• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.159-168
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the elementary school students' perception about "the aims of school science experiments". For this study, the perceptions were surveyed from 193 elementary school students (96 boys and 97 girls) in one school located in Gyeonggi-Do. The responses were analyzed with categorization based on their gender, school science test scores. The results from this study were as follows; in relation to the aims of school science experiments, the elementary school students considered intrinsic values of doing experiments were more worthy than the extrinsic values of it. It was found that 25.4% of the students had ideas that students do science experiments for understanding science theory. Up to 70% of the students responded that they do science experiments for understanding and memorizing the contents of science textbooks. School science experiments were regarded as an educational tool for the science study. It is recommended that teacher need to make clear the aims of laboratory work and help students to understand of it.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.255-270
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• 2011

The purpose of this study is to investigate the elementary pre-service teachers' views about "the purpose of science experiments". For the study, the views about the purposes of scientists' experiments and school science experiments were surveyed from 227 pre-service teachers. And the responses were analyzed based on their gender, intensive majors and school science test scores. The main results of the study are as follows. First, in relation to the purpose of scientists' experiments, the pre-service teachers considered internal values of doing experiments were more worthy than the external values of it. In particular, the pre-service teachers responded that the most important purpose of the science experiments is 'to get the evidences for the theories and arguments'. On the other hand, the views from the women and social studies major pre-service teachers were more diverse than those of the man and science major pre-service teachers. Second, in relation to the purpose of school science experiments, the pre-service teachers excessively considered that the internal values of school science experiments were more worthy than the external values. In particular, only few pre-service teachers were aware of social and personal aspects of the experiments, though they considered well that the experiments are useful tools for the school science study. Third, there were quite different aspects of pre-service teachers' views between the purposes of scientists' experiments and school science experiments. For example, the views about the scientist's experiments were relatively broad concerning the nature of scientific experiments, but the school science experiments were just regarded as an educational tool for the science study. Based on the results from the study, some science educational implication were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.253-264
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate implications of self-directed learning experiments in elementary science education through understanding elementary school students' awareness of their experiences in self-directed learning experiments. Twenty students joined the school science club voluntarily and conducted self-directed learning experiments. We collected data through observation of the experiments, interviews, and questionnaires. The students who participated in the club showed high satisfaction with self-directed learning experiments. The participants were aware that their scientific interest and knowledge, and the confidence in conducting experiments were increased. The students felt positive about the inquiry process of conducting self-directed learning experiments with their own subjects. They also felt a sense of achievement in attempting their experiments in defiance of several failures. The participants realized that the self-directed inquires led to increased declarative and procedural knowledge of science. The students stated that they had some difficulties in coping with the different results contrary to expectations and preparing laboratory materials and instruments. Nonetheless, they showed the promotion of their scientific literacy during overcoming those difficulties. We suggest that self-directed learning experiments can be a more effective way in science learning to make students experience the nature of science than existing school experiments. This can be implemented through a creative experience activities such as science clubs.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.60 no.4
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• pp.267-275
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• 2016

Experiment is recognized as an important part in science and science education. Scientists do experiments for verifying or refuting theory and they take many forms to do experiments. One of the central goals of science education is to improve inquiry ability. So we have taken for granted that students engage in authentic inquiry and experiment which scientists carry out to research. But it is not always positive about discussions and opinions what school experiment and its role is in learning science and understanding about science. There is certainly a gap between experiments which scientists and students do even though there is a theoretical basis of school science experiment. In this study, we discussed how scientific inquiry and school inquiry are different, and what it means to use instrument in school science experiment. And as a case, we analyzed chemistry experiments in science textbook and manipulation level of instruments which were handled in chemistry experiments, we shed light on the meanings of experiments and instruments in school science inquiry based on the result of experiments and instruments analysis.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.189-203
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• 2011

