Background: Students employ a variety of study strategies to learn and master content in their courses. Strategies vary widely in their effectiveness for promoting deep, long-term learning, yet most students use ineffective strategies frequently. Efforts to educate students about effective study strategies have revealed that knowledge about…

Undergraduate biochemistry students frequently find the quantitative treatment of weak acids and bases troublesome. Given the p"K"[subscript a] of a weak acid "HA," for instance, many students struggle to calculate the pH of a solution of the conjugate base A[superscript -] at concentration "C," pH(A[superscript -],…

Students' recognition of the common procedural mistakes in the chemistry laboratory was examined in this study. Data were collected from 49 undergraduates studying Science Teaching. A video in which a student is purposefully making common procedural mistakes was shown to the students, and they were asked to recognize the mistakes. A Written…

We discuss the limits of the equation of the period of a simple pendulum, T[subscript s] = 2[pi][square root]l/g, frequently used in high-school and university classrooms to measure the acceleration of gravity. We evaluate the relative error in determining the acceleration of gravity with this simple equation instead of a more realistic one,…

In this study, we have explored the effectiveness of two instructional approaches in the context of the motion of objects falling at terminal speed in the presence of air resistance. We ground these instructional approaches in dual-process theories of reasoning, which assert that human cognition relies on two thinking processes. Dual-process…

For various reasons, students receive less formative feedback at post-secondary institutions compared to secondary school. Considering feedback as one of the most important influencing factors on learning processes, formative feedback is a promising approach to improving students' performances. In this context, new technologies, such as learning…

Transfer of learning is a fundamental goal of education but is challenging to achieve, especially where far transfer to remote contexts is at stake. How can we improve learners' flexible application of knowledge to distant domains? In a counterintuitive phenomenon termed the "derring effect," deliberately committing and correcting errors…

Error analysis consumes much of the focus in introductory physics labs. Catastrophic cancellation is a spike in error that occurs when subtracting two measurements of roughly equal magnitude. Often termed "loss of significance" or "subtractive cancellation," this effect can easily relegate experimental results to utter…

Hundreds of articles have explored the extent to which individuals accept evolution, and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) is the most often used survey. However, research indicates the MATE has limitations, and it has not been updated since its creation more than 20 years ago. In this study, we revised the MATE using…

Background: In college science laboratory and discussion sections, student-centered active learning strategies have been implemented to improve student learning outcomes and experiences. Research has shown that active learning activities can increase student anxiety if students fear that they could be negatively evaluated by their peers. Error…

Massive pretrained language models have garnered attention and controversy due to their ability to generate humanlike responses: Attention due to their frequent indistinguishability from human-generated phraseology and narratives and controversy due to the fact that their convincingly presented arguments and facts are frequently simply false. Just…

This paper presents a thorough method for studying the interference of water waves. The study aimed: (a) to demonstrate the interaction of two coherent waves, which creates interference patterns, and (b) to analyse the interference patterns. Three main tools were employed: a simplified ripple tank to experiment, a smartphone camera to record the…

We elaborate on a new approach of assessing content-based epistemic clarity of college physics students in terms of their ability to discriminate between different epistemic warrants for propositions in a chained argument in physics. A threefold classification (nominal, physical, and mathematical) of warrants is used, with each class split into a…

Many modern anatomy curricula teach histology using virtual microscopes, where students inspect tissue slices in a computer program (e.g. a web browser). However, the educational data mining (EDM) potential of these virtual microscopes remains under-utilized. In this paper, we use EDM techniques to investigate three research questions on a virtual…

Assessments can provide instructors and students with valuable information regarding student's level of knowledge and understanding, in order to improve both teaching and learning. In this study, we analyzed departmental assessment quizzes given to students at the start of Organic Chemistry 2, over an eight year period. This assessment quiz was…