• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.307-317
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• 2008

In this study, we investigated the elementary school students' perceptions of the scientific and technological professions by using the 'drawing scientific and technological workplaces'. The subjects were 401 students of 4th and 6th grades at three elementary schools in Seoul. The results revealed that many students drew the interiors of laboratories or factories as scientific and technological workplaces, and explained the nature of the work- place, but students' images were superficial and general. Most students' drawings also exhibited the stereotypical images of science and technology as androcentric and negative perceptions. Students were mainly inclined to perceive that the works relevant to science were experiments, and the works relevant to technology were productions and repairs. Most students answered more than two examples of scientific and technological professions, but their responses were not various and were biased toward basic scientists, blue-collar workers, and repairers. Educational implications of these findings were discussed.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.379-393
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to analyze the complexity of scientific reasoning during open inquiry activities of pre-service elementary school teachers. In this study, 6 pre-service elementary teachers who participated in open-inquiry activities were selected. The data of scientific reasoning during their inquiry process was collected from the video recording of reporting about inquiry process and results, their reports and researcher's notetaking. CSRI Matrix (Dolan & Grady, 2010) was used to analyze the complexity of participants' scientific reasoning. The result showed that the degree of the complexity of their scientific reasoning varied in participants. Particularly the low degree of the complexity of scientific reasoning presented in posing preliminary hypotheses, providing suggestions for future research, communicating and defending finding. Also, The more pre-service teachers' epistemology of inquiry are similar to that of scientists, the more complex scientific reasoning represents. This results suggest that teachers should impress on students the importance of doing the precedent study and providing suggestions for future research, and provide a place for communicating and defending findings.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.35-47
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• 1985

It is well known that high school girls' mean achievement levels in science tests are lower than high school boys' and that fewer women than men are employed as scientists and engineers pursue scientific careers. Many research attributed the sex difference in achievement level in science and the lack of women in science among others, to the experiential differences in scientific activities and the differences in attitudes toward science and scientists. Therefore, the study had its object to examine the sex difference by high school students in scientific experience and attitudes toward science and scientists. The differences in science experiences were identified at eight schools over rural and urban areas in Kangwon province. Science activities surveyed included use of experimental materials and instruments, observation of scientific phenomena, and extracurricular scientific activities. Attitude scale contained the nature of science, scientific research methods and philosophical views held by scientists. The study found sex differences in scientific experiences and attitudes. i. e.: fewer high school girls than boys had experience with scientific activities, especially with extracurricular activities; however, girls had more positive attitude toward science and more active desire to participate in science. Consequently, the study implies that, in order to narrow the gaps between achievement levels for boys and girls, science education should take consideration of the sex difference in experiences with and attitudes toward science.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.157-169
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• 2010

Scientific observation has been recognized as one of the fundamental aspects in scientific inquiry. However, more detailed discussions and practical guides for teachers' and students' understanding about the nature of scientific observation have not been conducted. Therefore, based on literature reviews, we described the nature of theory-laden scientific observation as 11 detailed statements. Using theses statements, we investigated science teachers' and students' recognition of each statement. According to results, certain aspects of theory-laden scientific observation were determined as important aspects to be considered for science teachers' in-service programs or for students' learning activities in understanding the nature of science.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.513-531
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• 2012

This study was to analyze the characteristic of scientific argumentation in the classes for the gifted of elementary school. The participants of this study were 5 fifth graders and 9 sixth graders, 14 in total, from the basic unit schools for gifted students of J elementary school in Incheon city. And it constituted small scale groups made up of 2~3 students with similar or identical ability in scientific reasoning. It had set up hypothesis for each group before the experiment, and students had a group discussion as a whole after the experiment. Classes were conducted 4 times, all courses were recorded as a sound/video. The ability in scientific reasoning of the students was inspected, making use of SRT II by means of pre-survey, and their argumentation levels were analyzed, utilizing 'Rubric for scientific argumentation course assessment.' As a result, argumentations did not incurred in every class. Analysis in argumentations of the students resulted in low level argumentation. This means argumentation cannot incur based on that with the limit in understanding the principle of experiments over the threshold of textbook no matter that he is an gifted student or not. The student both in formal operational period and transition period (2B/3A), the ability of scientific thinking in upper level, was improved of his argumentative ability in an overall aspect. However, a student of concrete operational period, the ability of scientific thinking in lower level, had argumentation with still lower level even after the experiment at the moment of discussing with the students on the upper level of scientific thinking ability.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.338-345
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to analyze science fields and content elements of the science reports in a web portal site of Republic of Korea in view of scientific literacy. The main results of the analysis on the 679 reports sampled in a year are as follows. First, 506 reports in 46 fields were identified. Reports about technology and earth science occupies 16% respectively, and life science occupies 13%, medical science 4%, chemistry, company, others 3% and physics 1%. Almost reports show technology as associate field. Second, the frequency rate of reports including scientific literacy content elements is 52%. Reports related to 'physics' and 'chemistry' as dominant fields show relatively high rate in scientific literacy elements. The element, 'social context' is included in about 96% of the reports. Both 'data and statistics' and 'application' show relatively low rate and large gaps according to dominant fields. A few concluding remarks and proposals follow from these results. First, as almost science reports show the nature of integrated science, scientific literacy acquisition through science reports in internet requires the integrated scientific view. Especially most science reports includes the contents related to technology or medical science, so the point of view in the science-technological literacy is required. Second, the scientific literacy content elements in reports show various rates according to dominant fields. Therefore, science reports need to complement the deficient content elements to carry out the role of science reports as scientific literacy sources.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.207-216
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• 2014

