• Journal of Science Education
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.371-389
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• 2018

This study focuses on the fact that students and teachers commonly have difficulty in 'selecting the topic' in many activities including student-led research that is conducted from topic selection to the drawing of conclusion. The purpose of this study is to develop a manual for science teaching research. The instructional manuals of 4 stages were developed based on practical knowledge that can be implemented in the actual class through previous research and literature. Each stage is composed of , , , and . In the third stage, students are expected to find scientific questions and develop them into research topics through detailed class research on newspaper articles, scientific magazines, traditional knowledge, proverbs, daily life, and textbook experiments. In the experimental group, the final research topic was selected through a variety of sources such as textbook experiments, proverbs, YouTube images, newspaper articles, individual WHY NOTEs, and understood the conditions of the scientific research topic and expressed the variables in the research title. However, in the control group, some students did not consider the research scope of the selected research subjects to be specific or not to be able to study at their level. As a result of giving the students as much autonomy as possible, many groups did not fully understand the previous research and submitted it. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that development and use of a 'topic selection stage' centered practice manual for general high school teachers would not only improve the students' abilities to discover solutions to scientific questions, but it will also help shift their attitudes towards science in a positive direction.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.291-305
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• 2010

The aim of this study was to survey the perceptions of the elementary school teachers on the smallscale chemistry(SSC) following its training session. The teachers participating in the survey were 266 teachers in the Gyeongnam province. They were given a questionnaire that focused on the nine areas of the SSC: Needs for the teacher training and its application, its benefits, issues of safety and danger as well as treatment of environmental pollution, its economic efficiency and the development of investigative skills. The designed questionnaire was checked by an authority, and the responses to each question were tallied and analyzed. The results are as follows. The biggest problems of the traditional experimental methods as rated by the teachers were, in the order of importance, the preparation time, the legal liability of teachers for the safety and accidents, financial issues, disposal of the experimental wastes and the lack of relevant data. Since most of the teachers had not experienced the SSC lab programs in the field, they responded positively to the questions of need for its introduction and training. The implementation of the experimental SSC lab programs should proceed in the following order: introduction into the textbook, teacher training program, after-school education and the invitation of instructors. The most useful materials for the SSC program were CDs, videos, books and various printed materials, in that order. The responses regarding benefits of the SSC program included its simplicity, convenience, time savings, diversity, qualitative and quantitative aspects, integration into the regular class and use of toys. In particular, the teachers mentioned the increased safety due to the small amount of experimental reagents needed and the durability of plastic instruments. The familarity from the use of everyday tools as well as easy access to and the low-cost of the instruments were other important benefits. The teachers in general rated the educational content of the program highly, but many also found it to be average. Some pointed out the lack of sufficient discussion due to the individual or pair groupings as a potential shortcoming. The potential for development of problem solving ability and improvement of skills was rated positively. The number of teacher who rated the development of creativity positively was just over the half. As for the area of improving investigative skills, many found its assessment difficult and confusing because of the lack of its systemic definition and categorization. Based on the findings of this study, I would like to recommend the application and a wider dissemination of the small-scale chemistry lab program into the elementary school science curriculum.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.37
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• pp.393-411
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• 2014

The volume of world market for serious game in year 2015 is expected to be about 9.6 trillion, and the volume of educational serious game market is expected to surpass half of the whole serious game market. In Korea, the development of game for educational purpose has dominated around the education enterprises since late 90s. In 2008, 'Serious Game Forum' was founded led by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism with experts from many fields in the society and there were progressing of making policies and plans for potential development of the serious game industry, but the effects were not successful than expected. In 2012, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology announced commercialization policy of digital textbook by 2015 and the serious game for educational purpose got attention again. Then, the serious game market became more vigorous with the dispersion of smart devices.13) As a result, the serious games on the smart devices or interlocking between the online and smart devices became an important issue in development rather than the online only serious games. Math field has international competitive power through export in the educational serious game market which takes more than half of the serious game market. Therefore, developing serious game for math education is a good area to raise competitiveness in domestic and international game industries. Moreover, it has no received preferences from students and parents although it has high potential for positive change of individuals and society. The reason is that students recognize it as educational content rather than a game and they avoid it, while parents recognize it as game but not an education. This phenomenon happens because the game elements and educational elements are not properly mixed but focused only on education or emphasized only the fun factors of game when it was developed. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to suggest a direction of developing serious games effectively combining with elementary math for elementary students to get interested in math while playing games. The research will analyze the current elementary math textbooks and find contents which may be combined with the game genre that elementary students enjoy playing these days. This research received advice from serious game developers and math education expert group to reflect the inclination of elementary school students, and respond to the demands from parents and educational institutions, and suggested a direction of developing serious games for effective math education.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.173-192
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to develop inquiry modules for learning straight propagation of light, to verify their efficiency, and to acquire implications. this study proposes teaching modules for improvements of light experiments, which were developed in this work. Inquiry modules were applied to 75 school teachers(8 elementary school teachers, 67 middle school and high school teachers) for examining that the modules make teachers have the scientific concepts. Then, conception changes were analyzed except 5 teachers who responded poorly. The pre-test result shows that most teachers have alternative conceptions, which is that they thought the bright shape on apparatus's bottom panel itself shown in the textbook as evidence for the path of light's straight propagation. The post-test result shows this alternative conception was changed into scientific conception. Unlikely pretest, most teachers' conception was changed into the scientific conception that the light come from a light source. Teachers are able to express that the light beam comes from a miniature electric bulb. Further more, most teachers can draw light's path correctly; from the miniature electric bulb, through vertical panel having a hole, to the apparatus bottom.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.204-217
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• 2008

