This study aims to investigate how high school teachers and students perceive the purpose of science learning. Participants were high school science teachers and students from one hundred and sixty high schools nationwide, which were selected through proportional stratified sampling method. Teachers and students responded on open-ended questionnaires about the purpose of science learning. The data were analyzed using the semantic network analysis method. Our study illustrates three major finding: First, teachers recognized the intrinsic value related to cognitive domain as the more important purpose of science learning, while students recognized the extrinsic value related to personal usefulness domain as more important. Second, teachers' responses were significantly different depending on the teaching career. Beginning teachers believed both intrinsic and extrinsic values were equally important, while experienced teachers believed the cognitive domain about understanding of scientific knowledge was more important than intrinsic values. In other words, the differences in perception of the purpose of science between teachers and students, the experienced teachers is greater than the beginning teachers. Finally, students' responses were different depending on their academic track. Humanity major students recognized that learning science made their everyday-life easier while science major students recognized that learning science should be related to their future careers. In conclusion, the results of this study is expected to be of use as the basic data to identify the characteristic of teachers and students related to science.