• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.89-99
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• 2008

In this study, we investigated the effects of explicit and reflective instruction about nature of science (NOS) using episodes from the history of science upon students' understanding about NOS, achievement, and enjoyment of science lessons. Four classes of ninth graders (N=129) at a coed middle school were divided into the control and the treatment groups. The students were taught about the composition of material for 11 classes. Before the instruction, most of the students in both the control and the treatment groups held naive views about NOS. After the instructions, the views about NOS of the control group students did not change, whereas the students in the treatment group held more adequate views about NOS. The high-level students in the treatment group showed more adequate views about NOS than the low-level students. However, there were no significant differences between the test scores of the two groups in the achievement and the enjoyment of science lessons.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.261-272
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• 2008

This study focused on explicitly instructional effects about NOS(Nature of Science) of sixth grade students. Participants were 28 sixth grade students. Data sources included classroom observations of the explicit NOS science lessons, questionnaire, and interviews. 5 students among the participants were selected for the interviews. Date were analyzed for finding the changes of students' thoughts. Before the instruction, the majority of participants held naive views of NOS, but after the instruction, the majority of participants held informed views of NOS. Developing informed conception of NOS within curriculum is necessary to growth of science education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.249-260
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• 2010

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effects of explicit instructions on the nature of science (NOS) on the understanding of science-gifted students. Participants were engaged in 8 explicit NOS instructions spanning 6 months. Data were collected before and after the instructions from 20 science-gifted students using student worksheets, open-ended questionnaires (Views of Nature Of Science, VNOS), and in-depth interviews. The results of this study showed that explicit instructions were helpful in improving the understanding of the tentativeness in science and socially and culturally embedded aspects of science. However, participants not only still possess naive views on the nature of science about the distinction of law and theory and the empirical aspects of science, but also had conflicting views and misconceptions in some areas. The study has implication for development of science-gifted program that the explicit instructions on NOS and science inquiry should be provided concurrently, given the complementary relationship of the two activities.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.8
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• pp.955-963
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• 2008

This study was conducted to assess any change in students' views on the nature of science (NOS) after lessons through the activities of model construction and pattern identification. The instrument used to examine NOS views was the Views of Nature of Science questionnaire (VNOS). Four students' responses on VNOS before and after instruction were analyzed. The two levels of their views, novice and expert, were judged by the authors based on criteria set by several science educators. The instruction consisted of six hours of the so-called black box and cube activities developed for model construction and pattern identification, respectively. Students' views were at the novice level in definition of scientific theory, tentativeness of scientific knowledge, difference of hypotheses, theories and laws, model construction, and creativity and imagination in experiments and investigations. Students' views on NOS knowledge such as model and theory have improved for two students after instruction. The improvement seemed to be due to an explicit approach using the activities of model construction and pattern identification. The factors of changes and no-changes of views on NOS were identified and discussed in terms of improvement of the views.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.459-468
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• 2014

Educational Discourses on the nature of science(NOS) identify understanding of the role of scientific knowledge, especially the distinction between law and theory, as a crucial goal of instruction. However, the scientist community uses the terms such as law, theory, and principle without explicit definition so that the terms have no coherent meanings in their conventional language expression. The inconsistency between the norm and the reality could impose confusion on the teaching and learning. From the awareness of the problem, this study critically reviews the science education research papers and literatures on the philosophy of science which focus on the meaning of law, theory, or principle and the structure of scientific knowledge. From the examination of the science education researches, it is revealed that the disparity between the normative meanings of the law and theory by NOS researchers and actual usage of the terms is quite serious. From the review of the literatures of the philosophy of science, the necessity of the distintion of three categories: law, theory, and principle beyond the dichotomy between law and theory is brought up. By synthesizing the related literatures, we provide an outline of the characteristics of knowledges belonging to law, theory, and principle. Considering the conflict between the normative definition and the conventional language, it could be unnecessary to emphasize clear distinction on the terms as an instructional goal. Instead, the goal of instruction should focus on that there are three types of scientific knowledges of different functions and characteristics.