• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.230-246
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• 1993

The purpose of this study was to investigate the computer-naive children's preconceptions of computer concept, anxieties for computer, the changes in preconceptions and anxieties by computer literacy teaching, and the effect of CASI(Computer Assisted Science Instruction) on the science achievement. For this study, 42 5th graders were sampled. They were divided into two groups, experimental group(male:10, female:11) and control group(male:12, female:9). Each group was randomly assigned in the elementary school. Preconceptions about computer were examined by individual interview. Computer anxiety score was measured by questionaires. The questionaires developed in this study consisted of total 21 items measured by Chronbach ${\alpha}$ (0.93) and Total Item Correlationtp(p=0.01, r = $0.40{\sim}0.72$). Computer literacy curriculum based on children's preconceptions was developed and then was treated for experimental group as a computer literacy course. Preconceptions of computer, computer anxiety, and CASI achievements were compared between experimental group and control group in pre and post test. The results of this study are as follows; 1) children's preconceptions of computer showed various non-scientific concepts as animism and obvious visiual thinking. 2) children's misconceptions and anxieties about computer did not show significant differences in terms of learning experience of computer. 3) computer literacy had an effect on eliminating children's misconception about computer. 4) computer literacy had an effect on diminishing children's computer anxiety. 5) children's misconceptions and anxieties about computer showed significant inter-correlation. 6) children's misconceptions and anxieties about computer were appeared negative effect on CASI achievements. As the results, children's misconception and anxieties about computer had an effect on CASI acheivements. Therefore before performing CASI, more systematic computer literacy might be taught in formal education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.204-212
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• 2011

This research is about the six graders' preconceptions in elementary school about a cause of the seasonal change before learning. The result of this research is that the patterns of six graders's preconceptions in elementary school are earth's rotation, earth's revolution, the distance between the earth and the sun and the location factor between the sun and our country, which are mixed up with two more things. Especially many patterns of students explain the seasonal change of our country using the change of location of our country by earth's rotation, the location factor between the earth and the sun and the distance between the earth and the sun by earth's revolution.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.227-238
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• 1996

This study primary aim is to investigate students' responses to experimental results which conflict with their preconceptions regarding electrical circuits. Eighty-eight students of both sexes were randomly selected from a science high school in Korea. They were questioned about their preconceptions regarding an electric circuit, and sixty-eight students with relevant misconceptions were selected. These students were presented with experimental results obtained by some other experimenter, and asked to interpret these results. The second aim of this study is to explore how students' responses vary according to the type of inquiry-skills required to obtain the result. To do this, two type of experimental results were developed: one obtained by observation and the other obtained by controlling variables. We found that many students doubted results for the simple reason that they conflicted with their preconceptions. They rejected results by mentioning other factors which could have affected the result, or simply by reiterating their preconceptions. This behaviour varied considerably by inquiry-skill type. 41% of students rejected conflictual result obtained by observation, but only 6% of students rejected results obtained by controlling variables.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.12-21
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• 2002

The purpose of this study is to understand middle school students' levels of cognitive conflict for the students provided quantitative demonstration and qualitative demonstration after the pre-test. 297 middle school students were selected from one school in Pusan. Action-reaction problem of mechanics and electric bulbs in parallel problem of electricity were used in the demonstration and the pre-test. Students' cognitive conflict levels were investigated using the developed items by Kwon(1999) et al. We compared cognitive conflict levels between quantitative demonstration group and qualitative demonstration group. In addition to, we compared cognitive conflict levels between students who changed their preconceptions and the students who adhered to their preconceptions. We investigated correlation between levels of faith with preconceptions and cognitive conflict levels. The study generated the following results. First, students who selected incorrect choice in pre-test showed the higher levels of cognitive conflict in quantitative demonstration group than qualitative demonstration group and students who selected correct choice in pre-test showed higher levels of cognitive conflict in qualitative demonstration group than quantitative demonstration group. Second, students who changed their preconceptions were higher levels of cognitive conflict than students who adhered their preconceptions. Third, students who selected incorrect choice in pre-test showed positive correlation between levels of faith with preconceptions and levels of cognitive conflict, and students who selected incorrect choice in pre-test showed negative correlation between levels of faith with preconceptions and levels of cognitive conflict.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.404-411
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the types of explanation about different experimental data on students' preconceptions on physical experiment. 45 students were selected from P University by examining their pre-test. The subjects had a scientific conception about a simple pendulum's period of movement, and expected that there was no change in the movement even when the mass of water increased in the can. The students were presented data about pendulum movement inside a can. They recorded this in a blank table and drew a graph about the movement of the pendulum. The responses of students were tested by presenting written anomalous experimental data. Students' recognition, trust about the anomalous data, cognitive conflict, belief change about their preconceptions were examined with written tests also. To measure students' cognitive conflict levels, CCLT (Cognitive Conflict Levels Test) developed in a previous study was used. Some students responded based on preconceptions and regarded the data as manufactured data or experimental error. The students who recognized the anomaly in the situation showed higher cognitive conflict levels than those who didn't recognize the anomaly in the situation. The students who changed their beliefs about preconceptions recognized the data as anomalous situations and showed high cognitive conflict levels than those who didn't abandon their preconceptions. The students who have unchanged beliefs about their preconceptions regarded the data as experimental error.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.162-172
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• 2005

