• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.505-512
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate how extracurricular science club activities affect sciencerelated attitudes of female elementary school students. The experimental group was organised with thirty female elementary school students selected from a school in a small city and two schools in a town at Jeju special selfgoverning province. The students were encouraged to participate in a variety of scientific experiences and inquiry activities for ten months. The control group consisted of another thirty girl students chosen from the same schools. The pre-test and post-test on science-related attitudes were administered to both the experimental and control groups. The result of this study shows that meaningful changes have been observed in science-related attitudes of the experimental group, whereas the control group reveals no meaningful changes. Science-related attitudes have been analyzed in three categories such as cognition, interests, scientific attitude. The experimental group shows meaningful changes in all of the three categories, while the control group shows no change in any category. When the female students from small city and those from the town were separated, the result shows that the latter shows more positive changes in science-related attitudes through science club activities than the former.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.442-458
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• 2004

This study was conducted to develop a plan for a large-scale implementation of the Girl Friendly Science Program based on the results of analysis and investigation of its current pilot implementation, Girl Friendly Science Program materials, which was first developed in 1999 with the support from Ministry of Gender Equality, consist of 1) five theme-based units that are specifically targeted individual students' unique ability, aptitude, and career choice, and 2) differentiated learning materials for 7th through 10th grade female students. All the materials are available at the homepage (http://tes.or.kr/gfsp.cgi) of 'Teachers for Exciting Science(the organization of science teachers in Seoul area)'. Since the materials are well organized by topic and grade level and presented in both Korean word process document and html format, anyone can easily access to the materials for their own instructional use. Ever since its launch the number of visitors to the homepage has been constantly increasing. The evaluation results of the current pilot implementation of the materials that targeted individual students' ability and aptitude showed that it scored high in terms of its alignment to the original purpose, content, level, and effectiveness to implement in classrooms. However, its evaluation scores were low in terms of the convenience for teachers to guide the materials, and its organization and operation. The results also showed a significant change in students' perception of science, and students' positive experiences of science through various interdisciplinary activities. On the other hand, the evaluation of students' experiences with the materials showed that students' assessment about an activity was largely depending on a success or failure of their experiences. Overall, students' evaluation of activities scores were low for simple activities such as cutting off or pasting papers. According to students' achievement test results, differences between pre and post test scores in the Affective Domain was statistically significant (p<0.05), but not in Inquiry Domain. Based on teachers observations, numerous schools where have run this program reported that students' abilities to cooperate, discuss, observe and reason with evidences were improved. In order to implement this program in a larger scale, it is critical to have a strong support of teachers and induce them to change their teaching strategy through building a community of teachers and developing ongoing teacher professional development programs. Finally, there still remain strong needs to develop more programs, and actively discover and train more domestic woman scientists and engineers and collaborate with them to develop more educational materials for girls in all ages.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.295-308
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• 2007

The purpose of the study is to develop an effective model of a science teachers' professional development program. This study consists of two parts: (1) the theoretical review of science teachers' professional development and (2) a case study of a science teachers' professional development programme in the UK. After reviewing recent research on pedagogical content knowledge and new approaches to educational research, the following suggestions emerged: (1) Continuing Professional Development(CPD) should be embedded in teachers' real practice in the classroom and (2) embedded in the everyday life of learners' within the community. (3) CPD should support the development of teachers' communities of professional practice. The case study of 'CPD through Portfolios of Evidence' in the British programme indicated that collecting explicit evidence of good practice in the classroom and establishing agreement as to what constitutes good practice in a teachers' community helped teachers' professional development. Finally, what emerged from the case study of the CPD programme in the UK and the theoretical review of PCK was the following. An effective CPD model of science teachers should comprise these three stages: (1) providing opportunities of professional development, (2) changing practice in the classroom and research, and (3) spreading and sustaining change. The whole process is circular.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.140-154
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• 2010

The core of subject matter education is determined by the choice of subject matter taught to students and by the organization of content according to educational objectives. The purpose of this research is to suggest ways to improve the present content of science education so as to prepare students and schools for a radically different future. We deduced the main issues the solution of which could lead to significant improvements in the contents of science education by analyzing previous studies and investigating the changes in content that were effected during curriculum revisions in the past. The main issues thus revealed through this study are as follows: the essence of the contents of subject matters in science education, the social and cultural background of change in the science curriculum, the rational steps on the way to choosing contents as part of the science curriculum, the processes of choosing the main contents of each subject, the international comparative study of contents, the updating of contents for the benefit of future society, and the reorganization of subject contents. In order to find a concrete improvement on the issues deduced, we organized an expert group. Then, we proceeded to collect and analyze the experts' opinions. A survey was administered to 19 science education experts working with universities and colleges of education. We examined their degree of agreement on the issues and problems, and on the steps that may be taken to us the improvements on these issues. we suggested that: collecting opinion and reaching an agreement on the essence of the contents of the subject matters in science education, the necessity to choose core contents within the scientific domain, developing a structure map in order to integrate and connect various subject domains, presenting explicitly the objective of inquiry by grades, moving toward integrating science contents, diversifying the construction of science textbooks.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.90-104
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• 2021

This study conducted an online survey to understand what elementary school teachers think about the learning contents of elementary science education subjects needed to train elementary science teachers suitable for the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution. The results are as follows: First, there were many elementary school teachers who thought that the current learning content of elementary science education was not suitable for the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution and that it needed to modify the learning content. Many of the teachers said that the learning content of the subject did not include the characteristics of the 4th Industrial Revolution, but also did not reflect the changes of the times and remained in the past. Second, the content that elementary school teachers thought was important in training elementary school teachers suitable for the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution was mainly related to the interests and curiosity of students, and scientific experiments or inquiry. On the contrary, the items that they thought should be deleted or reduced included science learning theory, science teaching/learning model, nature of science, and guidance for gifted children. Third, the contents that elementary school teachers thought needed to be added as learning content of elementary science education subjects were SSI education, science education-related social change and future prediction, advanced science technology, STEAM guidance, and integrated education within the science field. Fourth, in order to train elementary school teachers suitable for the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the contents that they thought should be introduced first as learning content of elementary science education subjects were SSI education, integrated education within the science field, STEAM guidance, and core competencies. Other contents that need to be introduced were software education, safety education, and project learning methods.