• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.489-498
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• 2007

This study focuses on surveying and examining the beliefs of elementary pre-service and in-service teachers about science and science education. The instrument consisted of 21 items about science and science education on a 5-Likert scale(score range from 1 to 5). The one contained science knowledge and scientific invention, and the other contained science teacher, learning science and science learning and teaching. Data were collected from 76 pre-service and 96 in-service elementary teachers(24 male and 148 female). The elementary pre-service and in-service teachers had higher level belief about that science knowledge should be acquired by sequential scientific process, the beliefs of in-service teachers was more explicit than those of pre-service teachers. They had beliefs to educate learners by providing scientific joyfulness and sequential scientific process. But, in-service teachers had difficulties to perform scientific process-based activities. It is necessary to provide scientific experiences to understand the nature of science in pre-service and in-service programs.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.465-473
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of scientific inquiry-based peer teaching experience on pre-service elementary teachers' science teaching efficacy, anxiety to science and attitude toward science. The participants of this study included 118 pre-service teachers. The pre-post paired t-test design was implemented to examine the effect of this program. In addition, the semi-structured interviews were carried out for investigating their changes of affective characteristics. The result of this study showed that inquiry-based peer teaching provided pre-service teachers with the opportunities to enhance their science teaching efficacy and attitude toward science and reduce their anxiety to science. The findings imply that it is possible to meaningfully change elementary teachers' affective characteristics when effective strategies are adequately adopted.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2015

This study aims to find out the effect of pre-service elementary teachers' experiences of inquiry performance in the life on their images about a scientist and science teaching anxiety. Thus, this study selected 162 college juniors who completed 'Science Teaching Material Research & Teaching Methods' for one semester at a university of education. Groups of 3 to 4 pre-service teachers were made to select one of the 10 experimental topics and inquired it for themselves, and make a presentation about the results before the other pre-service teachers. The results of this study can be summarized as below. Firstly, as a result of investigating pre-service elementary teachers' opinions about the characteristics of scientists, it was found that they thought of scientists prudent, intellectually superior, creative, and hard-working, but did not consider them artistic or religious, no matter if they had inquiry performance experiences. Especially, to such characteristics as intellectually-superior, creative, open-minded, outgoing and responsible, they showed more positive responses after inquiry performances. Besides, in scientists' activity types shown in pre-service elementary teachers' drawing pictures of a scientist, 'Experimental Activity' increased most after their inquiry performances, and in the place of activity, 'Laboratory' was most since it was related to activity types. Secondly, as a result of examining per-service elementary teachers' science teaching anxiety before and after inquiry performances, it was found that they showed statistically significant differences in all the domains, scientific knowledge, inquiry class preparation and inquiry class management. This finding could be interpreted as their inquiry experiences had positive effect on their having confidence in teaching science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.144-154
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• 2010

This study was conducted among elementary pre-service teachers who participated in creative story writing exercises related to science. It aimed at analyzing their perceptions, based on their own experiences in the story writing exercises, about story writing as a pedagogic method, to discover the implications on science education. First, creative story writing exercises were carried out over a period of eight weeks by 114 elementary pre-service teachers at a college of education, all of whom were non-science majors taking a course on earth science as a liberal arts elective. Afterward, an open-ended survey was conducted among them to discover their attitudes and opinions, both as students and as teachers-to-be. The majority of the subjects expressed a positive opinion about creative story writing as a pedagogic tool, stating that they would apply it in their future teaching by telling stories they wrote or having students write their own compositions. Pre-service teachers conclude a creative writing improves students' studying, leads interest and motivation. In addition, it linked with daily life and other school subjects. Creative story writing, when used at colleges of education, has didactic value as an empirical exercise for pre-service teachers who are not majoring in science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.164-180
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• 2011

In this study, pre-service elementary teachers (n=68) participated in an inquiry of exploring children's science ideas as group work. After conducting interviews with children, the pre-service teachers analyzed their science ideas on specific concept and propose a teaching plan based on their findings. This paper aimed to find the positive learning experiences of the pre-service teachers by looking into their inquiry process. Questionnaire, researcher's journal, classroom videos and final reports were collected and analyzed for this multiple case study. Four representative groups were chosen and interviewed after submitting their final reports for in-depth understanding of their inquiry process. The positive learning experiences found in the process of their inquiry into children's science ideas were as follows: (1) exploring children's ideas have brought the opportunity for enhancing pre-service teachers' science content knowledge. (2) the pre-service teachers developed their ability in creating questions that probe into children's understanding. (3) the pre-service teachers recognized that children have various incomplete and unstable science ideas. (4) the pre-service teachers could suggest teaching strategy based on their findings.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.484-495
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• 2019

This study divided pre-service elementary school teachers' knowledge conversion into four types, socialization, externalization, combination and internalization, based on their inquiry activities on the life cycle of cabbage butterfly. As research subjects, this study collected results from 24 pre-service elementary school teachers who carried out inquires on the life cycle of cabbage butterfly for about 2 months. The type of socialization indicates the conversion of tacit knowledge into tacit knowledge, and this study found out that pre-service elementary school teachers acquired and accumulated tacit knowledge from their fellow pre-service teachers, professors and even acquaintances inside and outside the lab. However, there appeared no process that they shared their tacit knowledge with other pre-service teachers or delivered it to them. The type of externalization indicates the conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, and this study discovered some cases that pre-service elementary school teachers expressed their inner tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. However, there was no case found that they converted the verbally-unexpressed tacit knowledge of their fellow teachers or experts into well-defined explicit knowledge. The type of combination indicates the conversion of explicit knowledge into explicit knowledge, and this study discovered some cases that they collected explicit knowledge and converted it into new explicit knowledge for the acquisition, integration and delivery or distribution of explicit knowledge. However, there were few cases that they creatively devised new explicit knowledge by acquiring new knowledge through direct observation and supplementing the existing explicit knowledge. The type of internalization indicates the conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge, and this study discovered both explicit knowledge embodied through personal experiences and explicit knowledge embodied through simulations and experiments that formed tacit knowledge in process of examining the existing explicit knowledge.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.26-39
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• 2020

