• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.58-71
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• 2010

The purpose of this study is to categorize preconceived notions by elementary science gifted students about the reason why only one side of the moon is visible and develop an instructional module to correct these notions scientifically. The effectiveness of these modules will then be tested. The participants of this study were 15 (5th and 6th grade students) from Gwangju Metropolitan City and Chonnam Province who passed a gifted student assessment test developed by J university. The student's notions about the reason only one side of the moon is visible were assessed through questionnaires, interviews, and reenactments. Instructional modules to minimize these notions were developed and then improved upon by class reenactments. And then these modules were used to teach a real class with cameras recording the students. Protocols were analyzed using this footage, and emphasis was placed on how the developed class module changed student's misconceptions. The instructional module developed in this study was: student conception assessment writing materials exploration activity stage 1 (moon's orbit) exploration activity stage 2 (moon's rotation) - exploration activity stage 3 (moon's orbit and rotation) - exploration activity stage 4 (verbalizing the moon's orbit and rotation) - exploration activity stage 5 (thinking about moon movement considering earth's rotation - exploration activity stage 6 (relating the earth and moon's movement) and verifying student conception change. An important conclusion of this study was that all 15 students had misconceptions that could be divided into categories A, B, and C. Category A could be separated with more specifics into A-1 and A-2, and C into C-1 and C-2. After the instructional module was utilized, the student categories show positive change in the following stages: Category A at exploration activity stage 1 and 2, Category B at exploration activity stage 3, Category C-1 at exploration activity stage 4 and 5, and Category C-2 at exploration activity stage 6. Category C-1 students immediately changed to Category C-2 after going through a few stages, and their misconceptions were finally corrected after going through exploration activity stage 6. The misconceptions of students in all categories were corrected scientifically after completing stage 6 education. This study proposes that a combined education of reenactments, exploration materials development, and exploration activities by stages will effectively correct misconceptions about the Earth and moon's movement.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-18
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• 2004

This study attempted to survey the present status of the eight students who, 17 years from now, had participated in a special program for 170 days preparing for early entrance to the KAIST. With six students who responded to the questionnaire previously sent, the study focused on each participant's achievement at present, his evaluation on Accelerated Education, his personal opinions on early entrance to university and Gifted Science Education. From the survey, we could find out that three participants had received a doctorate and they are currently working as researchers at research center or professors at university. The other three participants are working as researchers at research center after receiving the M. S. Academic achievements vary according to each participant, but three of them, who ranked high in research achievement, had their articles published in international journals of the SCI level even when they were between 25 and 28 of age. Two of them in particular showed outstanding engineering and developing the commercial modem for IMT 2000 for the first time in Korea. One participant entered Harvard University to major in physics and afterwards studied the law in UCLA. He is now a professor in the law department. Concerning the evaluations on Accelerated Education and early entrance system, four participants answered positively while two participants expressed negative attitudes. When asked their opinions on the Gifted Education in Korea, such problems were pointed out as too much pressure of entering the first-class universities, the tendency to avoid choosing science-related major at universities, the lack of education system that encourages creative thinking, etc. It is necessary that the accelerated education play an important role to maximize their hidden potentials. It remains to be seen in what places these six participants will find themselves and of what ideas they will come up within the next 17 years. It will be worthwhile to wait until then for another survey.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.6-14
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• 2006

The study investigates mental models of scientifically gifted, middle school students when it comes to tides. This was done by analyzing facet of conceptual types for two contexts. We carried out two performance tasks of tide with different context. A large number of students showed different conceptual types by context. As a result of analyzing facet of conceptual types by context, there was a slight difference in content-specific facet, but a remarkable one in strategic facet. We classified four mental models about tide by configuring facets of conceptual types: (1) Tide model (2) Force model (3) Phase model (4) Hybrid model. The Tide model is scientifically accepted model, but Force model and Phase model are incorrect models, and Hybrid model is mixed model. In cases of Force model and Phase model, conceptual types concur with each other, but these types of students comprehend tides as a result of joined forces of Moon & Sun and phase change of Moon, respectively. Arranging low mental models in proportional order, Tide model (45.0%), Hybrid model (30.0%), Force model (12.5%), and Phase model (7.5%).