This study analyzed the inquiry activities appearing in the astronomy sections of elementary, middle and highschool level science textbooks according to the five essential features of inquiry in the classroom as proposed by the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000), and SAPA (Science-A Process Approach). On the basis of this analysis, it is clear that the science textbook inquiry activities released the limitation to meet the goal of science education, namely scientific literacy, as it has been laid out by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum. This study revealed that the features of scientific inquiry which are most frequently used in the astronomy sections of science textbooks are 'data collection' and 'form explanation', whereas the features of 'oriented-question', 'evaluate explanations' and 'communicate and justify' rarely appeared. The analysis of inquiry activities by SAPA showed that the basic inquiry skills of 'observing', 'communicating' and 'manipulating materials' were used with increasing frequency according to grade level, and the integrated skills of 'investigating', 'creating models', 'interpreting data' and 'experimenting' were more emphasized in the textbooks. Therefore, it is suggested that students be provided with more opportunities to experience all the features of scientific inquiry and scientific processes as envisioned by the 7th Science Educational Curriculum in order to achieve the stated goal of scientific literacy. Science educators should be required to develop new lesson modules which will allow students to experience authentic scientific inquiry. It is crucial for science teachers to reflect upon and develop their understanding and teaching strategies regarding scientific inquiry through professional development programs in teacher education.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.139-152
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to provide some suggestions for future improvement of scientific inquiry activities in Korean elementary science textbook. The modified framework of Lee(2005) and Millar et al.(1998) was used to compare inquiry activities in the Korean and Singaporean science textbooks. The results of this study are as follows: Korean text books have more activities than Singapore's, but both countries have similar time allotment for science classes. In the area of 'inquiry process skill', Singapore is more balanced in 'Basic inquiry process skills' and 'Integrated inquiry process skills' than Korea. Singapore's integrated inquiry rate is also higher than Korea's. Next the results of comparing leaning objectives to scientific inquiry activities shows that Korean text books tend to focus on 'contents objectives', while Singapore's text books focus on balancing 'contents objectives' and 'process objectives'. Korean science textbooks encourage students to communicate the results of experiments but in most case these communication activities are actually not performed. Lastly Korea and Singapore have low degree of openness in inquiry activities. Remarkably 'Suggest questions' are totally conducted by teachers. This study implies that Korean science textbooks should have lower amounts of inquiry activities to accomodate enough time for communication about results. Next we need to make balance not only 'Basic inquiry process skills' and 'Integrated inquiry process skills' but also 'Content objectives' and 'Process objectives'. Lastly we need to make student to be the leader in science classes through encouraging them to plan procedures for experiments and to discover results by themselves.

• The Journal of Korean Association of Computer Education
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.11-22
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• 2012

This study aimed to analyze applying TAM model the process that flow factors such as 'harmony of challenge and technology' exert effects on learners' attitudes of keeping learning in STEAM class employing robots. For the study, the 'Energy and Tools' chapter of the science textbook for the 6th grade's second semester was re-arranged, and applied for 189 students, and among them, only the 174 usable data were used for the analysis. As a result of analysis, students' learning immersion factor(factor of harmony of challenge and technology) had deeper effects on the factor of ease of learning than usefulness of learning and this in turn, had an effect on their intention to keep learning ultimately through the factor of value of learning as the study found. As a result of research, it was found that for indications identified, in order to use robots in STEAM class, for the students' intention to keep learning, it's essential for learners to have proper and active attitudes towards learning and basic knowledge of robots, and aspects of values should be considered that based on this, robot can assist in learning and affect results of learning in STEAM class. On the other hand, the factors of ease of learning and the combination of the challenge and technology do not gives direct (+) effect on the intention to continue learning and the value for learning, respectively. However, each of the two factor has indirect influence on each of the dependent variable within the significant range, which is the reason the author includes the result of the analysis.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.641-656
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• 2014

This study aimed at analyzing visual materials included in school science textbooks, specifically the textbooks for first semester courses of 3rd to 6th graders. The purpose was to provide directions for future textbooks by understanding the functions of the images in both pedagogical and social perspectives as well. The study was conducted by investigating the types, roles and socio-semiotic features of the images in science textbooks. The results were as follows. Firstly, the most used types of images in 2007 curriculum textbooks were photographs and drawn pictures. Uses of other visual aids than above were extremely rare. It was also found that as the educational level rises, the use of images for decorative functions drastically declined. The majority of the images were used in providing supplementary explanations or examples. This implies that the images effectively play the role of helping science education. In addition, more use of worksheets images was found, indicating that as educational level increases, students participate more actively in research sessions or data analysis. In socio-semiotic perspective, visual images showed high accessibility to students in 'Type of visual image', 'Function of visual image', 'Distance of shot', 'Horizontal angle of shot', 'Color moduation'. It was implied that there will a close correlation between the type, role and the socio-semiotic characteristics of visual images in textbooks. For example, photograph-type visuals were mostly used as supplementary references. And when applying the socio-semiotic analysis to photograph-type visuals, they showed 'real type', 'narrative-metaphor type', and 'shadow effect' among socio-semiotic features. Such correlations implied that knowing the type of the visual image may help determining the role of the image in the textbook to some extent, and also corresponding socio-semiotic characteristics. As a result, it was possible to infer how accessible certain visual images are to students. The above results have implications for the effective use of visual images in future textbooks.