The purpose of this study was to examine the students' responses when students were confronted with anomalous situations in physics. 16 students were selected from one middle school in Busan by examining the pre-test results. To measure students' responses and cognitive conflict levels, written Cognitive Conflict Levels Test(CCLT) developed in a previous study was used together with interviews. Students' responses were tape-recorded. Two kinds of anomalous situations were presented. One was a quantitative demonstration with scale, the other was a qualitative demonstration without scale. In the quantitative group, all students observed anomalous situations correctly. However, in the qualitative group, many of their observations of anomalous situations were incorrect. The students who observed anomalous situations based on preconceptions tended not to abandon their preconceptions, and suggested confirmation experiments which were supposedly to support their preconceptions. The students who recognized results very differently from their preconceptions when confronted with anomalous situations abandoned their preconceptions and suggested alternative experiments. The students who changed their beliefs about preconceptions showed higher cognitive conflict levels than who didn't abandon their preconceptions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.34-43
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• 1984

Since the study of student's preconceptions and their effects on the learning of relevant subjects became an influential research area with high significance, the research area bas mainly been concerned by science educators. However, it was not until the year of 1983 that the area received recognition of various fields other than science education. The recognition was given by the Scientific American when it published a paper reporting a misconceptions in mechanics. Studies concerning misconceptions primarily interested in the following questions: What kinds of theoretical bases do preconceptions or misconceptions have? What are the sources of those conceptions? How are the misconceptions changed into or improved to scientific concepts? What are the efficient teaching methods appropriate for reducing the number of the misconceptions after instruction? Those questions are partly answered by experimental psychology and by philosophy of science, especially epistemology. Therefore, the paper will examine the theoretical background for and the sources of the misconceptions through literature review. Then, a few learning and teaching theories currently carrying great prestige in educational practice will be interpreted in terms of the knowledge of preconceptions or misconceptions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.149-162
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• 1997

Many students have misconceptions about the direction of force of moving objects, but development of teaching strategy for conceptual change is not easy because the direction of force of moving objects can not be observed directly. Therefore, we devloped demonstration using table tennis ball connected with spring in the water, in which a ball always move to the direction of force of moving objects. This study is to investigate students' responses on the demonstrations designed to generate cognitive conflict and to understand more deeply the process of conceptual change. To do this, five questions were administrated to identify students' preconceptions about force and motion, and interview was conducted using demonstrations, and the process of interview was recorded by video camera. About half of students changed their preconceptions by observing the demonstration. However about thirty percentage of students did not change their preconceptions even though they observed demonstration correctly, among these students, some students simply rejected the observation, doubted the process of demonstrations, or reinterpret the result of observation to preserve their own preconceptions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.283-296
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• 1998

This study was to identify middle school and college of education students' preconceptions about dielectric polarization and explore the students' reponses on the supporting or conflictual evidences on their preconceptions by letting them observe the demonstrations using electroscope, charged material, six conductor rods and six insulator rods. Letting students select the demonstrations to be observed by themselves, students' evidence selection types were classified as two : to select the evidences to testify their uncertain preconceptions, and to obtain the confirmation evidences about their preconceptions. And each evidence selection types, again, could be subclassified as three and two respectively. When students observed the conflictual observations, all accepted the observation itself. For supporting observational evidences, almost of all students showed the error of 'acceptance of antecedent' in the syllogism, that is, they did not required the succeeding supporting observations. Students' reponses on the conflictual observational evidences were classified as two: to reject the hard core of preconceptions, and to modify the students' auxiliary ideas related to the hard core with preserving the hard core. The first type reponses were, again, could be classified as three subtypes but, in all cases, students introduced new concept to explain the conflictual evidences. This responses indicated that Lakatosian rather than Popperian view is more acceptable to understand the students' reponses on the conflictual evidences. The second type reponses also were classified as three subtypes, and it was found that more middle school students than college education students were involved in this second type. That is, students who did not have perfect understanding of auxiliary ideas related with the hard core of preconceptions were more apt to change or modify theses auxiliary ideas rather than reject the hard core, this means that the quality of understanding of auxiliary ideas also take an important role in the change of hard core concept.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.367-373
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• 2003

The focus of this study was to identify and describe environmental preconceptions held by pre-service elementary teachers about three issues : greenhouse effect, ozone layer depletion and acid rain. Two hundred and twenty nine pre-service elementary teachers participated in this study. A 36 question survey was created by one of the authors. The questions focused on the cause, effects, and interactions of three environmental issues greenhouse effect of one layer depletion and acid rain. Pre-service elementary teachers answered the questions on a Likert scale. An analysis of the survey data indicated that the majority of pre-service elementary teachers possess an array of incorrect conceptions about the causes and effects of the greenhouse effect ozone layer depletion, and acid rain. and also many pre-service elementary teachers thought that there were causal relationships among the increase in greenhouse effect, the destruction of ozone layer, and the increase of acid rain.