• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.371-387
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• 2016

Learning at the elbow of scientist is a well-known educational approach to improve students' understanding of science and scientific practice. This study, in the perspective of legitimate peripheral participation in a community of practice, explores how students' scientific practice and perception could be shifted through R&E program with the development of participation. Data from participant observation for 18 months and in-depth interviews were analyzed based on constant comparative method to extract common characteristics of students' participation and major shifts in their scientific practices and perceptions. Students' development of participation was categorized into three stages: legitimate, peripheral, and full participation. In the stage of peripheral participation, students perceived themselves as mere students and showed passive engagement. They just followed the directions of researchers and didn't know what they should be doing. But through continuous participation, students showed enhanced engagement like voluntary article reading, role assignments, and establishing norms in a community of practice with the reference of scientists'. In this stage of transitional participation, students also showed a deepened perception on everyday life of scientist and the community of scientist. And finally in the stage of full participation, students showed responsibility and ownership on research and continuous efforts to refine their research. They recognized themselves as beginning scientists. With these findings, this paper highlighted the dynamic processes of students' development of scientific practices and identity through R&E participation. It also suggests implications for research programs for education, especially for students who have already articulated a science-related career but still have only foggy notions about science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.242-257
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• 2014

Researchers have employed a diversity of definitions and measurement methods for creativity. As a result, creativity research is underrepresented in the literature and the findings of different studies often prove difficult to draw into a coherent body of understanding. With regard to assessment, there are some important problems both in creativity research and practice, such as originality bias and Big-C creativity bias in teachers' perceptions about creativity and creative thinking, and additive rather than multiplicative scoring systems of creativity assessment. Drawing upon most widely accepted conceptions of the creativity construct, I defined 'student's scientific creativity' as the ability to make a product both original and useful to the student in terms of little-c creativity, and 'scientist's scientific creativity' as the ability to come up with a product both original and useful to the science community in terms of Big-C creativity. In this study, an 'Assessment Formula for Scientific Creativity' was developed, which is consisted of the multiplication of originality and usefulness scores rather than the sum of the two scores, and then, with scores calculated from the assessment formula, the scientific explanations generated by children were categorized into four types: routine, useful, original, and creative types. The assessment formula was revealed to be both valid and reliable. The implications of the assessment formula for scientific creativity are examined. The new assessment formula may contribute to the comprehensive understanding of scientific creativity to guide future research and the appropriate interpretation of previous studies.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.770-782
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• 2022

This study analyzes the depictions of scientists and teachers' thoughts on the 2015 revised elementary school science authorized 3rd-4th grade textbooks from the perspective of gender equality, and suggest improvements for the 2015 elementary school science authorized 5th-6th grade textbooks as well as a 2022 revised elementary school science curriculum. The data consist of representations of scientists found in seven elementary science textbooks provided to 3rd- and 4th-grade students in 2022 as well as in-depth interviews conducted with three elementary school teachers and responses from 32 teachers in Gyeonggi-do. Of the 23 scientists depicted in the textbooks, three (13.0%) are female and 10 (43.5%) worked in the inquiry domain, which was the largest group. When the teachers were asked about their perceptions of the gender ratio of scientists in the textbooks, their answers revealed that they had lower perceptions of female scientists compared to male scientists; moreover, they had no or very little teaching experience concerning female scientists. Furthermore, the teachers' thoughts on improving the gender ratio of scientists depicted in the textbooks differed considerably by the teachers' gender. Based on these findings, it was concluded that during the process of producing textbooks, writers and members of society need to agree on the gender ratio of scientists to be represented, and a social consensus is needed to identify and introduce the achievements of previously unknown female scientists towards gender equality.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.7
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• pp.1403-1417
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• 2013

