• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 1988

The educational policy of a nation should be based on the results of nation-wide studies and their analyses. This study is the third one in a series of research on "development of improvement plan and monitoring system for secondary school science", focusing on the three major areas, such as students' achievements, science instruction and conditions for science education in vocational high schools. In general, the results showed that science achievements in vocational high schools were significantly lower than those of general high schools. While the achievement level in physics was lower by one percent, the achievement levels in chemistry and biology were significantly lower by more than 5 percents. In the case of scientific inquiry, the results showed much lower scores compared to those of general high schools. Concerning the inquiry abilities, most of the students did not possess the formal operational thinking skills such as controlling variables and combinatorial thinking. The ability of experimental skills seemed to be closely related to the students' majors. Students in industrial arts schools could measure electric resistance very well, while students in agricultural high school students failed completely. In the area of students' attitude toward science, the greater part of the students had the experiences of using scientific equipments (68.6 %), experimentation (54.3 %), and extracurricular science activities (56.9 %). They also showed positive attitude towards the nature of science (59.8%). The results of the survey on science instruction and school conditions for science education showed the needs for improvement In general, the priority of science education in vocational high schools was very low compared to their major subjects. The teachers as well as students thought science text books nor to be difficult These responses and the low achievement levels seemed to be contradictory to each other. The facilities for science experiments were better equipped and installed to general high schools. However. the lack of budget was a major problem for performing experiments uning the facilities. Therefore. science education in vocational high school have many things to be improved For the improvement of science education in vocational high schools, financial support as well as the intention for the improvement must be the essential factors.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.139-156
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• 1995

The purpose of the study is to examine the effects of Gifted Education Isnstitute of Korea (GEIK) programs for gifted children especially in the areas of reasoning skills and creativity, thereby proving the effectiveness of the program. The subjects are 136 (103 boys and 33 girls) fourth, fifth, and sixth grade gifted children, who have participated in GEIK programs for more than six moths. They were stratified by the length of participation in GEIK programs. Ninety four children have participated for more than one year. Forty-two children have participated for less than one year. Both groups are rather homogeneous in IQ scores and school achievement levels at the time of enterance into GEIK programs. Both a Group Assessment of Logical Thinking (GAIT) and a Creativity test were used for the study on reasoning skills and creativity. GALT, developed by V. Roadranka, R. H. Yeany and M. J. Padilla in 1983, consists of 12 questions. It is classified into six subscales: conservation, proportional reasoning, controlling variables, provability reasoning, correlational reasoning, and combinatorial reasoning. The reliability of this test is .85. This test recommends to classify the stages of child development as follows according to the total test score. 0-4 point: Concrete Stage, 5-7 points: Transitional Stage, and 8 and above points: Formal stage. The Creativity Test was developed by Y. Lee and W. Chung (1971). It consists of four components: fluency, flexibility, originality, and openness. Only both fluency and openness were used in this study. In order to analyze data, T-Test, Intercorrelational Analyses, ANOVA, and Nultiple Regression were used. Followings are the results deduced from the above analoyses of the data. First, 43.48% of the subjects were on Concrete Stage, 36.78% were on the Transitional Stage, and 19.86% were on the Formal Stage in the developmental level classified by Piaget. Second, the students who have participated in GEIK programs more than one year acquired significantly higher score in GALT than the students who have participated in GEIK programs less than one year. Third, boys showed higher score in GALT than girls did. Fourth, there were statistically significant intercorrelations between six subscales of GALT. Fifth, the students who have participated in GEIK programs more than one year acquired significantly higher score in openness of creativity test than the students who have participated in GEIK programs less than one year. There were no significant differences in openness of creativity test between boys and girls. Sixth, the students who have participated in GEIK programs more than one year acquired significantly higher score in fluency of creativity test than the students who have participated in GEIK programs less than one year. Girls showed higher score in fluency of creativity test than boys did. Seventh, the students who acquired higher score in GALT showed higher score in both openness and fluency of creativity test. Followings are the conclusions deduced form the above results. First, the developmental level of reasoning skills of the fourth grade students participationg in GEIK programs is the same as that of 7th grade of normal Korean students and the same as those of 10th grade of U.S.A. and Philipoine students. Second, the GEIK programs are effective in improving reasoning skills. Third, the GEIK programs are effective in improving creativity. Fouth, reasoning skills and creativity can be improved by well planned programs. In conclusion, this study suggests that beyond reasoning skills and creativity, other areas such as areas in science skills, mathmatical skills, or verbal skills, etc., should be studied in the future.