• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.893-905
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• 2001

Korean students ranked the 3rd out of 32 participating countries in the first cycle of PISA(Programme for International Student Assessment) science field, which assessed 15-years-old students' scientific literacy. PISA developed several variables such as parents' socio-economic status, parents' educational attainment, family wealth, and cultural possession, to investigate the effects of background variables on scientific literacy. On the other hand, motivation and engagement in science study were not given much attention, partly because science was the minor area in the first cycle of PISA. Therefore, PISA Korea developed a series of variables to collect data on students' learning motives and out-of-school activities in science as a national option. The results are as followings. First, Korea was found to be one of the PISA participating countries with the scientific literacy achievement least influenced by parents' socio-economic status, family wealth, and parents' cultural possession. Second, the degree of achievement in scientific literacy according to parents' educational attainment was in a positive correlation, similar to the overall tendency of PISA. Third, the most crucial learning motive for Korean students was their desire to develop scientific thinking abilities or obtain science knowledge. On the other hand, choosing jobs in the field of science or parental expectation was the least important learning motive. In particular, the motive for scientific learning was found to have a positive relationship with the degree of scientific literacy achievement. Therefore, the higher the students achievement, the stronger the motive for scientific learning in order to develop their ability to think scientifically or acquire science knowledge. Fourth, Korean students were shown to participate very little in out-of-school scientific activities other than watching TV programs related to science. Whatever the activities may be, the more actively involved students are in out-of-school scientific activities, the higher their scientific literacy achievement. Fifth, Korean girls were rather passive compared to boys in all areas, including science learning motive and out-of-school scientific activities. The gender difference was especially more pronounced in out-of-school scientific activities with wider gaps in such activities as reading scientific books or articles and visiting science-related web sites.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.296-306
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to analyze the attitudes toward science and support for scientific activities of the scientific gifted students' parents and the general students' parents in elementary school. The objects of the study were 99 scientific gifted students and their parents and 433 general elementary school students and their parents. The instruments for the measurement of attitudes toward science included three scales: cognition :About value of science, affection toward science and science learning, and cognitive participation in scientific activities. The instrument to measure parents' support for scientific activities included two scales: indirect support and direct support. The results of the study showed that the attitudes toward science of scientific gifted elementary students' parents were more positive than the attitudes toward science of general elementary students' parents. Also the gifted elementary students' parents supported many more scientific activities for their children with various methods than the general elementary students' parents. Their preferring support methods for scientific activities included 16 items including the collection of information about science education, the record of TV science programs, purchase of scientific books, subscription of periodical publication about science, preparing material for scientific activities, and reading scientific book with children.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.271-280
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to investigate how free inquiry activities affects the scientific process skills and scientific attitudes of 5th and 6th of elementary school students. For this study, 265 elementary students from 5th and 6th grade in Seoul were selected. In comparison group 130 students were implemented and to the experimental group 135 students who did not the free inquiry activities were implemented. The result of this study is as follows: First, curiosity was the most affective factor that motivate free inquiry activities and made them select their topics. Most of the students invested for the inquiry activity in less than 3 weeks. They had some help in every stages. Students became interested in free inquiry activities because they learned new facts and enjoyed doing experiments and they wanted to continue for the same reasons. Second, free inquiry activities had little effect on the basic science process skills of the experimental group, compared to the control group at the significant difference of p=0.05. Third, free inquiry activities had considerable effect on the integrative inquiry process skills of the experimental group, compared to the control group at the significant difference of p=0.05. Fourth, the result of the post-test of the experimental group showed that free inquiry activities had no effect on scientific attitudes at the significant difference of p=0.05. In conclusion, free inquiry activities will be much more effective in developing integrative inquiry process skills than in developing basic scientific process skills and scientific attitudes.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.144-157
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to analyse the influence of mother's characteristics on elementary school students' attitudes toward science. Elementary school students (N=667) and their mothers (N=681) were selected from three other regions, big city, small city, and country. Attitudes toward science and supports for scientific activities were measured by two kinds of instruments. The instrument for the measurement of attitudes toward science includes three scales: cognition about value of science, affection toward science & science learning, and cognitive participation in scientific activities. And the instrument to measure parents' support for scientific activities includes two scales: indirect support and direct support. This research showed that mothers' various characteristics resulted in a difference in students' attitudes toward science. And there were positive correlations between students' attitudes toward science and their mothers' attitudes toward science and support for scientific activities. Also mothers' attitudes toward science and support for scientific activities affected students' attitudes. Especially, mothers' personal interest in science and her mental and physical supports for children's scientific activities had a close relation with students' attitudes toward science.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.601-608
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• 2008

