Hye-Eun Chu

Korean Year 3 Children's Environmental Literacy: A Prerequisite for a Korean Environmental Education Curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to investigate Korean children’s environmental literacy levels and the variables that affect their environmental literacy. An instrument, the Environment Literacy Instrument for Korean Children (ELIKC), was developed that measures four different dimensions (knowledge, attitude, behaviour, and skills) using 69 items and 13 demographic variables. The ELIKC was administered to 969 Year 3 students from large cities, medium‐sized cities, and rural areas. The students were given 80 min to answer the questions. Statistical analysis was performed on each of the scales that make up the ELIKC and a multivariate analysis of variance was performed to identify the variables that affect environmental literacy. Results indicate that the correlation between attitude and behaviour is the strongest while that between knowledge and behaviour is the weakest. Also, it was found that gender, parents’ school background, and the source from where students obtain environmental information affect all categories of environmental literacy.

A stratified study of students’ understanding of basic optics concepts in different contexts using two‐tier multiple‐choice items

A large scale study involving 1786 year 7–10 Korean students from three school districts in Seoul was undertaken to evaluate their understanding of basic optics concepts using a two‐tier multiple‐choice diagnostic instrument consisting of four pairs of items, each of which evaluated the same concept in two different contexts. The instrument, which proved to be reliable, helped identify several context‐dependent alternative conceptions that were held by about 25% of students. At the same time, students’ performance on the diagnostic test correlated with the location of the schools, students’ achievement in school science and their attitudes to science learning. However, students’ grade levels had limited influence on their understanding of basic concepts in optics as measured by the instrument.

Evaluation of Students' Understanding of Thermal Concepts in Everyday Contexts

The aims of this study were to determine the underlying conceptual structure of the thermal concept evaluation (TCE) questionnaire, a pencil-and-paper instrument about everyday contexts of heat, temperature, and heat transfer, to investigate students’ conceptual understanding of thermal concepts in everyday contexts across several school years and to analyse the variables—school year, science subjects currently being studied, and science subjects previously studied in thermal energy—that influence students’ thermal conceptual understanding. The TCE, which was administered to 515 Korean students from years 10–12, was developed in Australia, using students’ alternative conceptions derived from the research literature. The conceptual structure comprised four groups—heat transfer and temperature changes, boiling, heat conductivity and equilibrium, and freezing and melting—using 19 of the 26 items in the original questionnaire. Depending on the year group, 25–55% of students experienced difficulties in applying scientific concepts in everyday contexts. Years of schooling, science subjects currently studied and physics topics previously studied correlated with development of students’ conceptual understanding, especially in topics relating to heat transfer, temperature scales, specific heat capacity, homeostasis, and thermodynamics. Although students did improve their conceptual understandings in later years of schooling, they still had difficulties in relating the scientific concepts to their experiences in everyday contexts. The study illustrates the utility of using a pencil-and-paper questionnaire to identify students’ understanding of thermal concepts in everyday situations and provides a baseline for Korean students’ achievement in terms of physics in everyday contexts, one of the objectives of the Korean national curriculum reforms.

Science Curriculum Changes and STEM Education in East Asia

The science curricula in East Asian countries have undergone rapid changes over the last 20 years. They have focused on enabling citizens to make reasoned decisions, when faced with issues in modern society related to science and technology. In the past, the curriculum has emphasized science content knowledge and process skills, to enable students to experience what scientists are doing in their laboratory and research areas. Moreover, in the past several decades, STEM has been emphasized in East Asian countries. This is not a new emphasis in East Asian countries. For example, in the primary school level, math and science have been the main focus subjects in Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These countries were always placed at the top rank in TIMSS tests in math and science and have emphasized technology relating to IT and the importance of engineering. However, it is time for us to rethink the disconnected practical approaches related to science, math, engineering, and technology. In this book chapter, we will discuss an overview of science curriculum changes in East Asia and the modern background of STEM and STEAM education, while providing examples of STEM/STEAM practices and assessments in East Asian countries in order to examine current curricula and plan the new science curriculum development.

The Conceptual Elements of Multiple Representations: A Study of Textbooks’ Representations of Electric Current

Physics teachers may focus on the forms of multiple representations, but they might not be mindful of the essential or elementary features of a concept. Ainsworth’s (Comput Educ 32(2–3):131–152, 1999) framework may provide some basic ideas of multiple representations, but it does not help to analyse the elementary features of a physical concept and guide students to reconstruct the concept for a more meaningful understanding. Educational Reconstruction (Duit R, Gropengieser H, Kattmann U, Komorek M, Parchmann I, The model of educational reconstruction – A framework for improving teaching and learning science. In: Jorde D, Dillon J (eds) The world of science education: Science education research and practice in Europe. Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, pp 13–47, 2012) approach can complete the multiple representations framework of Ainsworth (Comput Educ 32(2–3):131–152, 1999) in emphasizing two thinking and learning processes: elementarization and reconstruction. To identify essential conceptual elements of electric current for effective implementations of multiple representations, relevant journal papers and physics textbooks were analysed. As a result, we propose five conceptual elements of multiple representations: ‘object’, ‘nature’, ‘cause’, ‘equation’, and ‘condition’. Fundamentally speaking, the concept of electric current can now be more comprehensively analysed and synthesised via multiple representations. Essentially, every conceptual element of electric current can be diagrammatically, graphically, symbolically, or verbally represented. In general, science teachers may present scientific concepts by using multiple representations with these conceptual elements in mind.

The Development of Environmental Education Policy and Programs in Korea: Promoting Sustainable Development in School Environmental Education

The Ministry of Environment started to implement School EE Model programs in primary and secondary schools, incorporating EE into regular subjects and co-curricular activities through the use of previously developed EE-related materials. These curriculum changes were extended during the fourth and fifth national curricula by including guidelines for EE. Now there is a separate EE subject in secondary schools along with co-curricular activities related to EE programs across all school years. In addition, non-governmental Organisations, involved with EE programs in schools and environmental civic groups, have been actively involved in EE through the provision of programs for young people. In this chapter, we will discuss the current sustainable EE programs within and outside of schools in Korea. These formal and informal sustainable EE programs have been developed separately but now are linked together for school EE programs. The detailed EE programs in schools and outside of schools will be illustrated with examples.