• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.131-148
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• 2012

This study examines the scientific concept development of young children in terms of the day-night cycle. The subjects consisted of 180 three-, four-, and five-year-old children from two kindergartens and one children's center located in Seoul and Jeju. Individual interviews were conducted to collect verbal and pictorial responses on the day-night cycle. The scientific concepts on the day-night cycle are classified five stages including : no recognition, egocentric concept, initial mental models, synthetic mental models, and scientific mental models. Using two-way ANOVA, scores for the types of concept on the day-night cycles were then analyzed according to both the ages and genders of the children. The results reveal the existence of significant differences in terms of the types of concept of young children according to age. Most three-year-olds children had no recognition. Most three, four, and five-year-old children revealed egocentric concepts. Four-year-old children revealed that were in the initial stages of experiencing the mental models and synthetic mental models of the day-night cycle. Five-year-old children revealed that they were in the early stages of experiencing the initial, synthetic, scientific mental models of the day-night cycle. The results suggest appropriate ways of science education for young children based on the development of scientific concepts of the day-night cycle.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.213-228
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• 2002

We know that curriculum is, first of all, related to teaching materials, namely, contents. Therefore, when we think of mathematics curriculum, we must take account of characteristic of mathematics. Vygotsky has studied the development of scientific concepts and everyday concepts. According to Vygotsky, scientific concepts grow down through spontaneous concepts; spontaneous concepts grow upward through scientific concepts. And mathematics is a representative of subjects dealing with scientific or theoretical concept. Therefore, his study provides scientific basis for mathematics curriculum design. In this context, Davydov notes that everyday concepts are developed through empirical abstraction, while scientific concepts require a theoretical abstraction. And Davydov constructed the curriculum materials for the teaching of number concept. Davydov's curriculum is an example of reflecting Vygotsky' theoretical view and his view about the types of abstraction. In particular, it represents mathematical characteristic of a 'science' by introducing number concept through quantitative relationship and use of signs. In conclusion, stance mathematical concepts have scientific characteristic, mathematics curriculum reflects this characteristic.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.209-223
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to compare and analyze science self-efficacy, science self-concept and scientific attitude according to the class size in the elementary school. For this purpose, three research questions were set as follows; First, are there any differences in science self-efficacy according to the class size? Second, are there any differences in science self-concept according to the class size? Third, are there any differences scientific attitude according to the class size? To solve this research questions, the subjects in this study were 809 5th and 6th grade students of eight elementary schools in Busan. 220 were sampled from small-size classes, 354 from mid-size classes and 235 from large-size classes. The results of this study through the process are as follows; First, there were significant differences in science self-efficacy according to the class size. Second, there were significant differences in science self-concept according to the class size. Third, according to the result, there was not a significant difference in scientific attitude according to the class size. The findings of the study suggest that it is necessary the class size should be adjusted to the appropriate level for improving student's science self-efficacy and science self-concept.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.1027-1038
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• 2012

We investigated the effect of Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) on elementary students' concept formation and their retention. Also we explored the interaction effect of those with scientific attitudes. We developed mirrors/lenses lessons incorporating SWH. An experimental group of fifth grade students (n=25) had been instructed with SWH lessons for six periods while a control group (n=25) taught according to the normal science lessons based on the Korean national curriculum using teacher's guides published by the Ministry of Education. Results of pre- and post-test of understanding the concept of mirrors and lenses showed a positive impact of SWH on both male and female students. However, the retention effect after post-test revealed that SWH only had an effect on female students' scientific attitudes. SWH, therefore, could be an effective teaching approach especially on concept formation, retention effects by fostering female students' scientific attitudes.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.16-30
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• 2019

This study aimed to develop and apply the process-focused assessment, and verify the assessment's effectiveness for improving scientific communication skills in elementary science learning. To achieve the aims of this study, the unit "Action of Electricity" in elementary science text book for 5-6th students was selected, and then 13 process-focused assessments were developed to improve scientific communication skills. 119 elementary school students in 6th grade participated in this research. it was performed to compare between 60 students on the general assessment and 59 students on the process-focused assessment in the results of achievement levels on scientific concept and scientific communication skills. The results were as follows: First, this study showed that process-focused assessment had higher educational effectiveness in specific area of scientific communication skills than the general assessment. Second, the process-focused assessment can help to form students' scientific concepts as the general assessment. Furthermore, the process-focused assessment group was more effective at reducing the non-scientific concept than the general assessment.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.197-203
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• 2012

