• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.171-188
• /
• 2013

We investigated whether divergent thinking attitudes mediate the relationship between self-esteem and creative teaching beliefs among teachers. We examined differences in the mediating model we proposed in the groups of pre-service and in-service child care teachers. We found differences in the pre-service and in-service child care teachers in the proposed mediating model. Especially in the pre-service child care teachers, the mediating effect of divergent thinking attitudes was confirmed. There was a significant effect from self esteem to creative teaching beliefs and also a significant effect from divergent thinking attitudes to creative teaching beliefs. But in-service child care teachers, there was neither direct nor indirect effect of self-esteem to creative teaching beliefs. Suggestions for more studies and for better in-service education for the pre-service and in-service child care teachers are recommended for the future.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.24 no.4
• /
• pp.679-701
• /
• 2014

As the validity issue of teacher nominations for the identification of gifted students has been raised recently, this study purports to test the validity of teacher nominations for selecting scientifically gifted students. As the criterion variables, domain specific traits such as science creative problem solving skills and science attitudes and domain general characteristics such as divergent thinking skills, creative attitudes, intrinsic motivation, and leadership were analyzed. Scientifically gifted students, potentially gifted students who had never been enrolled in gifted programs but were nominated as the scientifically gifted by teachers, and general class students participated in the study. The results of ANOVA showed that there were significant differences in all variables but originality factors of the TTCT and science creative problem solving skill test between gifted/nominated students and general class students; gifted/nominated students were significantly superior in these variables to general class students. The discriminant functions analysis yielded a discriminant function that significantly discriminated between gifted/nominated and general class students. Variables loaded on the discriminant function were science creative problem solving skills except for the originality subfactor, and science efficacy. These results imply that while teachers are likely to consider adaptation-oriented academic excellency related to logical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and science performance when nominating students, they may ignore the innovation-oriented property which is indicated as the fluency and originality factors of TTCT. Also, the criteria of teacher nominations are presumed to be congruent with the selection criteria of the gifted education program which pursued academic excellency as the educational goal. This suggests that with such criteria, high performing students in the science area can be sufficiently identified by teachers with no further identification procedures or/and tests.

• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.47 no.3
• /
• pp.238-250
• /
• 2023

This study aims to explore the effect of an appropriate technology program related to water acquisition and purification on scientific attitudes and creative problem-solving skills in elementary school students. Thus, this study developed a learning program related to the appropriate technology composed of 8 sessions, and some were for exploring water acquisition-related scientific principles and the appropriated technology of Warka Tower, and the others were for conducting water purification-related inquiry experiments, such as Life Straw and Drinkable Book, and the last two sessions were for presenting practical tasks through creative ideas and designs and carrying out the relevant campaign activities. For research subjects, this study selected 51 students from two sixth-grade classes, and after modifying the scientific attitude questionnaire and the creative problem-solving skill questionnaire fit for the environment and situation, this study conducted a paired-sample t-test by applying both the questionnaires before and after this program. In addition, while looking into the correlation between scientific attitudes and creative problem-solving skills, based on the post-test results, this study examined relationships between sub-domains perceived by the students after this program was applied. The results can be summarized as below. Out of all the scientific attitudes, curiosity, openness, cooperation, and creativity showed statistically significant results with an increase in the average value when their overall averages of the pre-test were compared with those of the post-test. With creative problem-solving skills, the domain of mastering a specific area and the domain of divergent thinking showed statistically significant results. The correlation analysis results showed that cooperation out of the scientific attitudes had a significant correlation with all the domains of creative problem-solving skills, especially showing the highest correlation coefficient with such sub-domains as critical and logical thinking. All the four domains of creative problem-solving skills showed a number of significant correlations with the sub-domains of scientific attitudes. Through the research results above, this study has several implications on how and where to apply such appropriate technology-related topics in the future and various responses from students.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.509-520
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to analyze laboratory instructions in a secondary school science with an analysis instrument on science laboratory instruction. For its purpose, we used an instrument that analyzes three dimensions of the secondary laboratory instructions. This analysis instrument was composed of 3 categories (the aim of the laboratory activity, interaction, and inquiry process) which are spread into 20 sub-categories, and its validity was checked by four science educators with factor of 0.89. For its purpose, 21 sessions of lab instructions were video-recorded and transcribed. According to the results, in the aims category, the instructions mainly focused on two aims; acquiring the declarative knowledge and increasing attitudes toward science. In the interaction category, some of the observations made were that the teachers's questions could not gather the students' divergent thinking, their directive instructions were centered around themselves rather than giving opportunities for students to be centered within laboratory activities, and students' interaction were rarely shown. Therefore, interaction was classified as level I. In the inquiry process, presenting phenomenon or questionings about the subjects were little observed, and students' hypothesizing and predicting were almost nonexistent. Most of the activity designs within lab session were given from the teachers' directions or worksheets, and students solely focused on data collecting and recording. Hence, inquiry process were classified level I.