• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.617-631
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• 2002

This study has examined 5-year students in the kindergarten and students in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade in the primary school to analyze their perceptions about scientists. science, and how they apply science in their daily lives. First, students have 4 stereotypic images on scientists, specifically in 'indoor', 'male', 'lab coat'. and 'scientific instrument'. There were significant differences in stereotypic images on scientists depending on genders and ages. Girls and primary students showed higher scores than boys and kindergarten students did. respectively, in stereotypic images on scientists. No differences were observed for the stereotypic images on scientists among primary students, regardless of their grades. Second, most of students were interested in science. Depending on grades, there were significant differences in their preference for science. Students in higher grades showed lower scores than those in lower grades did. In addition, only a few of them hoped to be a scientist in the future. Boys showed higher scores in their hope to be a scientist in the future than girls did. The students in lower grades showed higher scores than those in higher grades. Third, most of children thought themselves doing activity-oriented science in school. Outside school, however, they did not use the knowledge and skills they had learned for science in school. Students in the primary school showed more concept-oriented perception for science than those in kindergarten did. This perception was gradually increased as the grades of the students go up.