Inquiry-based science instruction has been advocated for decades. However, the implementation of inquiry teaching and learning in everyday classrooms is rather limited due to various factors. Previous research investigated implementations of inquiry-based teaching at the activity level with self-reported methods. However, little is known about how…

This study used an instrument to examine undergraduate students' preferred and actual learning environment perceptions in an introductory earth science course. The results show that science students expect to learn in a learning environment combining teacher-centred and student-centred approaches. However, an expectation incongruence was found in…

This article reports the attitudes of students towards mathematics after they had participated in an applied mathematical modelling project that was part of an Applied Mathematics course. The students were majoring in Earth Science at the National Taiwan Normal University. Twenty-six students took part in the project. It was the first time a…

The educational reform movement since the 1990s has led the secondary earth science curriculum in Taiwan into a stage of reshaping. The present study investigated secondary earth science teachers' perceptions on the Goals of Earth Science Education (GESE). The GESE should express the statements of philosophy and purpose toward which educators…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a problem solving based instructional model on earth science students' achievement and alternative frameworks. Students' opinions toward the instructional method were also investigated. The investigations employed a pretest/posttest control group design to detect any significant change.…

Explores how various teaching formats of computer-assisted instruction (CAI) influence student science learning outcomes in the secondary classroom. Compares teacher-directed CAI (TDCAI) and student-controlled CAI (SCCAI) in a compulsory earth science course in a secondary school in Taiwan. Indicates that TDCAI students had significantly higher…

Explores the effects of a Problem-based Computer-Assisted Instruction (PBCAI) on students' earth science achievement in Taiwan. One hundred and fifty-nine 10th grade students enrolled in four sections of a mandatory earth science course participated in this pretest- posttest control group experiment. A significant difference was found between the…

Examined the comparative efficiency of inquiry-group instruction and traditional teaching methods on Taiwanese junior high school students' achievement and attitudes toward earth science. Surveys of students in both groups indicated that students in the inquiry group had significantly higher achievement scores and significantly more favorable…