• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.161-170
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• 2007

This study aims at helping us improve the methods used to teach elementary school students how to handle experimental apparatus by examining their manual skills and their understanding of the alcohol lamp, spuit and thermometer. To evaluate their ability to handle each experimental apparatus, a practical skills test and knowledge evaluation sheets were developed. The evaluation was carried out with 270 students from 2 classes each in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade of D Elementary School located in Daejeon City. For their handling ability of the alcohol lamp, the results for the practical skills test showed that the students had a very low ability in placing objects in the center of the apparatus for safe use and also in adjusting the height of the trivet to place objects so that they contact the outer flames correctly. For the spuit, the pass rate of the skills test was generally low in regards to how students should grasp a spuit and the timing and method of depressing the rubber part before dipping it into liquid. For the thermometer, on the other hand, the pass rate was relatively high in every respect. The knowledge evaluation results for the use of experimental apparatus showed a very high rate of correct answers for alcohol lamps and thermometers. The test results for spoils also produced a relatively high rate of correct answers, with the exception of the test item regarding the way that students should grasp them.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.493-499
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• 1997

Many science teachers can be able to miswrite the vocabularies for seven kinds of experimental tool names on blackboard of secondary school in Korean language. The diagnosis test for the miswriting possibility was carried out by science teachers in secondary school. We questioned "How can you write each of Korean vocabulary for seven experimental tools?" to each of one hundred and fourty science teachers in three class of physics, chemistry, and biology during inservice training course of Gyeongsang National University on August in 1997. First of all, for the investigation we showed the real things of seven tools to the teachers and they wrote each vocabulary for each tool name on blackboard in English. In addition we explained the general use of each tool name. And then the teachers answered the vocabularies of them on one written paper. The miswriting results for seven tools were as follows. There appeared various miswriting vocabularies for each tool name. For examples, meas cylinder was miswritten two kinds of Korean name and the miswriting ratio of 4%, Mortar & pestle was miswritten four kinds of name and the ratio of 12%, Beaker & desiccator were miswritten one kind of name and the ratio of 51% and 36%, separately. Separatory funnel & spuit were miswritten two kinds of name and the ratio of 54% and 58%, separately. Schale was miswritten four kinds of name and the ratio of 51%. We might conclude that the cause of miswriting vocabularies for the tool name could be due to the original miswriting in Korean-English or English-Korean dictionaries as well as the seience teachers by themselves.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.44-49
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• 2004

This study was based upon the survey on the name of 13 basic experimental instruments used in elementary science class: Schale, evaporating dish, mortar & pestle, beaker, erlenmeyer flask, spuit(medicine dropper), graduated cylinder, balance, spatula, dropping bottle, gas collecting bottle, funnel, alcohol burner, and their uses. To implement this study, an open-ended, written questionnaire was administered to the subjects of in-service elementary school teachers, future elementary teachers who have attended at the Gyeongin national university of education, and elementary students in Korea. The findings of this study were as follows: The rates of in-service and pre-service elementary school teachers that knew correct name of experimental instruments were not high, the elementary school student's rates were especially very low. In this study, we found several reasons which they wrote inaccurately: the name to be represented at the textbook that they had studied, the confusion of the name about a fortis pronunciation, the recognition as the vocabulary like flask and cylinder to be meaningless, the habit to say in an everyday life, wrong expression in the internet and general book. All respondents had a wide range of perceptions of uses for the experimental instruments. Their understanding of uses for evaporating dish, erlenmeyer flask, balance, gas collecting bottle were very poor. And then most of them understood that graduated cylinder, beaker, and erlenmeyer flask were tools to measure the volume of solution or liquid, so they did not exactly distinguish the difference of their uses.