• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.174-184
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the awareness of elementary school teachers on the socio-scientific issues. Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Accident was used by concrete issue connected with SSI for this study. Participants in this study were twelve elementary school teachers studying at K University Graduate School of Education, located in the central region, who underwent a semi-structured interview. The study method was the phenomenological research method which is one of the qualitative research methods, and the interview papers had been examined by three scientific experts. As a result of the study, it was divided into twenty six themes, eight theme clusters, and two categories, and considered the thoughts on the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, its influence on Korea, the relationship between science and society as a result of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident, interested in social issues related to science, application in class, response from students and the influence on students. Teachers had a general understanding of science-related social issues, but did not have much interest in the subject. However, they mentioned that to apply the issues in the curriculum would have a positive influence and encourage scientific motivation in students and, furthermore, helped them to develop the awareness of science in their surroundings. A greater interest in socio-scientific issues need to require from teachers and, through including these issues in the curriculum, we should have positive influence in developing science education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.416-425
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• 2016

As curriculum statements require addressing ethical and social issues which are raised by modern science and technology, the ability to perceive ethical and social issues regarding science is necessary for teachers to introduce socio-scientific issues (SSI) in their science class. The purpose of this study is to explore elementary school teachers' ethical sensitivity on SSI and attempts to give implications for teacher education. To explore the ethical sensitivity in the context of SSI, the revised version of the Test for Ethical Sensitivity on Science (TESS) was used. Two socio-scientific issues (genetic engineering and radioactive waste) were provided to read and write down five possible questions they believed should be considered before reaching a decision. Data was collected from eighty-two elementary school teachers in Korea. To analyze the ethical sensitivity, the responses including ethical considerations were analyzed by situation and ethical issues. The result showed that 81 out of 82 teacher participants provided at least more than one ethical consideration on each scenario of this study. However, not many teacher could raise various ethical issues and situation that ethical issue might occur. There were only a few teaches who could consider all the situations, 'process of scientific research', 'application of science and technology', and 'science influenced by society', that ethical issues might occur. Especially, teachers failed to consider that the ethical issue can occur in the situation when science is influenced by society. Based on the results, we suggest that during teacher education teachers need to experience finding various ethical issues that can occur in the context of SSI and especially considering the ethical issues when science is influenced by society.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.111-122
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school students' awareness about socio-scientific issues and solutions about environmental topics by using their drawings. For this study, 489 students were participated in 3 provincial regions, Incheon, Dangjin and Pohang in Korea. The students participated in a drawing activity to express their ideas of the socio-scientific issues and solutions related to 'environmental problems.' The analysis of the data include that the students displayed most awareness towards air pollution, water pollution and trash problems. However, the global environmental problems such as global warming and climate change were perceived very low. The interesting thing was about 8% of the students, who drew global environmental problems, tried to explain their drawings using scientific knowledge. But they revealed misconceptions as well. For instance, they were not good at connecting their science knowledge with environmental problems. About 80% of the students drew the pictures, showing solutions in personal context. They mainly drew 3 kinds of solutions: 'Reduce trash', 'Preserve ecosystem' and 'Saving of resources & energy'. Most students suggested to administrate the action plans. About 19% of the students drew 'campaign to save the forest' or 'develop alternative energy' in social context. And only 1 student drew UN conference to solve the environmental problems in national context.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.62 no.2
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• pp.137-147
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to analysis total number of 123 SSI programs by SSI criteria. The criteria was consisted of subject, school level, starting point, scientific evidence, social content, use of scientific knowledge, level of conflict of interest, and evaluation and reflection. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, elementary school programs were the most and middle school programs were relatively few. Second, starting point was mainly in the actual situation, the fiction and nonfiction situation, and the situation including the controversy and conflict was less than 10%. Third, it was based on scientific evidence but mainly influenced by individual values and perceptions. Fourth, social contents were developed mainly in ethics/morality/value, political/social life/economy, environment contents. Fifth, the use of scientific knowledge mainly consisted of scientific decision making, scientific critical thinking, and information search. However, science inquiry, risk assessment, and cost effectiveness were less than 10%. Scientific inquiry is the essential factor of science education, and one of core competencies of national science curriculum. SSI program should be able to experience various kinds of conflicts, and to evaluate and reflect through reflection.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.513-530
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• 2009

Many kinds of teaching methods have been used to instruct ethical issues that arise in the field of science and technology. However, few teaching methods of bioethics have been validated by ethical theories, or justified based on practical utility in bioethics teaching. The aim of this article is to suggest teaching methods of bioethics that are appropriate for ethical theories and socio-scientific issues related to biological sciences in secondary schools. In the article, the teaching methods are classified into three types of ethical theories and into three types of socio-scientific issues in biological sciences. The characteristics of nine teaching/learning methods are then described in terms of appropriate bioethical issues or contexts, and ethical theories or principles.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.581-596
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• 2013

