Concurrency is often perceived as difficult by students. One reason for this may be due to the fact that abstractions used in concurrent programs leave more situations undefined compared to sequential programs (e.g., in what order statements are executed), which makes it harder to create a proper mental model of the execution environment. Students…

UNESCO has identified education for sustainable development (ESD) as a key factor in the achievement of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Education is important in developing awareness of how to preserve natural ecosystems and promote the uptake of renewable energy sources. Ecology education in primary school aims to give students a scientific…

This study investigates students' conceptions of the causes and processes that form eskers and erratics, types of glacial and glaciofluvial landforms which to date have been little researched in geoscience education. The data collected for the study included 134 responses to an assignment completed by 12- to 13-year-old students in the Swedish…

Almost 700 Swedish and South African students from the upper secondary school and first-term chemistry university level responded to our survey on concepts of chemical bonding. The national secondary school curricula and most common textbooks for both countries were also surveyed and compared for their content on chemical bonding. Notable…

In this paper, we report a case study of a 16-year-old Swedish upper secondary student's developing understanding of key concept areas studied in his upper secondary school chemistry course. This study illustrates how the thinking of an individual learner, Jesper, evolves over a school year in response to formal instruction in a particular…

A study of how Swedish students understand the concept of complex numbers was performed. A questionnaire was issued reflecting the student view of own perception. Obtained answers show a variety of concept images describing how students adopt the concept of complex numbers. These concept images are classified into four categories in order to…

During the last decades, an increasing awareness has developed that humankind will have to make important decisions about the environment which will demand substantive knowledge of critical ecological phenomena such as the production and decomposition of biomass (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). As a biology teacher the…

This paper describes the BUD project which surveyed childrens' conceptions of division, and of fractions and decimals. The lack of connection between counting skills and conceptual understanding is discussed. The expectations for new algorithms and the basic idea in planning the BUD project are summarized. Some previous studies on counting, the…