• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.703-717
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• 2014

In physics, metal simulation is an important mechanism to understand and create concepts. If students have difficulty in mental simulation, understanding the concept of physics also gets difficult. By providing guide for spatial manipulation to students, 3D simulation contents can help them understand the concept of physics. In this study, the 3D simulation contents developed to help understanding the concept of light going straight and shadow is applied to 20 college students. The results, Hake gain is 0.93, showing high level of understanding about the class. In addition, through mental simulation, students predict the phenomenon well about the new context. This is shown that students' understanding of concept through 3D simulation contents are carried out well.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.753-762
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• 1998

This Paper reports results of investigating the relationship between students' perfoonance and mathematics imtructiooal system in understanding of the function concept. A written examination measuring calcullli students' understanding of the fimction concept was administered to two groups of students whose educatiooal oockground were different. One group consists of students who completed a pre-calculus course in Korea and the other group completed the same course in the United States. This study investigates how students in two groups acquire an understanding of major aspects of the function concept and provided interesting insights regarding the different background and belief related to their performance. Follow-up interviews were conducted to identify possible explanations for the different performance of the two groups in understanding the function concepts. Results indicate that the differences came from the educational environment and individual belief.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.383-394
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• 2008

We analyzed the description of diffusion phenomena in a 7th-grade textbook, and investigated teachers' understanding and teaching methods on diffusion concepts. The data were collected from textbook analysis and questionnaires from 46 science teachers and interviews with 5 teachers. Based on texts' analysis by definition, example, and representation of the diffusion, we found that most of the representations were macroscopically explained by observing the movement of ink in water and smelling the fragrance of perfume in the air. The analysis of questionnaire and interviews also revealed that the definition and the explanation of the diffusion were too abstract for teachers to understand and teach the concept without further information about the microscopic concept of collision of the matter with the medium. Such examples and models lead science teachers to form indistinctive concepts such as dissolution, effusion, and evaporation. Furthermore, the analytical data showed that teachers' understanding of the diffusion concept has been heavily dependent upon the textbook and the level of the understanding was very similar with that of textual description.

• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.1133-1142
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to verify the effects of science classes using abductive strategies on the scientific concept understanding and meta-cognition. The subjects included two classes of sixth graders from K Elementary School in B Metropolitan City and they divided into two groups. Research group was composed of 21 students(10 boys, 11 girls) and comparative group was composed of 21 students(11 boys, 10 girls). In order to achieve aims of this study, proper contents to apply abductive strategies were selected from the first semester science curriculum for sixth graders. Also five-steps study papers were designed to elicit abductive reasoning. While the research group received 20 times of reframed science lessons using abductive strategies, the comparative group received common science lessons according to the teachers' manual. The results of this study are as follows. First, science classes using abductive strategies were effective for the scientific concept understanding. Also there were statistically significant differences between the research group and the comparative group in overall science sub-domain. In the process of hypothesis formulating, students tried to find out scientific causes thoroughly to present the optimal explanation and they concentrated on the analysis of each scientific concept. It is thought that this process contributed to better understanding in scientific concepts. Second, science classes using abductive strategies were effective for improving meta-cognition. There were statistically significant differences between the two groups and especially in monitoring that is one of sub-factors of meta-cognition. It indicates that hypothesis formulating process gave positive effect on meta-cognition by stimulating critical thinking and manifesting elaboration.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.15 no.6 s.59
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• pp.238-246
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• 2006

Recent trends of interior design have a focus on creation of more various meanings rather than past ideology which sought after the compatibility to the function of modem design. These trends requires integral understanding of social and cultural ideologies with a sens of values for a certain periods. In addition, they also require creativity which able to read, find and solve consumer's diverse demand and desire. Considering the effort of trend forecasting in Korea is still heavily rely on the foreign trend shows, it is natural to attempt to study the analytical forecasting methodology based upon more systematic principles which lead to more objective outcome, when the understanding, forcasting and analysis of interior decoration trend are required. In this thesis, the analysis and forecasting of interior decoration trend are studied by means of verbal image code process which involves the induction of design concept through data extraction, classification and analysis, in order to understanding and satisfying the diversified consumer's demand and trend. The coding process of verbal image is understanding as general concept. by extracting common elements from abstract and individual image, and/or specific concept. Therefore, it is proposed that the database building and data mining process of verbal Image, and subsequent development of programming skill can be applied as more efficient tool for various verbal image process.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.241-252
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• 2001

