• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.415-430
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of high school students' conceptual understanding about minerals and rocks. A questionnaire was developed to examine students' conceptions of minerals and rocks. The data were collected from 93 students in 10th and 119 students in 11th grades in a high school. The result showed that students' understanding of minerals and rock was on the moderate level. The 10th grade students showed a relatively lower level of understanding about igneous rocks while the degree of the 11th graders' understanding about certain concepts related with melting point in the rock domain was a little bit lower than the average. Although the understanding levels between the two grade levels were similar, there were some items for which students understanding seemed to be more sophisticated with the grade. In the questions about the characteristic of basalt surface, however, the frequencies of non-scientific conceptions were not decreased, rather increased along with the grade. It was also found that the conceptions students acquired from other science lessons as well as earth science classrooms did rather interfere with students' construction of the scientific concepts of minerals and rocks even though sometimes they were helpful for learning. It was suggested that the teachers should understand that some specific terms in earth science have different meanings as they were used in other subjects.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.49-65
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• 2018

Astronomy is the subject that can easily draw students' interest in studying science, therefore plays an important role in developing scientific core competence. However, it is difficult to develop spatial thinking that is required in understanding astronomical concepts through the classroom lessons. Planetarium, along with the science museum, is one of the most representative informal educational institution where astronomical concepts can be taught beyond time and space constraints. In this study, we developed the astronomy education program that is operated in the planetarium and applied the program to the elementary, middle and high-school students to investigate the effects of the planetarium lesson compared to the classroom lesson. The duration of this research was about 8 months, and the number of the students involved is 761, including participants of the 1 night and 2 days camps in the Daegu National Science Museum. The newly developed planetarium lesson is comparable to the previous classroom lesson of which topics are cardinal points, constellation, and the rotation of the earth. Test items were developed to evaluate the understanding of the astronomical concepts. The study was conducted based on the pre- and post-test with non-equivalent groups design comparing classroom and planetarium lessons. The results of this study are as follows. First, planetarium lesson is more effective for understanding astronomical concepts such as the cardinal points, earth's rotation, and the constellation than classroom lesson. Second, planetarium has a positive effect irrespective of gender and previous knowledge. Third, planetarium for high school students has the same effect as additional observation activities followed by the classroom instruction. Therefore, planetarium can be used as an alternative, effective tool when night observation is not available. In summary, planetarium is an effective tool that helps students to understand the astronomical concepts.

• Research in Mathematical Education
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2000

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using graphing calculators on students' understanding of the linear and quadratic function concepts. The populators of this study are tenth graders at high school in Seoul, one class for the treatment group and another class for the comparison group, and experiment period is 14 weeks including two weeks for school regular exams.Function tests used in the study was proposed which described a conceptual knowledge of functions in terms of the following components: a) Conceptual understanding, b) Interpreting a function in terms of a verbal experission, c) Translating between different representations of functions, and d) Mathematical modeling a real-world situation using functions. Even though the group test means of the individual components of conceptual understanding, interpreting, translating, mathematical modeling did not differ significantly, there is evidence that the two groups differed in their performance on conceptual understanding. It was shown that students learned algebra using graphing calculators view graphs more globally. The attitude survey assessed students' attitudes and perceptions about the value of mathematics, the usefulness of graphs in mathematics, mathematical confidence, mathematics anxiety, and their feelings about calculators. The overall t-test was not statistically significant, but the students in the treatment group showed significantly different levels of anxiety toward mathematics.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.243-251
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of science toy making activities on the scientific interest and the conceptual understanding of elementary school students. In this study, science toy making activities were applied to an experimental group and traditional learning activities were applied to the control group. The science toy making activities comprised thirteen steps and were administered during class. In the scientific interest test, there was a statistically significant difference between the score of the experimental group and that of the control group. In particular, post-test scores were higher than pre-test scores in the experimental group, while they were lower than this in the control group. It appeared that students had positive thoughts about science toy making activities. These science toy making activities had positive effects on the conceptual understanding of the experimental group students. The post-test scores of the experimental group were higher than that of the control group in all domain concepts. From these results, it can be deduced that the science toy making activities were more effective than traditional teaming activities. They were an effective teaching technique which enhanced the scientific interests and the conceptual understanding of the students in question.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.57-71
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• 1997

This study discusses the nature of data-interpretation process in the perspective of modern hermeneutics and explores its methodological implications for qualitative research on the life of children. Discussions center around the basic concepts of modern hermeneutics, such as the conceptual distinctions between understanding and explanation, the intersubjective reality constituted between the child's horizon and the researcher's, the concept of the hermeneutics circle and the importance of the openness of language in understanding children's lifeworld. The conclusions are made as follows: First, the concept of "understanding", which is the basic concern of qualitative research on children, has a much different meaning from that of "explanation" in quantitative research. The task of understanding lies in interpreting the lived meaning in context as experienced by children in all its complexity. Second the researcher's subjectivity in the interpretation process has a dual function in that it can produce a faulty hermeneutics circle and yet it provides the researcher with the strong momentum to open up her understanding towards a deeper and wider level. Third, the reliability and the validity of qualitative research should be discussed within the interpretation process itself in that interpretation in qualitative research is guided basically by the researcher's internal dialectic: between data (text) and her subjectivity. Lastly, the language in interpretive research should be open and free in terms of style in order to present a fuller and richer description of children's lifeworld and the delicate textures of their lived meanings.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.7
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• pp.920-932
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• 2010

