• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.351-359
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• 2005

The aims of this research are to analyze elementary preservice teacher's conception and causes of their misconceptions on biological reproduction and inheritance. In future, it would be also to provide useful data for the effective teaching-teaming method in the elementary school as well as opportunities to correct their misconceptions, which help elementary preservice teachers have the appropriate scientific conceptions. Thirty kinds of test questions were designed in science curriculum for elementary students and biology textbook for university students in order to develop reproduction and inheritance's concepts. The questionnaire was given to 166 junior students of university of education in a local city. All statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 10.0 program. The major results are as follows: Among 30 test questions, 2 questions in plants, 5 questions in animals and 2 questions in gene were appeared as misconceptions over $50\%$. The major reason to hold the misconceptions was influenced by 'learning up to now' category. The selection reasons of response were significantly different between scientific conceptions and misconceptions in 10 questions by analysis of variance. The gender also showed statistically significant differences between scientific conception and misconception in 3 questions by $\chi^2$ test. The selection reasons according to gender were significantly different between male and female students in 5 questions. For the reasons in forming misconceptions, they may cause by stereotype, conscious priority, differences of experiences, interest or attention, lack of professional Knowledge, and so on. Therefore, it was concluded that this research may help elementary preservice teachers to reconsider their conception for reproduction and inheritance and to be successful in science instructions fur elementary students.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.68-87
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• 2006

The aim of this study was to understand the components that influence the mental models of preservice elementary teachers on the astronomical phenomena of seasons of the year and lunar phases of the month. For this, participants were selected from a university of education. Data was collected from a paper-pencil test and individual interviews with the participants. The results of this study showed that the preservice teachers had apparent synthetic mental models, and that the 'Distance Theory' and 'Occlusion Theory' had the greatest effect on their mental models. Furthermore, it was found that preservice elementary teachers' initial mental models of 'astronomical phenomenon' had their origin in personal belief sets (specific theory) related to 'astronomical phenomenon'. It was on these belief sets that they interpreted their observations and cultural information with the constraints of a naive framework of physics. The structures and possible sources for overcoming these synthetic mental models were also discussed in this paper. Lastly, implications for preservice elementary teacher education were presented.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.109-126
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• 2023

In this study, I took the evidence-explanation (E-E) continuum perspective to examine the epistemological implications of scientific reasoning cases designed by preservice elementary teachers during their simulation teaching. The participants were four preservice teachers who conducted simulation instruction on the seasons and high/low air pressure and wind. The selected discourse episodes, which included cases of inductive, deductive, or abductive reasoning, were analyzed for their epistemological implications-specifically, the role played by the reasoning cases in the E-E continuum. The two preservice teachers conducting seasons classes used hypothetical-deductive reasoning when they identified evidence by comparing student-group data and tested a hypothesis by comparing the evidence with the hypothetical statement. However, they did not adopt explicit reasoning for creating the hypothesis or constructing a model from the evidence. The two preservice teachers conducting air pressure and wind classes applied inductive reasoning to find evidence by summarizing the student-group data and adopted linear logic-structured deductive reasoning to construct the final explanation. In teaching similar topics, the preservice teachers showed similar epistemic processes in their scientific reasoning cases. However, the epistemological implications of the instruction were not similar in terms of the E-E continuum. In addition, except in one case, the teachers were neither good at abductive reasoning for creating a hypothesis or an explanatory model, nor good at using reasoning to construct a model from the evidence. The E-E continuum helps in examining the epistemological implications of scientific reasoning and can be an alternative way of transmitting scientific reasoning.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.309-323
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• 2002

This qualitative study investigated preservice teachers' understandings of the ontology and epistemology underlying constructivist notions of learning through four in-depth interviews. Of the sixteen participants in a larger study, five significantly changed ontological and epistemological beliefs and eleven did not. This study focused on these eleven teachers who have hardly changed their philosophical beliefs throughout the teacher education program. Ten teachers who consistently maintained the scientific realist beliefs were presented as a composite case (Young's case). Among the eleven teachers, there was one outlier who had consistently maintained an idealist and relativist epistemological position from the beginning of the study and was subjected to another case analysis (Ben's case). These cases corroborated the assertion that each individual's deeply entrenched ontological and epistemological beliefs are very hard to change. For researchers, this study offers insights into the reasons that preservice teachers give for non-changes in their thinking about learning to teach. The study also examines preservice teachers' perceived constraints in implementing their ideal pedagogies and the influence of the teacher education program on their pedagogical beliefs changes. The benefits and influences of the M.Ed. program's theoretical coursework and the field experiences on these teachers' learning-to-teach experiences are addressed with rich data. The implications for teacher educators as well as for the instructional practices of preservice teacher education programs are discussed. This research emphasize necessity of the field-based teacher education program and the need of empowering experienced school teachers as teacher educators in teacher preparation and professional development.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.1139-1153
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• 2013