Understanding the nature of science (NOS) has been a major component of scientific literacy and an important learning goal in science education (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1990, 1993; Millar & Osborne, 1998; National Research Council, 1996, 2013). To achieve this goal, it is necessary to include appropriate views of the nature of science in science curriculum such as a textbook. The aim of this study was to conduct a content analysis of the elementary science textbooks to examine the presentation of the nature of science (NOS) using the four themes of scientific literacy, which are (1) nature of scientific knowledge, (2) nature of scientific inquiry, (3) nature of scientific thinking, and (4) nature of interactions among science, technology, and society (STS). Findings show while $3^{rd}$ and $4^{th}$ grade levels of science textbooks heavily emphasize on the Theme I, nature of scientific knowledge and the Theme II, the nature of scientific inquiry, the upper grade levels such as $5^{th}$ and $6^{th}$ grades of science textbooks are well balanced with the four themes of the nature of science. In addition, most of elementary science textbooks little focus on the Theme IV, nature of interactions among science, technology, and society (STS) among the four themes of the nature of science. It might be a shortcoming because the understanding the nature of interacions among science, technology and society (STS) is one of the key components in order for students to be a scientific literate person.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.65-89
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• 2004

The article attempts to suggest s a direction of science education in terms of development of creative human resources based on discussion about scientific literacy and scientific creativity. Students are supposed to develop scientific attitude, inquiry skills, problem solving ability through science learning, and be prepared for the 21st century of rapidly developing age. The paper introduces definitions of scientific literacy and scientific creativity and discuss their meanings within science education in general as well as for the gifted. To enhance students' scientific creativity, science education should strengthen content of science related to technology, integrated science content, personal and social views, social inquiry for problem solving. In particular, science education for the gifted should emphasize students' holistic views in interpreting data, ability to connect artistic aspects to science process, intuitions to explain scientific phenomena and pursue of personal satisfaction. It may be said that science education and science education for the gifted is realized when students have opportunities to experience such elements in their science learning.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.165-187
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• 2011

This study was aimed to explore the effect of the physical science activity based on the constructivism on young children's scientific process skills and scientific attitudes, cognitive self-esteem. The subjects consisted of 20 five-years-old children of experimental group and 20 children of control group. Children of experimental group conducted the physical science activity based on the constructivism for total six weeks. As a result of study, children who experimental group showed significant result in the scientific process skill, scientific attitude, cognitive self-esteem. The educational implications of these indicate that we need to actively develop programs to increase scientific process skills and scientific attitude, cognition self-esteem of young children through teacher's education.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.267-280
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to review the foundation of the representative early scientific societies and their major activities. The documents, books, and literature related to this study were collected through internet websites (e.g., google scholar, wikipedia) and analyzed by the qualitative content analysis method. The result of this study shows that requirement for the necessary resources to acquire or to prepare the instruments for the experiment is significantly increased with the rising importance of the experiments to conduct the scientific methods. As a consequence, scientists faced urgent necessities to conduct scientific experiments with cooperation and exchange of the newest information by establishing a community beyond the independent and individual research activity. Establishment of the scientific societies is the result of these necessities. At the beginning of the scientific societies, the resources are provided by either wealthy patron or member contribution or public through foundation of government organization. This study provides the implications for future scientific societies.