Many topics in science, especially, abstract concepts, relationships, properties, entities in invisible ranges, are described in mathematical representations such as formula, numbers, symbols, and graphs. Although the mathematical representation is an essential tool to better understand scientific phenomena, the mathematical element is pointed out as a reason for learning difficulty and losing interests in science. In order to further investigate the relationship between mathematics knowledge and science understanding, the current study examined 793 high school students' understanding of the pH value. As a measure of the molar concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution, the pH value is an appropriate example to explore what a student mathematical structure of logarithm is and how they interpret the proportional relationship of numbers for scientific explanation. To the end, students were asked to write their responses on a questionnaire that is composed of nine content domain questions and four affective domain questions. Data analysis of this study provides information for the relationship between student understanding of the pH value and related mathematics knowledge.

• The Mathematical Education
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.453-475
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• 2018

This study examines how elementary students understand fractions with operations conceptually and how they perform procedures in the division of fractions. We attempted to look into students' understanding about fractions with divisions in regard to mathematical proficiency suggested by National Research Council (2001). Mathematical proficiency is identified as an intertwined and interconnected composition of 5 strands- conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning, and productive disposition. We developed an instrument to identify students' understanding of fractions with multiplication and division and conducted the survey in which 149 6th-graders participated. The findings from the data analysis suggested that overall, the 6th-graders seemed not to understand fractions conceptually; in particular, their understanding is limited to a particular model of part-whole fraction. The students showed a tendency to use memorized procedure-invert and multiply in a given problem without connecting the procedure to the concept of the division of fractions. The findings also proposed that on a given problem-solving task that suggested a pathway in order for the students to apply or follow the procedures in a new situation, they performed the computation very fluently when dividing two fractions by multiplying by a reciprocal. In doing so, however, they appeared to unable to connect the procedures with the concepts of fractions with division.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.3-24
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• 2021

Through an empirical comparative analysis, we found that people in mainland China and Taiwan demonstrate strong similarities in their support for democracy, based on democratic suitability, efficiency, preference, and priority. There are also differences in beliefs about democratic values. Compared to people in mainland China, the Taiwanese have a deeper and more widely shared belief in the principles of participation and pluralism, while the differences between their beliefs in the principles of equality, freedom, and checks and balances are narrow. Furthermore, people in mainland China and Taiwan have a strong similarity in their understanding of democracy, that is, they all present a mixed democratic understanding based on substantive bias. Overall, although the differences between mainland China and Taiwan's democratic practices are reflected in the level of value identification from the perspective of democratic support and democratic understanding, the popular democratic political culture in mainland China and Taiwan still has a relatively broad consensus. Thus, the integration and development of cross-strait relations not only has an increasingly profound social and economic foundation but also considerable consensus and mass support on the political and cultural level.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.38 no.5
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• pp.53-63
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• 2010

The purposes of this study are to classify the characteristics of parks by park use patterns and the understanding of design concepts and to analyze the difference of cognition of design concept between designers and park users. The literature studies and surveys were performed to analyze park use patterns and understanding of design concepts for Seoul Forest Park, Yeouido Park and Seonyudo Park. Several statistical methods have been used such as descriptive analysis and importance-performance analysis. The results of this research are as follows. As the results of an analysis of park use patterns, Seonyudo Park may he qualified as an urban landmark park, while Yeouido Park can he classified as a neighborhood park. Seoul Forest Park bas characteristics of both. Second, the higher frequency of visits generally leads higher preference. Third, the overall cognition of the design concepts of parks shows 3.51 on average, which is comparatively high. The functional concepts are better transmitted to the users compared to abstract concepts. The cognition of the design concepts of each park are evaluated in the higher order of Seonyudo Park, Seoul Forest Park and Yeouido Park. Fourth, the cognition levels of detailed design concepts for each place are lower than the overall design concepts. On the other hand, levels of satisfaction are increased after the design concepts are noticed. It would he necessary make the effort to give information about the design concept of each space. The results of this study are limited in that it covers only three parks in Seoul, and did not consider seasonal variables. Nevertheless, this study may he significant in that it dealt with the cognition of design concepts for urban parks, focusing on the difference between designers and visitors.

• Communications of Mathematical Education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.45-55
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• 2014

Lacan gives an explanation on our real actual world by the concepts the "Real", the "Imaginary" and the "Symbolic". Although this three registers are not far from each other, they never can be unified. Among animals, only human has interest in the "truth". The concept of truth is discussed and debated in several contexts, including philosophy and religion. Many human activities depend upon the concept, which is assumed rather than a subject of discussion, including science, law, and everyday life. Language and words are a means by which humans convey information to one another, and the method used to determine what is a "truth" is termed a criterion of truth. Accepting then that "language is the basic social institution in the sense that all others presuppose language", Lacan found in Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistic division of the verbal sign between signifier and signified a new key to the Freudian understanding that "his therapeutic method was 'a talking cure'". The purpose of this paper is to understand Lacan's psychology and psychoanalysis by using the mathematical concepts and mathematical models, especially geometrical and topological models. And re-explanation of the symbolic model and symbols can help students understand new ideas and concepts in the educational scene.