• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.93-104
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to investigate brain activity both during the processing of a scientific hypothesis about biological phenomena and mental arithmetic using 3.0T fMRI at the KAIST. For this study, 16 healthy male subjects participated voluntarily. Each subject's functional brain images by performing a scientific hypothesis task and a mental arithmetic task for 684 seconds were measured. After the fMRI measuring, verbal reports were collected to ensure the reliability of brain image data. This data, which were found to be adequate based on the results of analyzing verbal reports, were all included in the statistical analysis. When the data were statistically analyzed using SPM2 software, the scientific hypothesis generating process was found to have independent brain network different from the mental arithmetic process. In the scientific hypothesis process, we can infer that there is the process of encoding semantic derived from the fusiform gyrus through question-situation analysis in the pre-frontal lobe. In the mental arithmetic process, the area combining pre-frontal and parietal lobes plays an important role, and the parietal lobe is considered to be involved in skillfulness. In addition, the scientific hypothesis process was found to be accompanied by scientific emotion. These results enabled the examination of the scientific hypothesis process from the cognitive neuroscience perspective, and may be used as basic materials for developing a learning program for scientific hypothesis generation. In addition, this program can be proposed as a model of scientific brain-based learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.881-892
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• 2007

This study is aimed to classify teachers' questions and feedbacks as well as students' responses in term, of type and frequency, and speculate the distinctive features of verbal interactions including teachers' questions and feedbacks performed actively in the classes of the gifted in science. The 24 hours of the classes made for the 8th grade science-gifted students were observed and recorded. In addition, the mutual conversations between the teacher and the students were transcribed and analyzed, and the interviews with the teachers also were made. It is found that the teachers usually use the question methods of memory recollection, perception and memorization, together with an instant feedback method, while the students prefer to respond with rather short answers. The characteristic features of the class by the teachers who lead the active class show that they use the open questions at the beginning, raise the level of the questioning, use the questions 'why and how' frequently, and to ask evaluative questions. Their feedbacks to the students interestingly indicate that they show the students the attitude of accepting and receiving students' replies, invite different responses from other students by reserving instant answers or judgements to the students, and give the students the confidence of solving the next problems, by praising and encouraging them.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.432-446
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• 2007

The purpose of the study is to explore the science teaching orientations of secondary science teachers, and how they influence the planning and execution of reform-based lessons. Professional development workshop for constructivist teaching consisted of three different phases; five lectures, small group discussion, and preparing lesson plans. Four teachers who participated also executed their lesson plans in their own classroom. All workshops were videotape recorded. Classroom observations and interviews were conducted and recorded. Instructional materials were also collected for each science class. All data recorded were transcribed and analyzed. Based on the data collected from multiple sources, we identified each teacher's teaching orientations, and through this lens, we also tried to understand their classroom practices. We expected teacher-participants to implement constructivist science teaching. However, the differences among teachers in the course of actual planning and implementing activities for constructivist science was wider than we expected and even some teachers were unsuccessful. Teaching orientations can act as a filter for teachers when they decide whether to accept and apply new knowledge about teaching and learning to actual lessons or not. Even if a teacher plans a guided-inquiry lesson, her/his didactic teaching orientation could be revealed in actual classroom, and lead her/his class to other direction which is quite different from her/his original intention. Although the teachers participated in the same workshops in our study, they planned and executed differently and their own teaching orientations contribute substantially to their practice. Understanding the role of science teaching orientations could be an important step in addressing issues of diverse difficulties in supporting reform efforts in science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.592-602
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• 2008

The purpose of this research is to explore types of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK, hereafter) for effective science teaching. In this research, we explored three science teachers' PCK on light, who were effective in teaching the topic with particular students. The data analysis consisted of identifying the three teachers' unique PCK and ways to improve each teaching episode through the teacher meetings. These analyses, which consisted of verbal exchanges among the participants, were identified on the basis of our understanding. Using grounded theory methods, the types of science PCK drawn from this research are: (1) teaching through curriculum reconstruction, (2) teaching to help students build their own explanation models about surrounding nature, (3) teaching for learning the social language of science, (4) teaching to motivate students' learning needs based on relevance of science to students, (5) teaching through lowering students' learning demand by providing scaffolding, (6) teaching based on the teacher's understanding of students, (7) teaching through inquiry with argumentation, (8) teaching through reification of abstract science concepts, and (9) teaching none marginalized science. Common features of science teachers with quality PCK and their professionalism in teaching are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.180-185
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to inquire the properties and relationship of attitudes toward science and process skills of preservice elementary teachers. Two instruments were used to collect the data, SAS(Science Attitude Scales) for checking up attitude toward science and TIPS II(Test of Integrated Process Skill II) for inspecting science process skills. Three main results were revealed. First, preservice elementary teachers' the attitude toward science and science process skills could not show the significant differences by gender. This result is differ from the results of preceding researches which had set up the students of elementary, middle and high school as objects. Second, the properties of preservice elementary teachers' the attitude toward science and science process skills according to the course in high school were also differ from those of preceding researches having students as objects. The preservice elementary teachers who got the literary courses in high school were more confident in science learning and perform that those who have the academic background of science courses in high school. In addition, although they showed better abilities in two sub-scales of science process skills, the preservice teachers with science course didn't show the better science process skills than those who had taken the literary course in total score of science process skill test. Third, there was a significant relationship between attitude toward science and science process skills of preservice elementary teachers but just one sub-scale was related with science process skills. According to these results, it can be said that the preceding results with students as objects can not be applied to and preservice elementary teachers should be guided by the methods which are considering their special properties.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.832-847
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• 2007