Misconceptions are one of the most important and long-lasting studied themes on science education. It is because their nature is obstinate and settled as well as they corrupt students' understanding of science concepts. This study examines whether preservice elementary school teachers enrolled in biology teaching material research course changed positively on science teaching efficacy and correcting life science misconceptions when they used the handbook developed for this study. The handbook comprises 203 life science concepts surveyed among preservice teachers holding from advanced researches and arranged by 2007 Revised Science Curriculum. 107 preservice elementary school teachers participated in the study. Forty-six (46) of them were assigned to the experimental group and the other 61 to the control group. ANOVA was conducted for analyzing data. Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) and the life science misconception test which was developed for this study, were administrated as assessing instruments for pretest and posttest. The experimental group, using the handbook, acquired higher scores in both tests on statistical significance level than the control group who were not using the handbook. The results indicate the handbook developed for correcting life science misconceptions for this study is effective in enhancing science teaching efficacy and correcting life science misconceptions.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.15-31
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• 2015

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary student teachers' conceptions about the mechanism of the greenhouse effect, the greenhouse gases, the global warming, and their learning experiences of the greenhouse effect and the global warming. Participants were 82 student teachers in their second year of studies (science education: n=28, not science education: n=27) and in their fourth year of studies (science education: n=27). The open-ended questionnaire was used to examine the teachers' spontaneous ideas depicted by their drawings and/or writings. The results of this study are as follows: First, the student teachers' scientific response rate about key concepts related to the mechanism of the greenhouse effect was low (6.1%~28.0%); Second, although there are various greenhouse gases, it was only carbon dioxide that the student teacher's response rate was more than 80%; Third, only 17.1% of the student teachers clearly distinguished the greenhouse effect and the global warming; Fourth, there was a tendency that the student teacher group in the fourth year of studies and science education showed higher scientific response rate about the concepts than the other two groups.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.79-101
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• 1999

Astronomy is a good area to introduce a student to the study of science. The student often questions what causes the change in seasons, in the day and right, and in the rotation of stars, etc. Attempts to find answers to problems related to these astronomical observations influence the student`s intellectual development. This study is to investigate the effect of running an astronomical observations program on the preservice elementary teachers' astronomy achievement, astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs, and scientific attitude. Students consist of twenty four preservice elementary teachers. Three instruments are used: one is the astronomy achievement test, which is of an essay type, and 5 items. The other is the astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs test, which is of a Likert scale type, and 22 items. Another is the scientific attitude test, which is of the Likert scale type, and 10 items. Data are collected before and after instruction in the astronomical observations program, through the use of these tests. Data are compared. The results are: \circled1There is a significant difference between before and after instructions in the astronomy achievement test(t=11.31, p=000). \circled2There is a significant difference between before and after instructions in the astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs test(t=5.98, p=.000). \circled3There is a significant difference between before and after instructions in the scientific attitude test(t=270, pde. There fore, the a=.013). As a result, running an astronomical observations program has an effect on the preservice elementary teachers' astrono my achievement, astronomy teaching efficacy beliefs, and scientific attituuthor urges the teacher to teach astronomy through the astronomical observations in school.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.69-88
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• 2005

This study was to understand the components that influence preservice secondary teachers' conceptions about 'seasonal changes' We selected 74 university science education students among whom 23 were in the second, 23 in the third, and 28 in the fourth year. The data collected from the paper-pencil test and individual interview with students. The results of this study show that the students had considerable apparent alternative conceptions, and that the 'distance theory' had most important effects on their alternative conceptions. It can be said that preservice secondary teachers' initial models of the seasonal change have their origin in their belief sets (specific theory) related to 'seasonal change', on the basis of which they can interpret their observations and cultural information with the constraints of a naive frame-work of physics. The structures and possible sources of their alternative conceptions for overcoming these alternative conceptions were also discussed. Implications for preservice science teacher education related to the results were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.378-391
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate the graph interpretation ability and perception of high school students and preservice secondary teachers in Earth science. We developed two different instruments; one was a graph interpretation ability inventory that consists of 9 graph types with 18 items, and the other one is two questionnaires to explore the participants' perception about Earth science-related graph. The results of this study are as follows: High school students and preservice secondary teachers demonstrated their remarkable ability in interpreting a line graph, but showed their limited ability with the graph of overlapped and directional change, which means the graph interpretation ability was affected by a graph type; two groups participated in this study revealed a considerable difference in the graph interpretation ability depending on the grade level; preservice teachers were superior to high school students in discriminating two graphs, the representation method, which are different with the same topic; and many participants in both groups considered that the property of Earth science graph was considerably different from that of other science subjects, especially in directional change graph, scatter graph, contour map, and domain graph. The results suggest that the effective graph instruction strategies be developed in Earth science learning.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.80-93
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• 2010

The scope of this study is: (1) to review or summarize the theoretical explanations of diffusion; (2) to investigate the preservice teachers' understanding of diffusion utilizing the inquiry experiment of diffusion that was developed in this study. The data was collected through questionnaires given to 41 preservice teachers in 3 universities and interviews with 20 subjects from this population, who conducted the inquiry experiment. During the experiment, the data was collected from the students' reports and 3 small groups' audio/video recordings. To understand preservice teachers' conceptions, reports, audio/video recordings, questionnaires and interviews were analyzed and discussed with co-workers. The results follow: (1) The differences between effusion and diffusion as well as equal-pressure experiment and equal-flux one on diffusion were discussed; (2) Most preservice teachers understood effusion and diffusion connected to Graham's law of diffusion by rote and have misconceptions about the diffusion process; (3) They observed two kinds of diffusion experiments (equal-pressure and equal-flux) by inquiry experiment, but the majority of them failed to find conceptual differences between these experiments. After the inquiry experiment, about 40% of the samples modified their conceptions about diffusion.