• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.773-794
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• 2001

Many studies on the professional development of science teachers demonstrated that induction teachers' conceptions of teaching science are important factors in developing their professionalism. The present study was conducted to describe in detail the progress of two science induction teachers, June and Mike, towards conceptual change teaching, and to investigate secondary induction science teachers' conceptions of teaching science by analysing their conceptual ecologies. The study was interpretive, using multiple data sources to achieve a triangulation of data. Both June and Mike held strongly positive learning in their views of knowledge and science. Holding positivist views of knowledge and of science is likely to be a major obstacle for anyone coming to understand constructivism and its implications in teaching for conceptual change. This argument resonates in several key ways with the teachers' cases, even though I recognize differences between scenario and teachers, and between teachers themselves.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.170-178
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• 2008

In this research, we observed the co-works among novice and expert science teachers who were involved in a science teacher association and explored their interactions. The science teacher association is K-12 science teachers' gathering near Seoul. This study is a case study with the participant observation and the private interview of 8 novice teachers and 3 expert teachers. Based on the collected data, interaction between novice and expert teachers was categorized as seven types; question and answer, demonstration, presentation, co-working, providing materials, listening, and showing interest. Several factors supporting such an active interaction were derived from this study; 1) Teachers perceived well about the importance and the merits of co-working with other science teachers. 2) The open and cooperative environment of the science teacher association supported teachers' interaction. 3) There were tasks that teachers needed to co-work such as the science fair and the science camp. 4) There were opportunities of interactions for publishing books and developing modules. 5) Lots of expert teachers were willing to help and co-work with novice teachers. We found that novice teachers could continue to grow in terms of the professional development under interactive, continuing and cooperative environment with expert teachers.

• Korean Educational Research Journal
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.57-73
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• 2019

The study aimed at investigating the level of self-efficacy of science teachers towards student engagement. Although the general self-efficacy of teachers has been explored a lot but the efficacy of science teacher has not been explored more and student engagement is crucial towards understanding of science concepts. Therefore, the main purpose of the study was to find the self-efficacy of science teachers mainly towards three dimensions of student engagement (Behavioral, Cognitive and Emotional engagement). The study was carried with 150 secondary science teachers as Kathmandu. Secondary science teachers were found to be moderately high efficacious in all aspects of behavioral engagement of students except four aspects in which they showed moderate efficacy. Regarding the self-efficacy on cognitive engagement they were moderately efficacious in two aspects and were found to be moderately high efficacious in other all aspects. However, science teachers' self-efficacy was found to be moderately high. Teachers were found to be efficacious in making clasroom constructive, developing collaborative skill and high order thinking among the students. However in some aspects they were found less efficacious.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.155-165
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to look into self-concept and teaching anxiety of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class, and investigate correlations among them. For this study, the survey was carried out on 338 elementary school teachers, and the interview was conducted with 5 of them. The results of this study are as follows; Self-concept of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class was more positive than usual. And the teachers who were male, older and majored in science education showed more affirmative self-concept about inquiry instruction in science class. Teaching anxiety of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class was less than usual. And the teachers who were male, older and majored in science education showed less teaching anxiety about inquiry instruction in science class. The correlation of self-concept and teaching anxiety of elementary school teachers about inquiry instruction in science class was an negative interrelation. This presents that the teachers, who have more positive self-concept about inquiry instruction in science class, have less teaching anxiety than those who have more negative one. Consequently, teacher training and retraining programs should be developed and conducted by grasping teachers' self-concept and their anxiety, to reduce anxiety about inquiry instruction in science class.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.89-97
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• 2016

Science contest is one of the important programs of extracurricular school science activities which give various experience for science learning. In order to understand teachers' perceptions on science contests in elementary school, this study investigated teachers' awareness of science contests, perceptions and difficulties in carrying out science contests in each school, their perceptions on the preparing process of statewide science contest, and the preference of the types of preliminary science contests. 196 teachers were responded to survey, and 8 teachers were interviewed. The results showed that elementary teachers were aware of various science contests through their in-school experiences. The main difficulties of teacher on science contests was lack of professionalism on science and science contests. While teachers preferred the preliminary round of contest by contest's host to the preliminaries of science contest in each school. They also worried about the intimidation of science month's festival in schools. Based on the understanding of the teachers' perceptions on science contests, educational implications were discussed.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.687-697
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• 2003