Many high school students are having difficulties for studying advanced mathematics concepts. It is more complicated than in junior high school and they are losing interest and confidence. In this paper, advanced mathematics concepts are not just basic concepts such as natural numbers, fractions or figures that can be learned through life experience but concepts that are including variables, functions, sets, tangents and limits are more abstract and formal. For the students to understand these ideas is too heavy a burden and so many of the students concentrate their efforts on just memorizing and not understanding. It is necessary to search for a meaningful method of teaching for advanced mathematics that covers deductive methods and symbols. High school teachers are always asking themselves the following question, “How do we help the students to understand the concept clearly and instruct it in a meaningful way?” As a solution we propose the followings : I. To ensure they have the right understanding of concept image involved in the concept definition. II. Put emphasis on the process of making mental representations and the role of intuition. III. To instruct students and understand them as having many chance of the instructional conversation. In conclusion, we studied the meaningful method of teaching with the theory of Ausubel related to the above proposed methods. To understand advanced mathematics concepts correctly, the mutual understanding of both teachers and students is necessary.

• Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.469-482
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• 2008

This study analysed difficult points on the understanding of infinity when the concept is considered as actual infinity or as potential infinity. And I consider examples that the concept of actual infinity is used in texts of elementary and middle school mathematics. For understanding of modem mathematics, the concept of actual infinity is required necessarily, and the intuition of potential infinity is an epistemological obstacle to get over. Even so, it might be an excessive requirement to make such epistemological rupture from the early school mathematics, since the concept of actual infinity is not intuitive, derives many paradoxes, and cannot offer any proper metaphor.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.415-429
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• 2011

In the elementary science classroom, inquiry-based learning activities are often limited to students' hands-on experiences. As a result, students often overlook core concepts they are supposed to acquire from the inquiry activities and show difficulties in applying those concepts in a real life context. To make a connection between the hands-on activities and the concept leaning, a small-group discussion can be considered. In this study, we designed a team-based learning (TBL) model for the elementary science classroom. We developed teaching and learning materials for the "Comfortable Environments" unit in the 6th grade curriculum based on the TBL model. After appling the model with 32 6th grade students, we compared the TBL participants' level of concept understanding and attitudes toward science before and after the intervention, and also compared them with their counterpart control group who participated in a traditional classroom. The results showed that the level of concept understanding of the TBL participants were higher than that of the control group. However, there was no statistically significant difference found in attitudes toward science between the TBL participants and the control group. In addition, the interviews with the TBL participants showed that they positively perceived the TBL experiences.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.235-263
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• 2009

The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of children's understanding of fractions in mathematics problem solving. Kieren has claimed that the concept of fractions is not a single construct, but consists of several interrelated subconstructs(i.e., part-whole, ratio, operator, quotient and measure). Later on, in the early 1980s, Behr et al. built on Kieren's conceptualization and suggested a theoretical model linking the five subconstructs of fractions to the operations of fractions, fraction equivalence and problem solving. In the present study we utilized this theoretical model as a reference to investigate children's understanding of fractions. The case study has been conducted with 6 children consisted of 4th to 5th graders to detect how they understand factions, and how their understanding influence problem solving of subconstructs, operations of fractions and equivalence. Children's understanding of fractions was categorized into "part-whole", "ratio", "operator", "quotient", "measure" and "result of operations". Most children solved the problems based on their conceptual structure of fractions. However, we could not find the particular relationships between children's understanding of fractions and fraction operations or fraction equivalence, while children's understanding of fractions significantly influences their solutions to the problems of five subconstructs of fractions. We suggested that the focus of teaching should be on the concept of fractions and the meaning of each operations of fractions rather than computational algorithm of fractions.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.199-223
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate how first and second graders in middle school take in integrated understanding about the concept of function. The data was collected through the questionnaire conducted by the first and second-year students at A, B middle school in Cheongju. The questionnaire consisted of 14 questions related to the extent of understanding a concept of function, the ability to express function and to translate function. The results are summarized as follows. First, the percentage of correct answer made a difference according to the types of representation. Questions leading students to translate a task into a table or an equation showed quite high correct response rates. However, questions asking students to translate a task into graphs showed high incorrect responses. Second, the result shows that students have the different viewpoints depending on their grades when they have to determine whether the suggested situation belongs to function. The first-year students tended to consider function as the concept of 'definition'. On the other hand, the second-year students emphasized 'equation' of function. Finally, only a few students can distinguish the various situations and representations into the definition of function. This result shows that students didn't get the integrated understanding of the concept of function.