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of science activities using drawing on young children's scientific inquiry competences and scientific attitudes. The subjects of this research were a total of 40 young children at age 5 from two classes in G and C child care center which located in G city. The subjects were randomly assigned to two groups. The collected data were analyzed by t-test using SPSS program. The results of this study were as follow: First, experimental group which conducted the science activities using drawing showed significantly higher improvement in sub-factors of scientific inquiry competences, 'perseverance', 'creative', 'critical', and 'volunteering'. Second, experimental group which conducted the science activities using drawing showed significantly higher improvement in sub-factors of scientific attitudes, 'observing', 'measuring', and 'discussion'. Therefor, it might be concluded that science activities using drawing contributed to the development of scientific inquiry competences and scientific attitudes of young children.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.242-254
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to understand the teaching effects according to the cognitive levels after conducting inquiry activities using science notebooks in the open inquiry activities of the elementary science class. The results of this study were as follow. first, students having the open inquiry activities using science notebooks showed improvement in scientific inquiry abilities in both groups with the low and high cognitive level. Second, regarding the changes of scientific attitudes, both groups with the low and high cognitive level exhibited improvement. According to the result of analyzing interaction between the cognitive level and class treatment on the effects for scientific inquiry abilities and scientific attitudes, there was no difference by the cognitive level. And the use of science notebooks in open inquiry activities had effects on improving scientific inquiry abilities and scientific attitudes regardless of the cognitive level.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.268-280
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• 2005

Teaching with laboratory activities in school science, which are distinctive characteristic, is placed from other disciplines fur teaming almost 200 hundred years ago. A number of science educators have suggested that there are rich benefits in teaming from using laboratory activities. At these time, however, some educators have begun to seriously question the effectiveness and the role of laboratory activities. There are some causes related to obscure and vague aims of laboratory activities. The purposes of this paper is to review aims of laboratory activities presented in the literatures through historical overview, and to obtain implication for school science. There are various aims of laboratory activities by a number of researchers. Overall synthesizing, there are ffur domains of aims of science teaching through laboratory activities, (a) science knowledge has two sub-domains; scientific content knowledge and procedural knowledge, (b) nature of science, (c) science attitude has two sub-domain; scientific attitude and attitude toward science, and (d) ability of scientific inquiry has two sub-domain; manipulative skills and scientific thinking. But, it is necessary to continue the following study in order to obtain the aims of laboratory activities agreed by expert community, and setting up of lists of aims of laboratory activities for students to achieve hierarchies of school science curriculums.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.127-146
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• 2012

In this study, we try to find out what effects science activities have on young children's scientific attitude and scientific research ability using Keller's ARCS motivational model. The subjects of this study were 40 5-year-old children of two classes in kindergarten located in G city. The results of this study are as follows: First, science activities using ARCS improves efficiently young children's scientific attitudes. Second, science activities using ARCS improves efficiently young children's scientific research ability. In conclusion, it was found that science activities using ARCS motivation model improved scientific attitudes and the scientific research ability of young children. The results of this study suggest that science activities through ARCS are worth using as an appropriate and significant teaching method to improve young children's scientific attitudes and scientific research ability in the education field.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Earth Science Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.95-104
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine what effects the experiment class to stress discussion of small groups in scientific experiment class of the elementary school has on scientific achievement and attitude on the science of the students comparing to the usual scientific experiment class. For that purpose, this study has divided 49 students at the 6th grade of the M elementary school in P City into test groups of 24 students and control groups of 25 students. Classes have been progressed by giving sufficient time to the test groups for discussion by each small groups after experiment while by allowing the control groups to finish the experiment with arrangement of the experiment results. Conclusions of this study include: First, the more familiar the experiment materials are and the easier the experiment procedures are to be operated by the students, the more actively the small group discussion activities have been deployed. It shows that the students need a certain level of background knowledge before experiment for vital discussing activities. Second, it is appeared that the test groups given the scientific experiment class stressing small group discussing activity have significantly high scores comparing to the control groups given the existing scientific experiment class. It shows that the small group discussing activities have effects on promoting understanding of the students on the scientific achievement for the scientific experiment class. Third, it is appeared that the test groups given the scientific experiment class stressing small group discussing activity significantly high scores on attitude about the science comparing to the control groups given the existing scientific experiment class. It is considered that the students could have opportunities to compare their own thoughts with others and to have reflective thought to change their thoughts through the small group discussing activity. As shown above, it shows that the experiment class to stress discussing activities is more effective to increase scientific achievement and attitude about the science than the scientific experiment class to get and arrange the experiment results from the existing experiment classes.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.414-426
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• 2010

For this study, inquiry-based learning program was developed for promoting elementary students' scientific justification activities based on their uses of scientific evidences. The program was applied to the 5th grade science class to examine the types of evidences and major features of scientific justification activities. Analysis of the data showed that the evidences used by students were classified into knowledge-based evidence, experience-based evidence and authority-based evidence. As for students' justification features, this study reports three major cases: a case evolving evidence and justification to become more valid and logical, as inquiry activities progressed, other case maintaining less valid and illogical evidence and justification, and final case revealing passive and reluctant participation in the inquiry activities. Overall, students' participation in scientific justification process became more valid and relevant, while there were some students who were unable to make the relevant relations between evidences and claims they made. The educational implications were discussed to consider more effective ways to improve the scientific classroom environment through social knowledge construction.