This study was conducted to investigate the antecedents of teachers' science teaching efficacy in day-care setting. Also, this study aimed to identify relationships between day-care teachers' personal science teaching efficacy and their perspectives on early childhood science education. The subjects were 176 day-care teachers in rural area of ChoongCheongNam-Do. The survey method was used to collect data from the day-care teacher. The instrument were Rigg & Enochs(1990)'s Science Teaching Efficacy Belief and Kim(l998)'s scales for the Goa1s in Early Childhood Science Education. Main results were as follows: 1. Day-care teachers' personal science teaching efficacy were significantly related with the personal variables such as teachers' education, in-service science workshops, science book reading, science-related hobby but not with teachers' age, pre-service science credits and total years of teaching experience. 2. Among the environmental variables, science activity areas were significantly associated with day-care teachers' personal science teaching efficacy. However, location of day-care center, age of children, number of children, teacher-child ratio, facilities for science education and scheduled time for science education did not affect it. 3. Day-care teachers of high content- and process-oriented goals in early childhood science education were highly efficacious teacher, while the teachers of low content- and process-oriented perspectives gained the lowest score. However, the content-oriented teachers and the process-oriented teachers did not differ in terms of day-care teachers' personal science teaching efficacy.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1427-1442
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• 2012

This study tracked the changes of preservice biology teachers' pedagogical knowledge along with science teaching efficacy throughout sequentially developed science methods course I and II over two consecutive semesters. Two courses, science methods course I and II, aimed these preservice teachers to discuss the notion of science teaching with teaching and learning theories, to learn science instructional models, to design lessons utilizing science instructional models, and to eventually implement microteaching. The preservice teachers were mainly engaged in cooperative instructional planning activities through science methods course I, and engaged in cooperative microteaching activities through the science methods course II. This study revealed that preservice teachers successfully developed pedagogical knowledge and science teaching efficacy after two science methods courses. The science methods course I where cooperative instructional planning activities occurred helped the preservice teachers to improve pedagogical knowledge but not science teaching efficacy. Based on their pedagogical knowledge development, then, these preservice teachers increased science teaching efficacy belief after completion of the science methods course II.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.296-304
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• 2011

In this study, elementary school teachers' needs for the teachers' manual for science instruction were investigated. The participants were 143 elementary school teachers. The test for needs analysis consisted of thirty-seven 5-point Likert-scaled items: Seven items for the professional knowledge category, fourteen items for the laboratory category, ten items for the instruction category, and six items for the design category, respectively. Teachers' background variables such as sex, age, teaching career, major, and the frequency of using teachers' manuals for science instruction except for the teachers' manuals for science textbooks were also examined. The results indicated that elementary school teachers' needs were generally found to be high, which means they are not satisfied with the current teachers' manuals for science textbooks and/or other teachers' manuals for science instructions. In addition, teachers' needs for the laboratory category tended to be higher than those for the other categories. In several items, elementary school teachers' needs were also found to be different in terms of their characteristics.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.103-120
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• 1996

In this study, the ways to improve the processes of training, employing and retraining secondary science teachers were investigated by a survey method. Particularly, the following five aspects of the processes were questioned to three major groups of people relevant to school science. A total of 384 responses (from 156 university teachers, 168 secondary science teachers and 64 student teachers) were analyzed through the frequency-analysis and crosstab-analysis of SPSS/$PC^+$ programme. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) middle-school science teachers and high-school science teachers are needed to be trained separately in different systems, (2) the proportions of the faculty members majoring science education and science studies in the departments for science education are needed to be increased, (3) the proportions of the courses related to science education and general sciences in university curriculum are need to be increased, (4) the period of teaching practice in schools during university time should be increased up to five or six weeks, (5) the proportions of science education and general sciences in the examination for science teachers' employment should be increased and the examination should have more subjective type questions, and (6) the programmes for retraining science teachers should have more contents on science education which are directly relevant to school science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.15-25
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• 2020

In this study, we investigated elementary and preservice elementary school teachers' actual and preferred types of science assessment focusing on the purpose and the method of assessment. Participants were 75 elementary school teachers and 93 preservice elementary school teachers. The questionnaire adopted from previous relevant studies was administerd in order to examine the types of assessment which the teachers have actually implemented and the preferred types of assessment for hypothetical situations known as the prototypical examples of constructivist assessment. The results revealed that most teachers and preservice teachers tend to possess the summative-oriented purpose of assessment. An affective assessment purpose focused on evaluating students' interest, attitude, and curiosity toward science was newly identified in this study. In analyzing teachers' responses from the viewpoint of the method of science assessment, responses of an informal mode such as observation and portfolio were noticeable. However, most of them were found to correspond to the traditional summative-oriented purpose of assessment. For prototypical constuctivist assessment situations, teachers and preservice teachers were found to prefer the performance and the informal modes than the measurement mode of the assessment methods, whereas their purposes of the assessment were not found to be constructivist.