• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.506-521
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• 2020

This study aims to develop a scientific creativity task which science-gifted elementary students can conduct on a field trip to a botanical garden, and to analyze the results from conducting the task. For this, 38 science-gifted fifth-graders from the Science-Gifted Education Center, located at the Office of Education, participated in a field trip to a botanical garden, as a part of their program. Prior to the program, researchers developed a scientific creativity task for outdoor education program, along with science education specialists and teachers. The tasks were to observe plants, and to create something new and useful, or, in other words, scientifically creative, based on the plants' characteristics. The students could submit at most three ideas. Also, they assessed their own ideas, and selected an idea that they thought was the most creative. The results were analyzed by using the scientific creativity formula. The main findings from this study are as follows. First, it was found that the scientific creativity formula had an upward bias in assessing originality. Second, the students tended to assess the usefulness of their own ideas more generously. Third, the correlation between self-assessment results and scores from the scientific creativity formula for originality was r=.43. Fourth, in formula-based assessments, the correlation between originality scores and usefulness scores was relatively high, at r=.56. Fifth, the correlation between a student's scientific creativity score and the number of his or her ideas was very low, at r=.23. Sixth, when the ideas chosen as the most creative by students were compared with the ideas that had the highest scores in formula-based assessments, it was shown that 8 out of 19 students (42.1%) did not choose the idea that appeared to be the most creative when graded by the formula. This study is concluded by discussing the lessons from the scientific creativity task analysis for primary science education and gifted education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.227-242
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• 2012

This research explores the scientific reasoning of pre-service elementary teachers in experimental design. The article focuses on pre-service teachers' responses to the questions in the worksheets which involve making their knowledge claims on extinguishing of a burning candle in a closed container, evaluating anomalous data, and designing experiment to test their ideas. Their responses are interpreted in terms of categories developed by Tytler and Peterson(2003, 2004). The interrelationship between conceptual knowledge and scientific reasoning is explored using the data. It is argued that coordination of ideas and evidence must be emphasized in the scientific investigations rather than fair test.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.195-205
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of scientific argumentation on argument tasks with incorrect alternative ideas in elementary science classes. The subjects were 41 fourth graders of 2 classes in an elementary school. In the experimental group, argument tasks with pictures including incorrect alternative ideas were suggested in order to facilitate argumentation. Students were asked to perform argumentation with the component of claim, evidence, and reasoning. In the control group, textbook-based traditional instruction was used. The results showed that scientific argumentation activities on argument tasks with incorrect alternative ideas had positive effects on students' science achievement and science-related affective domains. The analyses of students' argumentation revealed that argument tasks with incorrect alternative ideas could facilitate students' participation and exposure of their preconceptions. It also led students to find and connect evidence to support their claims. In some cases, students had difficulty in making appropriate argumentation because of unclear experimental data and/or invalid reasoning. Educational implications were discussed.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.286-301
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• 2014

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of argumentation for elementary students' scientific writing. Using nine subjects that were comprised of scientific situations and social scientific situations, this study was applied to four 5th grade students utilizing argumentation and scientific writing. The students' scientific writing and argumentation were collected and analyzed based on three domains of scientific writing: scientific thinking, logic, and creativity. The results from this study are as follows. First, the various contents of argumentation positively affected all of the scientific writing domains in post-argumentation scientific writing. Second, the contents of argumentation appeared in the post-argumentation scientific writing as three different forms: 1) Each individual's scientific concepts, claims, and ideas, which were newly mentioned in the process of argumentation, were expressed, 2) Their classmates' claims, grounds and ideas, which were discussed in the process of argumentation, were expressed through internalization, and 3) Expanded ideas, new claims and inferences based on the argumentation were expressed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.199-208
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• 2015

An enhanced understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge-what counts as a scientific argument and how scientists justify their claims with evidence-has been central in Korean science instruction. However, despite its importance, scholars are generally concerned about the difficulty of both addressing and improving students' epistemic understanding, especially for students of a young age. This study investigated Korean middle school students' epistemic ideas about claim, data, evidence, and argument when they engage in reading both text-based and data-inscription arguments. Compared to previous studies, Korean middle school students show a sophisticated understanding of the role of claim and evidence. Yet, these students think that there is only a single way of interpreting data. When comparing students' ideas from text-based and data-inscription arguments, the majority of Korean students barely perceive text description as evidence and recognize only measured data as evidence.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.159-171
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• 2004