The purpose of the study was to analyze and interpret parent-child dyadic discourses in depth with emphases on the ZPD system in a museum, an informal learning setting. Second graders and their parents from Seoul and its environs were voluntarily participated in the study. Data were collected from the museum documents, the photos of exhibits, and the video recordings of dyadic discourses at and between exhibits. The documents and the photos were analyzed to investigate what the topics, medium and goals of the exhibits were. The video recordings were all transcribed and analyzed to understand what and how they talked to each other through the lens of the ZPD system; situation definition, intersubjectivity, and semiotic mediation, The results of the study consisted of two parts. First, it showed that parent-child dyadic discourses were categorized in four: (1) within the actual developmental level; (2) in the zone of proximal development; (3) toward the potential developmental level; and (4) out of developmental level. The most common categories were the dyadic discourses within the actual developmental level and in the zone of proxima I development. Second, the representative cases in each categories were described and interpreted to understand the nature of parent-child dyadic discourses. It can be concluded that we gained some important understandings of an intrinsic attribute of parent-child discourses in a museum, an informal learning setting. Based on the results of the study, it can be suggested that museums make efforts to cultivate the affordance of exhibit environment to promote visitor's learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.907-918
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• 2007

This study was conducted to explore key factors of expertise development of talented scientists who achieved outstanding research performance according to the stages of expertise development and dimensions of individual-domain-field. To fulfill the research purpose, 31 domestic scientists who were awarded major prizes in the field of science were interviewed in-depth from March to September, 2007. Stages of expertise development were analyzed in light of Csikszentmihalyi's IDFI (individual-domain-field interaction) model. Self-directed learning, multiple interests and finding strength, academic and liberal home environment, and meaningful encounter were major factors affecting expertise development in the exploration stage. In the beginner stage, independence, basic knowledge on major, and thirst for knowledge at university affected expertise development. Task commitment, finding flow, finding their field of interest and lifelong research topic, and mentor in formal education were the affecting factors in the competent stage. Finally, placing priority, communication skills, pioneering new domain, expansion of the domain, and evaluation and support system affected talented scientists' expertise development in the leading stage. The meaning of major patterns of expertise development were analyzed and described. Based on these analyses, educational implications for nurturing scientists were suggested.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.404-411
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the types of explanation about different experimental data on students' preconceptions on physical experiment. 45 students were selected from P University by examining their pre-test. The subjects had a scientific conception about a simple pendulum's period of movement, and expected that there was no change in the movement even when the mass of water increased in the can. The students were presented data about pendulum movement inside a can. They recorded this in a blank table and drew a graph about the movement of the pendulum. The responses of students were tested by presenting written anomalous experimental data. Students' recognition, trust about the anomalous data, cognitive conflict, belief change about their preconceptions were examined with written tests also. To measure students' cognitive conflict levels, CCLT (Cognitive Conflict Levels Test) developed in a previous study was used. Some students responded based on preconceptions and regarded the data as manufactured data or experimental error. The students who recognized the anomaly in the situation showed higher cognitive conflict levels than those who didn't recognize the anomaly in the situation. The students who changed their beliefs about preconceptions recognized the data as anomalous situations and showed high cognitive conflict levels than those who didn't abandon their preconceptions. The students who have unchanged beliefs about their preconceptions regarded the data as experimental error.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.649-663
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to compare the processes of making hypotheses concerning the anomalous path of Wukong, a typhoon that came close to Korea recently, between an earth scientist and undergraduate students. Data were obtained through interviews with a practicing earth scientist as well as five undergraduate students. Inquiry reports of the students were also analysed. The result showed that while the earth scientist conducted a case study with already-established models of typhoon, the students were enabled to work on the specific case of Wukong only after they learned general theories on typhoons. Background knowledge played an important role for the scientist and students to formulate scientific hypotheses. Both the earth scientist and undergraduate students generate multiple working hypotheses, and they considered a couple of conditions to select more plausible hypotheses, including theoretical coherence, causative processes, and consistency with empirical data. Despite these similarities, there were differences in the scope and depth of background knowledge between the scientist and students. In addition, it was not likely that the undergraduate students possessed explicit perceptions of the conditions which could make a hypothesis more probable, except for the empirical consistency. Implications for science education and relevant research were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.482-494
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to introduce a practical model to enhance creative and critical thinking skills through hypotheses generating activities for students. The 2007 Science National Curricula stresses the need for the enhancement of creative thinking skills for our students. The definition for the creativity in the narrow sense is the divergent thinking skills. The definition of the critical thinking skills is the strong sense of those skills. This model shows the use of the divergent thinking skills and convergent thinking skills together. The divergent thinking skills has been developed by making three alternative explanations about the causal question within a group of students by active discussion. The following procedure includes the selection of the most provable of the three explanations within a group of students also by active discussions. This process needs convergent thinking skills as well as critical thinking skills. This model can be used easily by exchanging from the one explanation about the causal question in any inquiry teaching strategy to three explanations about one. Although the partial modified strategy shows a small difference from any inquiry teaching strategy, but the effect of the enhancement of the creative thinking skills for our students shows significantly better (p<.05). More detailed study will be carried out in the near future.