In this study, we investigated scientists' perception of imagination and explored characteristics of scientific imagination. For this, we found out conceptions and characteristics based on literatures which related to imagination. We recruited eight distinguished Korean scientists who have rich research experiences by using Snowball sampling for in-depth interviews (60-90 minutes). All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. From the analysis of interview data, we identified their perceptions of imagination and the nature of scientific imagination which scientists reflect on during their research work. Semi-structured interview protocol was focused on: 1) how scientists perceive 'imagination' and 2) how scientists perceive the role of imagination in their scientific research. As results, we found out that scientists agreed that imagination plays an important role in scientific research process and they perceived imagination as an intrinsic part of human life. The study also indicated that participants have modern viewpoint about imagination. Moreover, we uncovered three characteristics of imagination in the research process. 1) Curiosity and interest have been a driving force for scientists' imagination. 2) When scientists use the imagination, they can be more creative during their research. 3) Imagination contemplated realistic possibilities based on the scientific knowledge, and produced the new ones. Educational implications for utilization of scientific imagination were also suggested.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.393-403
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of school teachers in science research ethics and perception of science research ethics education. A survey was administered for this study and a total 167 elementary and secondary teachers studying in K University graduate school participated. The survey was organized to examine participants' 1) science research ethics awareness, 2) status of science research ethics education, and 3) needs for science research ethics education, and 4) the perception of the direction of the science research ethics education in school. Each item was responded using either 1 to 5 Likert type scale, multiple choices questionnaires. The results were as follows: both of elementary and secondary school teachers showed above average interest in science research ethics and secondary school teachers showed significantly higher interest than elementary school teachers(p<0.05). In degree of awareness of science research ethics, plagiarism (M=3.98) was the highest, followed by free-riding(M=3.78), the scientist's social responsibility(M=3.71), and forge(M=3.61). In response science research ethics problem occurs in science education activities more than the average(M=3.39). Teacher's response on the teaching of science research ethics ranges from 3.02 to 4.47, but each science research ethics elements was showed a large deviation. Elementary and secondary school teachers responded that science research ethics education needed(M=4.34). Science research ethics education should be included in the school curriculum. Eighty-five percent of the teachers responded that the science research ethics education should be started from elementary school. 'Discussion-type classes with examples' was preferred as an effective teaching. And teachers needed 'instructional materials' and 'teachers training' for science research ethics education.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.626-638
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of the scientifically gifted high school students to the research and education (R&E) program. 270 scientifically gifted high school students participating in R&E program were sampled and surveyed according to the R&E' purpose, the process of topic selection, the advantage, and disadvantage of R&E. 4 students among them were interviewed in depth. Students perceived the purposes and advantages of R&E as fostering the scientist' qualifications, providing the research opportunities, and improving the inquiry ability and the disadvantages of R&E as the time consumption in research, the participation as a sideline, and the difficulty of contents. The R&E program was mainly composed of a pre-determined topic, fixed procedures, and expert's settlements in the problem-emerging situation and was not cognitive but technical apprenticeship. In addition, students considered the participation of R&E as a chance of experience about the high techniques and the valuable instruments instead of the improvement on the creative problem-solving ability. The role of mentors in the R&E program is so important that it affects largely on the productive participation and the perceptions of science and scientists.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.166-188
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to analyze the utilization of history of science and STEAM and the elementary school teachers' perceptions about design-based STEAM instruction applying the history of science in science class. To research the utilization of the history of science and STEAM in elementary science class, educational value of design-based STEAM instruction applying the history of science, the questionnaire was revised based on research conducted by Lee & Shin(2014), Park et al.(2010), Shin & Han(2011) and developed questionnaire a total of 20 questions. It was administered to reply the questionnaire to 201 teachers of elementary school in D and G area. The results of this study were as follows: elementary school teachers did not teach actively the history of science, made it read students by simply introducing himself. They did not teach actively STEAM due to not enough time(busy to take a magnitude). They were difficult to teach, but the most focused on the 'Creative Problem-solving' process. And elementary school teachers perceived positively about the educational value of design-based STEAM instruction applying the history of science. Especially, they perceived that it can help elementary school students find a hint for solving the problem through examples of cases of scientific principles and a scientist. In conclusion, it implicates that it is need to regard elementary school teachers' perceptions on application of the history of science and STEAM, and develop specific design-based STEAM program applying the history of science in order to be applied successfully in elementary school for the STEAM settlement.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.629-648
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• 2015

This study is a case study examining how research-based 'authentic' science education program contextually facilitates students' learning on NOS as a process. We developed 'Becoming a Scientist' mentor-mentee program and applied it to six Korean 7th graders for 8 months. A mentor, who is also a researcher, provided scaffolding and coaching, and her mentees were to perform the whole process of science research, including selecting the research subject and questions, planning research design, doing experiments, collecting and analysing data, writing research paper, and experiencing poster presentation at an academic conference. The research questions are 1) What would the students experience at every step of their research process?, and 2) Which perceptions would they construct NOS as a process? Data include classroom observations, interview, mentor's journal, and students' learning products. The results show that the mentees have experienced their views of NOS as a process in various ways such as role of research question and purpose, validity of measured value, researcher's subjectivity in interpreting data, experience of making public and peer review, and significance of academic conference. This study has shown that students' actual experience in scientific research enhanced their views about NOS as process without explicit and reflective approaches. We defined 'authenticity' associated with not only with its similarity to what scientists do but to learner's identity as scientific researcher. Based on the situated learning theory, this study sheds light on the necessity of reconsideration about the meaning of authenticity and embodying authentic context in science education for better NOS learning.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.165-187
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• 2002

This study examines Korean representation of the biotechnology and psychological factors which can influence lay people's perception and attitude about biotechnology. Korean college students(N=433) and lay adults(N=90) whom had college education participated in the study. Participants of the study 1 were asked to list words which comes to mind when associate with the biotechnology in broad sense, and several specific applications in health, medicines, agriculture and research. Participants of the study 2 were asked to list possible benefits and costs of biotechnology and their specific applications. In study 3, Participants responded the questionnaires about perceptions and attitudes of biotechnology. Korean people associated the biotechnology with its costs or risks and benefits. Korean college students mainly got the informations of the biotechnology from TV, newspapers, or internet. They trusted the scientist group and NGO group on their judgements about the assessment of risk and benefit of the biotechnology. College students showed the positive attitude with the applications in medicines and negative attitude with the applications in agriculture and public using of individual's genetic information. The radicalism, sensitivity in behavioral activation system, and trust/cynicism were to be found as a significant influencing factor for interest/knowledge and behavioral intention in related with biotechnology. Finally, more extensive knowledge of biotechnology did not lead to greater acceptance of it.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.555-563
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• 2018

Recently it has been claimed that character education should be applied not only in ethics but also in other disciplines including science education. With several attempts at character education in previous research on science education, the examination of its requisite and components is needed. This research investigates the necessity and elements of character education to be improved upon in science classes through questionnaires and focus interviews of experts in the field of science education such as secondary school teachers, professors, and researchers. They recognize that character education should be adopted in science education with three backgrounds: scientist activities, the field of secondary school, and inquiry education. Based on moral education and citizenship, elements of character education in science class are comprised of four essential character elements including honesty, sympathy, tolerance, and self-esteem, and seven practical character elements that are divided into personal qualities: sincerity, responsibility, and self-control and social qualities: consideration, openness, communication, and cooperation. Their validity and importance are accepted by experts.