• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.572-581
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• 2000

Teachers' perceptions about curricular objectives are very important to achieve given educational objectives. This study examined teachers' perceptions about priority and hinderance of science objectives. The national science curriculum stated four areas of objectives: inquiry, knowledge, attitude, and STS. A total of 76 elementary and 217 secondary teachers were responded to questionnaire developed for this study. Non-parametric statistics, such as Friedman test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and chi-square test were used by using SPSS/PC program. Teachers in general ranked the inquiry first among the four areas at their perception on the national curriculum, on themselves, and on their instructions. Elementary teachers ranked inquiry higher than secondary science teachers, while secondary science teachers ranked knowledge higher than elementary teachers. As factors hindering teachers from achiving the objectives, elementary teachers pointed out overcrowded classroom and secondary science teachers pointed out college and university entrance examination respectively.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.252-259
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to examine the status and science teachers' perceptions of classes for those gifted in science in elementary school. For this purpose, a number of questions were posed to teachers : 27-item-questionnaires were given to 38 teachers of students gifted in science in elementary schools located in Incheon province. The results of this study were as follows : 1. most elementary teachers were in charge of classes containing students gifted in science, but this was the case with only a few secondary teachers. Therefore, it appears to be more necessary to educate elementary teachers who majored in science content and gifted education. 2. In addition, most teachers had positive perceptions of the needs, attitudes and environments needed for gifted education. Most of them attended 60-hour training programs on gifted education. They thought that it was helpful in understanding the characteristics of gifted students, but they wanted to learn more about actual pedagogical methods through such programs. 3. The teaching methods used in classes for those gifted in science were mainly experimental activities, but there were few opportunities for creative problem solving and project learning. This may be due to limited class time of about one hour every two weeks in this class. 4. When the materials used in class were first developed, they mainly used materials made by the city board of education and selected the theme of interest by themselves. Therefore, there may be problems of duplication of materials or systems regarding the science contents for one year. 5. Furthermore, the themes of the materials used were mostly related in terms of the contents of textbooks than more generally. When planning and managing the classes for those gifted in science, the above points should be considered in order to improve the education of those students gifted in science.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.103-120
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to compare science teachers' perceptions with students' perceptions about the important aims of laboratory activities in science instructions, to identify whether there was a difference between them. For the purpose, the two questionnaires were designed; for secondary science teacher and secondary student. The samples selected in each group were 108 middle school teachers, 109 middle school students, 104 high school teachers, and 110 high school students. The survey responses from each group were analyzed through multiple response method. The results indicated that science teachers selected the science process skills as important aim of laboratory activity whereas students selected the ability for creative problem-solving and the central tendency of teachers' responses about certain item-science process skill was relatively higher than students' responses about certain item-the ability for creative problem-solving. From these results, we found there was the difference between teachers' perception and students perception about the important aims of laboratory activities in science instructions.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.79-86
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the middle science teachers' perceptions on science lessons with experiments. The study conducted a survey for 110 science teachers participating in inservice program. The middle school science teachers taught classes with lectures rather than with experimental activities. They had an experiment one to three times a semester in their lessons. They did an experiment to follow to what the textbook said, or to confirm it, like a cookbook style. The most teachers answered that they had over average ability to teach both lecture and experiment. Through the experiment, they expected students had interests and curiosity on science. Despite the advantages of experiments, there were many constraints to conduct experiments, such as teachers' excessive work, laboratory conditions, education environment, and others. It was demanded on continuous interest and investment in the variation of educational environment so that teachers can experiment more often.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.117-130
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• 2007

This study investigated the university proffssors', pre-service teachers' and in-service teachers' perceptions of the specialized science education courses in the 11 national universities of education in Korea, analyzed their perception differences, and made suggestions the future directions for the specialized courses. For this study, 46 university professors, 402 in-service teachers, and 336 pre-service teachers were participated nationwide. The results show that there were significant differences in their perceptions between the three groups. For university professors, for example, the acquisition of science content knowledge appeared to be the most important objective of the courses, whereas the other groups preferred the acquisition of more practical knowledge and skills that they could easily use and apply in their classroom teaching later. The university professors tended to think that the science specialized courses would be very useful to the teachers' teaching and contribute to developing their professionality. On the contrary, the in-service and pre-service teachers tended to think that the courses would be not so useful because science theories construct the courses rather than practical knowledge. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to the future science teacher education.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.219-231
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• 2018