The main purpose of this research is to search the effect of different types of advance organizers in elementary science classes, to the students in acquiring scientific concepts and its retentions. In order to proceed with the research, We have chosen 93 students of three different classes of fifth graders, studying in M elementary school in U metropolitan city. We have randomly chosen two classes as an experimental group and one class as a comparative group. In the first experimental group (Group1), advance organizer was put in a form of a sentence., and the second experimental group (Group2), advance organizer was put in a form of a picture. For the comparative group, We have not put any advance organizer, and the method of class was proceeded as it was before. The result of this research are as follows. Firstly, the result of 'One-way analysis of variance' on scientific concept grade, right after the experiment on three groups, has shown a meaningful difference that, the shape of advance organizer does affect the acquisition of elementary school students' scientific concept. Secondly, even though Group1, who was given with a sentence as an advance organizer, got higher scientific concept scores after the experiment than that of comparative group, However, there was not a meaningful difference between Group1 and comparative group. Thirdly, Group2, who was given with a picture as an advance organizer, has shown a meaningful difference from comparative group. Judging from the facts above, utilizing an advance organizer of a picture in elementary science class, will be very affective on students' acquiring scientific concept.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.477-486
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• 2022

This study explored a possibility of science concept learning in scientific practice-based science instruction through the review of literature about situated learning theories and practice-based science education. It was revealed that the situated learning theories were closely related to the recent trend in science education which emphasizes students' active engagement in scientific practices. From the perspective of situated learning, concept learning occurs in the process in which learners make use of concepts as resources and further develop the concepts through the emergence of conceptual agency during their participation in practices. The study also found that the situated learning perspectives could apply to science concept learning in scientific practice-based instruction: Science concepts are used as resources in practice-based science learning, students can better engage in scientific practices as they take advantage of science concepts as resources, and the emergence of conceptual agency can facilitate science concept learning during the participation in scientific practices. Implications for school science education were suggested.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.55-69
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• 2007

This research examined age differences in the way 3-, 4-, 5-year-old children solve scientific problems involving magnetic and nonmagnetic objects. Their scientific process skills and scientific concepts were examined in 1) hypothesis setting, 2) hypothesis verification and 3) hypothesis application. Data was analyzed by one-way and two-way ANOVA and Scheffe. Children's scientific process skill presented differences by age in each phase of problem solving. That is, the scientific concept level demonstrated by 4-year-olds was higher than that of the 3-year-olds. That of the 5-year-olds was higher than the 4-year-olds. In addition, in all age groups, the children showed a higher level of understanding about magnetic and non-magnetic objects in the hypothesis application phase than in the hypothesis setting phase.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 1991

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Learning Cycle approach to change the concept of density. The results of the study were as follows : 1) Students already had various types of preconception related to density before formal learning. These preconceptions mostly differ from scientific concepts. 2) Male students were much better than female ones in the development of scientific concepts before formal learning. These differences were found statistically significant(P<0.01). 3) The higher the cognitive level of the students, the better the development of scientific concepts. 4) In the change of preconceptions to scientific concepts by treatment, there was significant difference between control group and experimental group at the 0.05 level. It was found that Learning Cycle approaches were more effective than traditional approaches in acquiring the concept of density. 5) It was found that there was no significant difference On the retention level of the concept of density between control group and experimental group.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.41-50
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• 2020

Looking at the understanding of scientific concepts from a linguistic perspective, it is very important for students to develop a deep and sophisticated understanding of words used in scientific concept as well as the ability to use them correctly. This study intends to provide the basis for productive knowledge education of scientific words by noting that the foundation of productive knowledge teaching on scientific words is not well established, and by exploring ways to teach the relationship among words that constitute scientific concept in a productive and effective manner. To this end, we extracted the relationship among the words that make up the scientific concept from the text of science textbook by using quantitative text analysis methods, second, qualitatively examined the meaning of the word relationship extracted as a result of each method, and third, we proposed a writing activity method to help improve the productive knowledge of scientific concept words. We analyzed the text of the "Force and motion" unit on first grade science textbook by using four methods of quantitative linguistic analysis: word cluster, co-occurrence, text network analysis, and word-embedding. As results, this study suggests four writing activities, completing sentence activity by using the result of word cluster analysis, filling the blanks activity by using the result of co-occurrence analysis, material-oriented writing activities by using the result of text network analysis, and finally we made a list of important words by using the result of word embedding.