• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.14 no.1
• /
• pp.29-46
• /
• 2004

This study investigated a 7-week summer science research apprenticeship program for gifted high school students in U.S. The purpose of the study was to examine the reasons why the high school student participated in the program, the students' perceptions on the benefits of the apprenticeship program, and to investigate mentors' perceptions on assessment and mentorship of the students' projects. For this study, laboratory works and group meetings were observed, students' journal and research products were analyzed, and interviews were administrated with student apprentices and some mentors. The result revealed that the main reasons of students' participation were to perform research with university professionals, to understand the scientific research, and to explore their college/career decisions. Students' participation was strongly associated with their internal motivation and interests. The students perceived the benefits of the apprenticeship program as providing them with the experience of the nature of real scientific research, of learning of scientific knowledge on the focus area, and wiser college/career decisions. Students' projects were assessed and guided through on-going interactions and cognitive apprenticeship between mentors and student apprentices.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.68-79
• /
• 2010

This study utilized the What Is Happening In this Class (WIHIC) questionnaire to examine students' perceptions of their science learning environment. Data was collected from 587 middle school students in seven coeducation schools in Seoul. Higher mean scores occurred on the scales of Student cohesiveness, Task orientation, Cooperation and Equity in the WIHIC, whereas lower mean scores occurred on Teacher support, Involvement and Investigation. The effects of gender on students' perceptions of their science learning environment were not statistically significant overall, but girls perceived Student cohesiveness and Cooperation more positively than boys. Correlations between the WIHIC scales of the low-level group that perceived their learning environments negatively (10 percentiles) and the high-level group that perceived their learning environments positively (90 percentiles) were computed. Teacher support, Involvement, Task Orientation and Investigation were highly correlated with each other in the low-level group, whereas only Teacher support and Equity were correlated in the high group. Educational implications were discussed.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.441-447
• /
• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of educating 5th graders in elementary school about Korean traditional fermented soy products. The percentage of correct answers from the educated group increased after nutrition education compared to the non-educated group (p<0.001). The perceptions and attitudes regarding Korean traditional fermented soy products increased significantly after nutrition education (p<0.05). Analysis of the preference for Korean traditional fermented soy products based on participation in nutrition education showed that both groups were not significantly different in all categories including soybean paste, soy sauce, and red pepper paste. The investigation on differences in intake frequency of Korean traditional fermented soy products showed that both groups did not display statistically significant differences in all categories including soybean paste, soy sauce, and red pepper paste. These results confirmed that the nutrition education activity program had positive effects in correcting 5th graders' knowledge, perceptions and attitudes regarding Korean traditional fermented soy products. However, it did not significantly affect their preferences and intake frequency. This indicates that short-term education cannot effect changes in preference or actual behaviors. Therefore, continuous nutrition education activities are required.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.30 no.4
• /
• pp.519-531
• /
• 2010

In this study, we investigated the elementary school students' images of science class and the factors influencing their formations. 280 sixth graders were selected from nine elementary schools in Gyeonggi province and Gangwon province and the DASCT-C (Draw-A-Science-Class-Test Checklist) was administered. In addition, four students were individually interviewed in order to investigate their responses deeply. Analyses of the results revealed that the students' images of science class for four science subjects (physics, chemistry, biology, and earth science) were more 'student-centered' than 'teacher-centered' or 'neutral'. The students of the teacher with student-centered image of science class had also more student-centered images than those with teacher-centered images. Many students answered that the main factors affecting their images of science class were the experiences of impressed or funny science classes, the perceptions of wanted science classes, the active science learning experiences, the educational experiences outside the school curriculum, and the negative science learning experiences. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.147-158
• /
• 2014

The purpose of this study was to explore changes of elementary science class in student oriented group inquiry activities using a Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) template that enhance scaffolding of inquiry. The changes focused on students' written reports and perceptions of their learning environment as well as discourse patterns. One fourth-grade class of 29 students participated in this study, and a developed work sheet of science writing was utilized to scaffold student's inquiry activities. Four units in the first-semester text book for fourth grade of the-, 2007 Educational Curriculum Revision were chosen for scaffolding inquiry, and sixteen lessons of instruction were all videotaped. For investigating students' written reports, a framework based on the aspects of science inquiry by Millar (2010) was used to evaluate the coherence between student inquiry activities and their claims. Secondly, a regular fourth-grade class was selected as the control group and was compared with the experiment group using the pre- and post-test of the survey on the perception of science class and science. Lastly, students' discourse patterns of the beginning science lesson were compared with those of the closing lesson. We found that the coherence in the last class increased significantly in students' written reports compared to the first one. Findings also indicated that students' perceptions on their learning environment moved toward student-centered. Based on our discourse patterns analysis, the last class was more student-centered from being teacher-centered than the first one.

