• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.67-78
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to identify the basic scientific knowledge of in- and pre-service elementary school teachers, specific areas having insufficient knowledge and the reason for the lack of understanding. For the study, we analyzed the survey asking basic scientific knowledge to in-service elementary school teachers within an urban communities and pre-service elementary school teachers enrolling the first, the second and the third year in National University of Education. The results shows that there is the lack of understanding about scientific knowledge such as boiling points, perihelion, substances, and elements, which elementary school teachers should have exactly known. With regard to the age, an effort is required to increase scientific knowledge of the in-service teachers in 50's, compared to those in 20s' and 30s'. In the pre-service teachers, the average in the third year was significantly higher than that in the first and second year. Regarding the major background in high school, both of in- and pre-service teachers who completed the science course showed significantly higher average than those who completed the liberal arts course. In addition, regarding the major in the university, the average of the group with science and engineering major was higher than that of the group with other majors.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.736-750
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• 2014

The purposes of this study were to investigate concepts of Korean and American elementary school pre-service teachers on combustion, and to compare the concepts of Korean pre-service teachers with those of American pre-service teachers. For this study, concept test on combustion was administered to 23 Korean and 18 American elementary school pre-service teachers. The test composed of 6 items: 'Definition of combustion', 'The reason why a candle in a glass bottle is blown out when the bottle was closed', 'The change of gases in the bottle when a candle burns in it', 'The combustion products of a candle', 'The combustion products of steel wool', and 'The combustion products of a substance'. The results showed that the rates of elementary school pre-service teachers who had scientific concepts on combustion were very low in both Korean and American pre-service teachers' groups, although they were a little different from items. However the rates of pre-service teachers who had partial concepts and misconceptions on combustion were high in two groups. The levels of Korean elementary school pre-service teachers' concepts were a little higher than those of American elementary school pre-service teachers' concepts. The contents and activities on combustion which are in Korean and American science textbooks seem to affect building up their concepts on combustion.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2010

This study reflects the demand of content elements related to "Human Reproduction" in elementary school science curriculum, and verifies its effects by developing and applying sex education contents available to elementary science class. The developed contents is composed of three sections in reference to the contents guideline for teachers. The contents include anatomical knowledge related to human reproduction and reflect social and cultural context of sex ethics. The first section: "How was I born?", second section: "Amazing changes in my body" and third section: "Healthy body, healthy mind." In the result of analysis of changes in sex knowledge and attitude after applying the contents, it showed statistically significant differences between experimental and comparative class. Thus, the developed contents made positive influence on improvement in elementary students' knowledge and attitude of human reproduction. However, it showed little difference in the effects of sex education contents by the grade and gender. In conclusion, if the sex education contents developed through this study is actively applied, it is expected to provide the elementary students with knowledge of the anatomic difference between male and female, its social and cultural understanding and responsibility for sex ethics. In addition, it is considered to be used as effective education programs and materials in elementary school science curriculum.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.178-188
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• 2011

This study was to find the effects of science activity activating spatial ability on spatial ability and creativity of the elementary school students. The survey was conducted with 30 second grade students in one class of "J" elementary school located in "C" City, Chungcheong-bukdo province. The students were taught with the program of science activity activating the spatial ability. According to the result, the science activity had significantly influence on the improvement of spatial ability of the elementary school students. It had also significantly influence on the improvement of spatial relationship ability. The science activity was also effective in the improvement of creativity, and especially in the subdomain of originality and sensitiveness. The students who has right brain preference showed much more improvement in the spatial ability compared to left brain preference students after science activity class. However there is no difference between the students who had the right brain preference and left brain preference in the creativity.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.515-525
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to analyze of how the elementary school teachers lead their classes of a science laboratory instruction and an engineering laboratory instruction in a science subject class. For this study, science laboratory and engineering laboratory lessons were selected and for each science and engineering laboratory lesson, five elementary school teachers were video-recorded of their lessons. The science and engineering laboratory lessons were analyzed by utilizing processes of the science model and the engineering model based on Schauble et al. (1991). The results of these studies are as follows: In science laboratory instruction, some participants didn't distinguish the difference between the science laboratory goal and the engineering laboratory goal. All of participants used search and end strategy of engineering laboratory for science laboratory lesson. In engineering laboratory instruction, all of participants guided to students engineering laboratory goal and used inferences and search strategy of engineering laboratory. However they didn't use the trial and error strategy or redesign which can be an essential element in engineering and design process. Educational implications are discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.1417-1426
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to analyze elementary school students' understanding of the human body by drawing the human organism. Data was gathered by open questionnaires of drawing for human body. The open questionnaire was taken with 530 elementary school students from 3rd to 6th grade. The results were as following: First, elementary school students show the highest understanding of the skeletal system, the digestive systems, the respiratory systems, the circulating system and the muscular system respectively. Second, elementary school students' understanding of the human body improved as the grade goes up. Third, it seems that elementary school students have had their own knowledge about the human body through environmental surroundings before learning about the human body.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2021

