, 5 questions in animals and 2 questions in gene were appeared as misconceptions over $50\%$. The major reason to hold the misconceptions was influenced by 'learning up to now' category. The selection reasons of response were significantly different between scientific conceptions and misconceptions in 10 questions by analysis of variance. The gender also showed statistically significant differences between scientific conception and misconception in 3 questions by $\chi^2$ test. The selection reasons according to gender were significantly different between male and female students in 5 questions. For the reasons in forming misconceptions, they may cause by stereotype, conscious priority, differences of experiences, interest or attention, lack of professional Knowledge, and so on. Therefore, it was concluded that this research may help elementary preservice teachers to reconsider their conception for reproduction and inheritance and to be successful in science instructions fur elementary students.

• Journal of Elementary Mathematics Education in Korea
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.115-134
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• 2017

It is necessary to understand the characteristics of each type of division problems in other to help students develop a rich understanding when they learn each type of division problems. This study focuses on a specific type of division problems; a quotitive division as finding a scale factor in enlargement context. First, this study investigated via survey how 4th-6th graders and preservice and inservice elementary teachers solved a quotitive division relating to scaling problem. And semi-structured interviews with preservice and inservice elementary teachers were conducted to explore what knowledge they brought when they tried to solve enlargement quotitive division problems. Most of participants solved the given quotitive division problem in the same way. Only a few preservice and inservice teachers interpreted it as a proportion problem and solved in a different way. From the interviews, it was found that different conceptions of context and decontextualization, and different conceptions of times (as repeated addition or as a multiplicative operator) were connected to different solutions. Finally, three issues relating to teaching enlargement quotitive division were discussed; visual representation of two solutions, conceptions connected each solution, and integrating quotitive division and proportion in math textbooks.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.104-115
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• 1995

Teachers' conception about the nature of science is considered to be an important factor to improve the students' conceptions of that. It is assumed that teachers' conception of the nature of science may be influenced by their views of learning. The first purpose of this study was to investigate the exploratory relationships between teachers' conceptions about the nature of science and their views of learning. The second one was to compare the their conceptions and views of learning before and after science education lectures during 1 semester. We administered the questionnaires for the nature of science and for constructivist's learning, respectively, consisted of 5 dimensions (relativism-positivism; inductivism- deductivism; decontextualism-contextualism; content-process; instrumentalism-realism) and of 6 aspects (student; learning; instruction; teacher; curriculum; evaluations) were administered to 57 pre-service elementary teachers (female=44; male=13) before and after lectures. In pre-test it was revealed that respondents had not the consistent conceptions about the nature of science. The conception of relativism was more dominant than those of positivism, deductivism than inductivism, decontextualism than contextualism, process than content and instrumentalism than realism. They had more constructivist views in the respect of process of learning than in other respects, that is, students, instruction, teacher, curriculum and evaluation. But no significant correlations between the dimensions of the nature of science and the aspects of the views of learning suggest that constructivst views of learning was not deeply related with their conceptions of the nature of science. In post-test we had similar results with those of the pre-test, but the process-content dimensions of the nature of science was correlated with the constuctivist views of learning. Therefore we concluded that elementary pre-service teachers had the constructivist views of learning which was isolated with their conceptions of the nature of science although they had science educations course. We need to develop the course to make the conceptions of the nature of science relate view of learning.