This paper aims at discovering the problems of speculative drives in the aspects of education as well as in Gwageo during the late Choson Dynasty. For this reason, the study examines the types of speculative drives which prevailed at that moment, followed by its causes and effects on education and its national control plans.
The results are as follows. First, unlike the early days of the Choson, the latter half unprecedentedly encountered the problem for which there was a sudden increase in the number of entrants for Gwageo, the state examination during Choson Dynasty. As a result, the whole test sites fell into a big confusion, stirring up dishonesty from students such as cheatings and proxy attendance. There was also a competition among entrants to be first to submit their answer sheets.
Second, factors that contributed to the cause of such misconducts come out to be complex. It includes not only a sudden expansion of entrants due to the growing numbers of Yangban, but also too much frequent Special Exams which consequently brought about an increase in quota for the number of students to be admitted. Furthermore, lack of Gwageo’s assessment function owing to its easiness of writing out the answers, disorderly test sites, inconsistency in grading by less qualified graders and demanding study loads which it required are also the factors involved.
Third, students’ attitude to rely on chances developed a tendency to disregard their studies followed by debilitating of school education. Moreover, practices of trading literary writings for the exam became prevalent among the students.
Lastly, the study also discusses actions which were taken by the state in order to restrain these tendencies. Those actions include cutting down the number of times for Special Exams and the number of students to be admitted, taking cyclic process in selecting diverse subjects, having face-to-face interviews with successful candidates to verify their competence and reinforcing graders on test sites. However, none of these plans had produced desired outcomes, leaving it without any improvement until the end of the Choson Dynasty.