Visual Representation Competence Taxonomy (VRC-T) was developed in previous study(Yoon, 2018) to provide a framework conducive to assess visual representation competence and to devise appropriate educational activities for it. This study is an extension of the previous study. It aimed to explore the usefulness of VRC-T and revise it by analyzing the patterns of visual representation use in science lessons. The researcher collected lesson plans on shadow principle from 11 pre-service and 13 in-service elementary teachers and conducted individual interviews regarding what visual representations they considered and how they tried to use them in science lessons. VRC-T was used as an analytical framework to examine the types and cognitive processes of visual representations. As a result, new categories were added and the revised VRC-T was completed (VRC-TR). It was also found that both pre- and in-service teachers mainly focused on 'interpreting' the 'descriptive representation' while designing their lesson plans. Additionally, in-service teachers showed more limited use of visual representations compared to pre-service teachers. In-service teachers largely relied on the national science textbooks, while pre-service teachers reflected their own learning experiences in their teacher-training program. These results showed that teachers' use of visual representations heavily relied on their prior learning and teaching experiences. The VRC-TR presented in this study and examples of class activities in each category can be helpful for teachers and researchers who want to use visual representations more effectively.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.109-118
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of experience as a science experiment assistant teacher on the science instruction anxiety and the science teaching efficacy beliefs of elementary pre-service teachers in a small scale school. For this study, 21 elementary pre-service teachers were selected and then they worked as science experiment assistant teachers in small scale schools for about 10 months. They were tested the science instruction anxiety and the science teaching efficacy beliefs in before and after. After analyzing the tests results, some pre-service teachers were interviewed. The results of this study are as follows. The experiences as science experiment assistant teachers positively influenced on reducing the science instruction anxiety to elementary pre-service teachers. The experiences also had positive effects on reducing both state anxiety and trait anxiety, which are the sub-factors of science instruction anxiety. In addition, the science teaching efficacy beliefs and its sub-factor, the self-efficacy in science teaching, had positive impacts, but the experiences did not have a positive impact on the outcome expectancy. The effects of the experience as a science experiment assistant teacher were different according to the personal experiences and cognitions of pre-service teachers.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.353-366
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• 2011

An alternative vision for science inquiry that appears to be important and challenging is model-based inquiry in which students generate, evaluate and revise their explanatory model. Pre-service teachers should be given opportunities to develop and use their mechanistic explanatory models in order to participate in the practice of science and to have a sound understanding of science. With this view, this study described a case of pre-service elementary teachers' scientific modeling in magnetism. The aims of this study were to explore difficulties preservice elementary teachers encountered while they engaged in a model-based inquiry, and to examine how their understandings of the nature of scientific models changed after the model-based inquiry. The data analysis revealed that the pre-service teachers had difficulties in drawing and writing their own thinking because they had little experience of expressing their own science ideas. When asked to predict what would happen, they could not understand what it meant to make a prediction "based on their model". They did not know how to use or consider their model in making a prediction. At the end of the model-based inquiry they reached a final consensus of a best model. However, they were very anxious about whether the model was the "correct" answer. With respect to the nature of scientific models, almost all of the pre-service teachers initially viewed models only as a communication tool among scientists or students and teachers to help understand others' ideas. After the model-based inquiry, however, many of them understood that they could create, test, and revise their "own" models "by themselves". They also realized the key aspects of scientific models that a model can be changed as evidence is accumulated and a model is a knowledge production tool as well as a communication tool. The results indicated that pre-service elementary teachers' understandings of the nature of scientific models and their previous school science experiences could affect their performance on a model-based inquiry, and their experience of scientific modeling could help them enhance their understandings of the nature of scientific models.

• Journal of The Korean Association of Information Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 2018

Because the success of SW education depends on teachers' competences and understanding, many universities of education are carrying out SW education for pre-service teachers. The purpose of this research is to analyze the current status of pre-service teachers' programming learning experiences and understanding of curriculum and educational effects related to SW education. The participants were 294 junior and senior students enrolled in a university of education. In relation to 'programming learning experiences', many responded positively in terms of interest, usefulness and willingness to learn. However, many were not satisfied with their programming experiences, felt difficulty in programming, and evaluated their programming abilities as low. For the 'understanding of SW education curriculum', many recognized the necessity of SW education and understood that the allocated time was insufficient. Both positive and negative opinions were reported concerning the fact that SW education is conducted in practical arts. In comparison, many did not understand well about the concept and characteristics of SW education and the details of the curriculum. In relation to the 'understanding of SW education effects', many understood positively about all the effects presented in the questionnaire including problem solving abilities and creativity. In addition, significant differences were found among pre-service teachers' major categories regarding the programming learning experiences and the understanding of SW education curriculum and effects. Based on the results of the research, suggestions were made for the improvement of the pre-service teachers' SW education program.