Understanding the nature of science is being emphasized recently among the major goals of science education. The nature of science is concerned with aims of scientific work, the status and nature of scientific knowledge, and science as societal institution. This is a review on how to investigate the pupils' ideas about the nature of science, which was suggested by Driver et al. in their book 'Young people's images of science (1996)'. The purpose of this review is to consider the methodological problems of investigating the pupils' ideas about the nature of science, and to get the implications of developing the instruments about it. The instruments, developed by Driver et al., are described as a model and their suggestions are surveyed. Several hints are given this article to develop the similar instruments.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.890-900
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to investigate students' awareness on the scientific and/or technological workplaces and relevant professions in terms of accuracy, diversity and complexity. Participants were 185 7th-, 192 9th-, and 198 10th-graders in Seoul, Daegu, and Gwangju. The results revealed that students' ideas about scientific and/or technological workplaces were general in nature and were stereotyped as certain workplaces such as a laboratory, factory and garage. Their ideas did not differ significantly by grade in view of complexity. Many students also answered that the main factors affecting their ideas about scientific and/or technological workplaces were mass media and/or school education. The students' examples of scientific and/or technological professions were stereotyped as some professions, and the number of examples were very small. Students perceive the scientific professions accurately, but they have a vague perception of the technological professions. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.711-720
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to understand mechanisms of scientific discovery and how this can help students, as young scientists, to understand scientific ideas in the science classroom. To unravel this mechanism, this study employed the notion of chaos. This phenomena was rediscovered by Edward Lorenz. In this paper, the general concept of chaos was briefly discussed in relation with previous scientific theories such as Newtonian physics and quantum mechanics. Following this, discovery constraints in terms of available technology at the time was described. In addition, Lorenz's psychological processes during the discovery was also discussed. Based on analysis, major implications for the field of science education were the provision of relevant schemata, the use of cognitive tools, the presentation of problems with various representational forms, and the sharing of ideas with others.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.261-266
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• 2002

To investigate the pupils' ideas about appropriate scientific inquiry problem, we have chosen the 105 boys and girls of 7th grade in a middle school in Seoul, Korea. Their marks in science are within the highest one-third of their classes. The pupils have made their own scientific inquiry questions, which is to be investigated by themselves in summer vacation. The 105 inquiry questions were gathered and evaluated by the pupils with 5-point Likert scale. From these, we have found that the questions inquiring novel phenomena, questioning causality, or containing scientific terms were evaluated as appropriate. Some questions were changed during performance. The pupils have changed their inquiry problems if they feel any difficulties in performing the inquiry.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.353-366
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• 2011

An alternative vision for science inquiry that appears to be important and challenging is model-based inquiry in which students generate, evaluate and revise their explanatory model. Pre-service teachers should be given opportunities to develop and use their mechanistic explanatory models in order to participate in the practice of science and to have a sound understanding of science. With this view, this study described a case of pre-service elementary teachers' scientific modeling in magnetism. The aims of this study were to explore difficulties preservice elementary teachers encountered while they engaged in a model-based inquiry, and to examine how their understandings of the nature of scientific models changed after the model-based inquiry. The data analysis revealed that the pre-service teachers had difficulties in drawing and writing their own thinking because they had little experience of expressing their own science ideas. When asked to predict what would happen, they could not understand what it meant to make a prediction "based on their model". They did not know how to use or consider their model in making a prediction. At the end of the model-based inquiry they reached a final consensus of a best model. However, they were very anxious about whether the model was the "correct" answer. With respect to the nature of scientific models, almost all of the pre-service teachers initially viewed models only as a communication tool among scientists or students and teachers to help understand others' ideas. After the model-based inquiry, however, many of them understood that they could create, test, and revise their "own" models "by themselves". They also realized the key aspects of scientific models that a model can be changed as evidence is accumulated and a model is a knowledge production tool as well as a communication tool. The results indicated that pre-service elementary teachers' understandings of the nature of scientific models and their previous school science experiences could affect their performance on a model-based inquiry, and their experience of scientific modeling could help them enhance their understandings of the nature of scientific models.