This study analyzed the effects of 'online biology learning using E-learning system' on elementary school students' science-related attitudes. Samples of the study were composed of 95 sixth-grade students of N elementary school in Seoul, Korea. The learning was conducted for 11 times over a month. The main results of this study are as follows. First, for the paired t-test, a statistically significant difference between the pre and post scores of science-related attitudes was found. After conducting the online biology learning science related attitudes scores of students generally declined. "The boredom caused by simply watching online biology contents" is the decisive cause of the decline in science-related attitude scores analyzed through interviews. Second, in ANCOVA, according to 'levels of meta-cognition'. there was no statistically significant difference in scores of science-related attitudes. but, there was statistically significant difference in science-related attitudes according to 'adoption of scientific attitudes'. Students of high meta-cognition type showed a greater decline in scores than students of low meta-cognition type. Based on the results of this study, implications for research of online biology education and elementary science education are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.201-209
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument for evaluating quality of the web site about elementary science education. Eight experienced specialists (three elementary science education specialists and five elementary school teachers engaging) in elementary science education verified content validity twice. The evaluation criteria for elementary school science were considering aspects of the characteristic and the quality of web site. The evaluation criteria can be categorized as being in five areas, fifty-seven items. The five areas were a purpose, a credibility, an efficiency, a data-type, an interactivity. Four web sites were analyzed for the subject of this study. Evaluators were nine elementary school teachers, who were educated in the use of instrument. The developed evaluation instrument in this study is considered valid and reliable. The content validity is 91.1%, and the reliability has a Cronbach's ${\alpha}$ of .82. The developed evaluation instrument in this study will verify the quality of web site, provide teachers and students with efficient information about elementary science education. In addition it suggests guidelines about design and devise web site to instructional developer or subject-matter expert.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.535-550
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was the identifying differences between physicists' expectations and teachers' representations about the primary physics concepts in elementary schools. For this, the material subjects analyzed were the 7th curriculum, the textbooks of elementary school and the texts using at the department of physics in many universities. The primary physics concepts extracted from the texts were to be fundamental and basic. Also, they were restricted to the domain of dynamics. And besides, the human subjects were physicists, professors and students majoring physics of the graduate school, researchers of institutes or laboratories and elementary school teachers. At the result of this study showed the scholars and teachers have the different opinions.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.113-128
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to confirm achievement of goals in science curriculum. The questionnaires related to 'solution' chapter of 5th grade were developed. The subjects were 69 sixth grade elementary school students and four elementary school teachers. 5 students were selected for deep interviews. Each interview was progressed separately, and all the contents of the interviews were recorded. As results, it is revealed that most of the students could not understand basic concepts of 'solution' chapter. The teachers and the students recognized that explanations in the textbook were insufficient. Many inquiry activities were introduced in textbooks, but the students could not acquire inquiry abilities, especially data interpretation and generalization abilities. Inadequate pictures in the textbook also disturbed the students' learning of inquiry ability. Using materials of real life in textbook could not attract the elementary school students' interests effectively.