This study surveyed the elementary school teachers' use of visual representations and their perceptions of the functions of visual representations in the teaching of electricity unit. A total of 110 elementary teachers who have experiences in teaching electricity unit responded to online survey. The result showed firstly that most of the teachers use visual representations in their teaching and it is mostly limited to those presented in textbooks or images that they can get easily from internet search. Secondly, elementary teachers thought that they have high ability in using visual representations and low ability in understanding students' visual presentation ability. Thirdly, visual representations are more often preferred to be used as teacher-centered ways than student-centered ways for motivating students and conceptual understanding. However, in case of scientific inquiry, both teacher-centered and student-centered ways were equally preferred. Lastly, the teachers' perceptions of the functions of visual representations were categorized into 'teaching-instrumental function', 'learning-instrumental function', 'communicative-instrumental function' and 8 subcategories were found. The most frequent function was the 'information delivery function' in the 'teaching-instrumental function' category. Implications for teacher education and further studies were discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.484-499
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• 2015

This study explores the impact of a STEM integration teacher professional development program focusing on teachers' perception of engineering and their attitudes toward integrating engineering into teaching. A total of sixty-eight teachers from ten schools participated in the program for five days. Data are collected from three main sources including (1) pre and post concept maps probing teachers' perceptions about the engineering discipline, (2) a pre and post survey measuring teachers' self-efficacy of teaching science/mathematics within the engineering context, and (3) engineering integrated science and (or) mathematics lesson plans and teaching reflections. This study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative research methods depending on the data we have collected. The results show that both science and math teachers thought that integrating engineering into teaching provided valuable outcomes, i.e., promoting students' learning about engineering and improving their interest in science or math through real-world problem solving exercises. Participants also felt more comfortable about integrating engineering in their teaching after the program. The results also imply that the teachers' understandings of engineering become more concrete after the program. This study also provides an overview of the challenges and advantages of teaching engineering in K-12 science and mathematics classrooms.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.347-357
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• 2005

Since 1998, an elementary teacher education institute in Korea has hosted the center for the gifted education. The institute hired undergraduate students to escort and liaison each class of the gifted student participants with assisting classroom activities. These liaison teachers observed the gifted classroom activities and evaluated them by using a given checklist and filling out pre-made evaluation forms. Currently this system is being transferred from part-time jobs for students to earn allowance into well organized pre-service teacher program focusing on the gifted education. In other words, the purpose of system is being shifted from how liaison teachers facilitate the gifted program to how the system helps the liaison teachers to be quality teachers for the gifted who can understand what the gifted are and how to facilitate them. Analyzed were the self reports of the liaison teachers regarding their perceptions and beliefs of the gifted and their education program. It was found participant liaison teachers purposed to have more live experiences with getting along with students as well. Liaison teachers’ perceptions on establishing a gifted teacher professional education sequence were reported in this study. The potential scaffolding of the pre-service teacher education program model of the gifted education was provided as a consequence of this study.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.316-324
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• 1995

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of teachers attended at the first environmental education program for certificate of the second-major regarding environmental education and to provide reference materials for development of environmental education program and environmental textbooks. A survey methodology was used in the study. A survey, having 13 items, was developed by the researchers. The subjects consisted of 80 teachers. Teachers revealed their opinions about six categories of the survey including environmental subjects, environmental problems, middle school environmental textbook, their knowledge concerning environment, the time taught in school about environment, and teachers education. Results from teachers' data suggested directions for improvement of environmental education program and environmental textbooks.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.40-50
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• 2001

To meet the objectives of environmental education, teachers especially have to perceive the importance of environmental education, comprehend various characteristics of teaching/learning methods, and be able to conduct classes by choosing proper teaching/leaming methods in accordance with a specific purpose and educational focus about environmental education. Therefore, it Bs necessary to investigate the current status of Korean environmental education and provide teachers with appropriate environmental teaching/leaming methods. To this end this study aims to examine Korean science teachers'perceptions'on environmental education and the kind of teaching/learning methods which can be utilized in environmental education. Teachers who completed the survey were 135 science teachers from middle and high schools in Seoul, and 126 social science teachers from Kyoungki province. The majors of the science teachers were in physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and earth science. Also, there was one teacher who majored in special education. For social science teachers two majors were common, geography and general sociology. After analysis of the data from the surveys the results are as follows. First, science and social science teachers in middle and high school recognized the necessity of environmental education in school education. Second, most teachers had applied environment related topics to their subject of study occasionally, but they mostly concurred that environment related contents should be included in their textbooks. Third, science teachers agreed that field trip, discussion, and the STS approach were the most proper methods for environmental education, and social science teachers agreed that field trips, inquiry, and discussion were the most appropriate methods for a teaching environment. They realized that they should decide good teaching-learning methods appropriate to the objectives and content needed for effective environmental education as they selected different teaching-learning methods according to detailed environmental objectives and contents in their textbooks.