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.201-207
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• 1997

This study was performed to survey the achievements in problem solving by the inquiring experiment, which was done by the superior group in the traditional cocepts-centered written tests. The purpose of this study was to identify characteristics of inquiring experimental assessment by analyzing differences between concepts-centered written and inquiring experimental tests. The subjects of this study was 211 applicants. They are the superior group of the 9th grade students, and score in the top 1% of total achievements percentage in school. They also have passed the primary entrance examination. The inquiring experimental test was developed according to the curriculum in school, and is composed of 5 subcategories: problem-perception and formulating hypothesis, designing an experiment, carring out an experiment, recording data and drawing conculsion, and generalizing conculsions and communicaton. The checklists of each subcategory were made and testing methods were divided into observation and report. The major results of this study are as follows: 1. The achievements in each subcategory of inquiring experimental performance were very low in the superior group who took the concepts-centered written tests. 2. The results of factor and correlation analyses in this study confirmed the abilities measured by inquiring experimental assessment differed from abilities measured by existing tests. These results indicated that even students who achieved high in scientific knowledge, these abilities were not automatically transformed inquiry process which many other abilities were integrated into. Therefore, problem solving ability requires integrated abilities which are fostered by inquiring experimental tasks. This suggests that new instrument for assessment must be developed to measure integrating ability especially where scientifically gifted students are selected, or where entrance examinations to the science schools are administered.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.729-738
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• 2019

Research and Education(R&E) program has been emphasized for scientifically gifted students since it can improve scientific research abilities and problem solving abilities because it provides scientific research experiences with professional researchers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of R&E program on creative leader competency and science career orientation. For this study, 62 science high school students participated from 78 science high school students participating in an R&E program. Pre and Post surveys of creative leader competency and science career orientation were administered to the students. The results showed that R&E program improved students' creative leader competency in intellectual and affective characteristic. However, there are no differences in science career orientation because science high school students already had high science career orientation. The implications of this study were discussed.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1431-1449
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• 2013

This study is based on the assertion that science museums should consider visitors' views and expectations as they are not satisfied in many cases. In this study, we investigated 31 scientifically gifted students and 177 science high school students about their image of science museums. Using the questionnaire, it was found that only 51% of students visited science museums; however, the average number of visits was 4.2. This means that students tended to re-visit after the first visit of the science museum. Students had a 'good' image of science museums when they incurred hands-on experiences and observed new, interesting, curious and funny exhibits. And students had a 'bad' image of science museums due to the following aspects: lack of new and interesting exhibits, information and guide, diverse contents, and hands-on experience; deficiencies in environment; and inadequacy of the management, operation and composition of exhibits. Therefore, they hoped that science museums will provide more hands-on experiences and experiments, new and interesting exhibits, systematic management and composition of exhibits, information and guides, and a good environment. So science museums need to pay special attention to aspects like management, information guides and environment for the first-time visitors. Based on the above results, we suggested "Directions for a good science museum based on students' views". While asking students what topics they wanted to know and learn in a science museum, each student was given the choice of four topics; eventually, 2.9 answers overlapped for each topic. When classifying students' topics into four main themes for the Gwangju National Science Museum, the order from the most popular theme to the least one was 'science in everyday life', 'ocean/space/future science', 'light and science', and 'culture, art and science'. Among the topics mentioned by students, only 37% are exhibited in Seoul, Gwacheon, Daejeon, or Gwangju science museums. We hope that the results and research methods will be used for evaluation, re-construction, and reinvigorated presentation of science museums.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.15-28
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to investigate the changes of students' modeling ability in terms of 'meta-modeling knowledge' and 'modeling practice' through co-construction of scientific model. Co-construction of scientific model instructions about astronomy were given to 41 middle-school students. The students were given a before and after instruction modeling ability tests. The results show that students' 'meta-modeling knowledge' has changed into a more scientifically advanced thinking about models and modeling after the instruction. Students were able to be aware that 'they could express their thoughts using models', 'many models could be used to explain a single phenomena' and 'scientific models may change' through co-construction modeling process. The change in the 'modeling practice' of the students was divided into four cases (the level improving, the level lowering, the high-level maintaining, the low-level maintaining) depending on the change of pre-posttest levels. The modeling practice level of most students has improved through the instruction. These changes were influenced by co-construction process that provides opportunities to compete and compare their models to other models. Meanwhile, the modeling practice level of few students has lowered or maintained low level. Science score of these students at school was relatively high and they thought that the goal of learning is to get a higher score in exams by finding the correct answer. This means that students who were kept well under traditional instruction may feel harder to adapt to co-construction of scientific model instruction, which focuses more on the process of constructing knowledge based on evidences.