• Journal of Gifted/Talented Education
• /
• v.26 no.2
• /
• pp.365-387
• /
• 2016

This study examined the effects of students'perceptions of classroom on self-regulatory strategy use, persistent intention, and achievement in an online Science gifted program. The sample included 434 middle and high school students who participated in the 3-months online gifted program. Participants volunteerly surveyed on their perceptions of classroom (appeal, challenge, choice, meaningfulness, academic self-efficacy), self-regulatory strategy use, and persistent intention. Student achievement data was collected from online learning system. Multiple Regression was conducted to analyze the effect of students'perceptions of classroom on various dependent variables. The results of this study showed that (1) students use of rehearsal strategy was positively related to academic self-efficacy among the sub-variables of students'perceptions of classroom and the use of rehearsal strategy was negatively related to challenge; (2) the use of elaboration strategy was positively related to challenge and meaningfulness; (3) the use of time management strategy was positively related to academic self-efficacy and the use of resource management strategy was positively related to challenge; and (4) students' persistent intention was related to appeal, challenge and meaningfulness, achievement was related to challenge.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.30 no.5
• /
• pp.668-680
• /
• 2010

In this study, we investigated the characteristics, the mapping understanding, the mapping errors, and the perceptions of student-generated analogies on the separation of mixtures using the sizes of particles by elementary school students' approaches to learning. Fourth graders (N=92) were selected and administered with the tests on the approaches to learning, self-generating analogies, and perception of self-generating analogies. The results revealed that the meaningful learners made more analogies, especially structural/functional, enriched, and higher systematic ones than the rote learners. However, there were little difference in students' approaches to learning in the subcategories of representation (verbal, pictorial, and verbal/pictorial), artificiality (artificial and everyday), and abstraction (abstract and concrete). The meaningful learners had deeper understanding of the analogy and fewer mapping errors than the rote learners. In addition, the numbers of the shared attributes included in student-generated analogies and the scores of the mapping understanding of the meaningful learners were significantly higher than those of the rote learners. Many students, regardless of students' approaches to learning, had positive perceptions of the self-generating analogies in various cognitive and motivational aspects. However, they also point out the various difficulties in the self-generating analogies as their disadvantages. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

• Journal of Science Education
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.103-120
• /
• 2008

The purpose of this study was to compare science teachers' perceptions with students' perceptions about the important aims of laboratory activities in science instructions, to identify whether there was a difference between them. For the purpose, the two questionnaires were designed; for secondary science teacher and secondary student. The samples selected in each group were 108 middle school teachers, 109 middle school students, 104 high school teachers, and 110 high school students. The survey responses from each group were analyzed through multiple response method. The results indicated that science teachers selected the science process skills as important aim of laboratory activity whereas students selected the ability for creative problem-solving and the central tendency of teachers' responses about certain item-science process skill was relatively higher than students' responses about certain item-the ability for creative problem-solving. From these results, we found there was the difference between teachers' perception and students perception about the important aims of laboratory activities in science instructions.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
• /
• v.29 no.8
• /
• pp.861-873
• /
• 2009

This study investigated the types of analogies generated by science-gifted students, mapping errors on the chromatography, and the perceptions on generating analogy. The subjects were science-gifted eighth-graders (N=68) enrolled at four gifted-education centers in Seoul. Analyses of the results revealed that most science-gifted students represented the analogies using verbal and pictorial forms based on concrete and everyday experiences, and they elaborately explained them including the functional attributes and the causal relationships of the target concept. Science-gifted students selected the analogies having rich similarities or similar structure and principle between the target concept and the analogy as the best of the self-generated analogies. And they used mainly their 'school life' as analogy materials. The results of the mapping test showed that many science-gifted students had mapping errors such as 'failure to map' and 'overmapping'. They were found to have the positive perceptions on generating analogy. The present study will provide the basic information to develop an instructional model in generating analogy in an education program for science-gifted students.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
• /
• v.27 no.3
• /
• pp.211-220
• /
• 2008

This study examined pre-service science teachers' perceptions of informal learning by adopting a discourse analysis method suggested by Mortimer and Scott(2003). The guiding research questions were: (1) What are some general patterns of the discourse occurring in science museums between a teacher and a student? (2) In what ways do the pre-service teachers perceive informal learning and teacher's role in informal settings? The 7 pre-service science teachers participated in this study. Each of them shepherd an elementary student around the museum and implemented their own instruction using a pre-planed lesson plan. Results indicated that even though the teachers had learned some characteristics of informal teaming in their college courses, they tended to implement their traditional view of science teaming into the instruction and the view affected them to set up their teaching purposes and contents, and to select communicative approach, patterns of discourse and ways of intervention.