The object of this study is to investigate the views of scientifically gifted children about the purpose of scientists' experiments and school science experiments. The children's views were examined using a open-ended questionnaire survey. And then the responses from the children were analyzed with categorization. The results from the study are as follows: First, the children's views about the purpose of scientists' experiments and school science experiments were classified to 2 top-level, 5 mid-level and 21 sub-level categories. Second, it was found that the children considered internal values of doing experiments are more worthy than the social and personal usefulness of the experiments. Third, the gifted children mentioned most frequently that the purposes of the scientist experiment is 'to get the evidences for their theory and argument which is unusual in the regular children's views. Also the discovery of new phenomena and materials, and the generation of new theories and ideas were mentioned as purposes of the scientist experiments. Fourth, the students frequently stated that school science experiments support effective learning of science subject enhancing subject interests and better explanation/understanding. Fifth, relatively many students thought that the purposes of school science experiments are different with those of scientist experiments. Based on the results from the study, some educational suggestions are discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.316-325
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to analyze elementary school teacher' expectation and reality before and after science experiment in-service training program. The surveys for before and after in-service training were conducted among 231 elementary school teachers who participated for science experiment in-service training. 5 elementary school teachers who took part in surveys were interviewed after training. The results of this study are as follows: First, teachers' interest for science increased regardless of willingness to training participation through science experiment training. Second, discussion for science teaching strategies were not enough while the training recognized with experiments and lecture of instructors mainly. Third, teachers prefered alternative experiments and practical experience of experiments to lecture and basic experiments based on textbook. Forth, assessment of teachers in training must be improved.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.547-557
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• 2001

In this study, we compared the contents of cloud making experiments in middle school science textbooks of 5th and 6th science curriculum from the viewpoint of methods and apparatus. And we analyzed the problems of the experimental methods and apparatus based on the thermodynamic theories. A new experiment was developed to solve the problems, and the effects of new experiment were compared with those of the experiments in the textbooks.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.768-778
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• 2008

The most important factor in students' growth and development is the teacher. Therefore in-service science teacher education to develop the professionality is important as well as the selection of new excellence teachers. Our research is on the development and application of new education program on science experiments where in-service teachers become the lecturers in the program and provide information that is bound to the context of real lessons. This program is consisted of following 10 steps of work, which was implemented in 5 months: sharing the philosophy of the program, selecting science experiments, first application of the experiments, discussion on the first application, learning how to edit the movie clips of the lesson, second application of the experiments, in depth discussion on the second application, developing the experiment package, giving lecture to other science teachers, and evaluating the program. We describe the process of the program developed and implemented in detail to suggest a model of science teacher education program on science experiments and discuss educational implications. This program is characterized by the emphasis of the context closely linked to the real lessons, the problem solving in a real situation, and the collaboration of teachers, professors and science education researcher in a teacher education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.12-23
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to research the effects of students' evaluation results on teachers' teaching activities. The subjects were 431 elementary school students of 4th, 5th and 6th grade, and 14 teachers of 7 schools located in Seoul, Cheongju, and Daejeon city. The experimental design included pre and post-tests with the control group. Our results found that most of the students had positive thoughts towards science classes. In particular, activities where the teachers provided support in the conduct of experiments and the learning atmosphere generally were evaluated higher than other activities. However, unrestricted experiments were evaluated lower by the students. The feedback from the students' evaluation results of their teachers affected the teachers' teaching activities statistically. The teachers' support during experiments, unrestricted activity during experiments, and evaluation activities were changed positively following the students' feedback. However, the loaming atmosphere and unrestricted activity during experiments were observed to change negatively when the teachers were not given the students' feedback.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.93-101
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate the internal factors whether teachers execute experiments at the science classes in the elementary school. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were performed with 9 elementary school teachers who have served for more than three years. In-depth interviews were performed individually and all the interviews were recorded. Data sources were analyzed by grounded theory. The results were as follows: The internal factors that they did experiments at the science classes were science teaching faiths in experiment, self confidence in experiment, interest in science. and the internal factors that they did not experiment at the science classes were lack of science content knowledge, lack of science education knowledge, memory of failure at experiment, and so on. The investigation results imply inquiry activities should be more strengthened in elementary teacher education program and pre-service teacher curriculum. And it needs to give a materials of receiving information and guidance detailed about the experiments.