The aim of this study was to identify students' views on the orientation of science and to investigate the relationship between their views and decision-making on socio-scientific issues (SSI). In this study, 27 university students attending a science course were asked to discuss four controversial issues: the Toyota recall, the green car, the global warming and swine influenza (influenza A (H1N1)). The study was comprised of two stages. At the first stage, we examined students' views on the nature of science and on the orientation of science with the open-ended questionnaire based on VNOS and VOSTS. While they held relatively similar views on the nature of science, their views on the orientation of science were distinct as pragmatic, intrinsic, communal and ethical views. At the second stage, to examine the role of their views on the orientation of science in decision-making, we selected four students who had similar views on NOS but different views on the orientation of science. The four students were selected from each group of views on the orientation of science and their decision-making processes were analyzed following grounded theory. Across SSIs, they relied upon their views on the orientation of science as the strategies for decision, though considered different perception, and causal and contextual conditions. This study indicates that understanding students' views on the orientation of science would be helpful for achieving scientific literacy for informed decision.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.455-474
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to explore the ways in which scientists reflect on the scientific practices, based on the premise that reflection is one of key elements for shaping scientific identities. This paper specifically considers scientists' reflections as the processes in which their senses of ethical issues and the value of science are articulated. To do so, the study developed a narrative inquiry for exploring the value of scientists' stories. Fourteen professional scientists' stories were collected in the context of the stem cell research, in ways that foreground their reflections on current scientific practices and the surrounding socio-cultural conditions. As for ethical issues, scientists' stories were analysed in terms of four claims regarding the themes of bioethics, integrity, scientific issues and communication. Furthermore, scientists' reflections on the value of science were analysed in relation to the elements of nature of science. Based on the results, discussion focused on the value of science stories as an instrument with which to guide students into the enculturation in the practices of scientific culture.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.472-486
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• 2010

The surveys for public awareness in relation to socio-scientific issues (SSI) have been limited to several topics such as public perception of risks about the issues and preference for some policies. To illuminate the public science culture literacy about SSI from a holistic perspective, this study aimed to develop an indicator system. For this purpose, the issue on climate change, which is currently one of the biggest issues worldwide, was adopted as a specific SSI and the framework centering on climate change was developed. Science culture literacy about SSI was defined as a lifestyle to identify SSI from various viewpoints and to cope with problems related to SSI appropriately. In the framework proposed, individual science culture indicators are divided into Potential and Activity area. The Potential consists of categories of Interest, Opinion and Understanding, whereas the Activity is composed of categories of Learning and Practice. To examine the reliability and validity of this framework statistically, the developed questionnaire was reviewed by science educators, environment experts and atmospheric scientists and was used to asked 777 secondary students. Based on the results of statistical analyses, the framework was modified and it consequently had 2 areas, 5 categories, 15 sub-categories, 34 indicators and 63 items. It is expected that the framework of science culture indicators for SSI could be used as a measurement tool for public awareness about various SSI topics.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.604-624
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• 2012

This study aims to design a framework for analyzing group argumentation in terms of participants' interaction. Regarding the current group argumentation setting as argumentation on socio-scientific issues within participants who have had limited experience on group argumentation, the analytical framework was designed to explain (1) what was each participant's role on group argumentation, (2) how these roles were changed within each time of argumentation, and (3) how the patterns of interaction were changed through seven times of a series of argumentation on socio-scientific issues. Based on the literature review on analytical framework of argumentation in science education including the works on the structure of argumentation, the discourse formation through interaction, and the linguistic approach on participants' interaction, the current research framework was built. Showing the results of applying the designed framework on group argumentation as an example, strength of using the current designed framework was discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.791-804
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• 2015

This study aims to investigate the definition of and factors in decision on socio-scientific issues and to analyze the standards for the quality of decision-making, based on the review of studies in socio-scientific issues. This study analyzed 147 articles published in journals of the social science citation index, and the research method was followed by taxonomy analysis and analytic induction. The results showed that many of the studies did not explicitly articulate the decision-making and only dealt with a specific element of the process, not as a whole. Decision-making was categorized into the steps of identification, option, criteria, information, survey, choice, and review. In terms of the factors, the literature tackled diverse things: science knowledge, nature of science, type of issue, discussion type, belief & values, and culture. This study examined the relationship between the factors and each element of decision-making. Among the relationships, only six kinds were shown as relevant and most of factors were connected to survey. With regard to the standards, the literature relied upon balance, justification and multiplicity since many of the studies made use of Toulmin-based argumentation. This study gives some implications for standards for decision-making regarding the nature of risk and uncertainty.