Science educators have long been concerned with how formal schooling contributes to learners' capacities to engage with science after school. This article frames productive engagement as fundamentally about the coordination of claims with evidence, but such coordination requires a number of reasoning capabilities to evaluate the strength of…

This paper contends that the science education community would benefit from a three-step, research-based model that would allow science education researchers, in the final step, to make recommendations to classroom teachers. The first step would be to establish an interdisciplinary approach to research on how the brain and mind learn and remember.…

Discusses how educating children to use maps for navigation may enhance wayfinding skills as well as general representation and spatial skills. Documents need for innovative educational curricula to meet challenges of teaching map navigation. Describes development and evaluation of "Where Are We?" curriculum to simulate real-world…

Developmental assumptions that are frequently regarded as constraints on elementary school science curricula are analyzed. The argument that elementary school children cannot function as experimentalists because they have not yet attained formal operational thought is not supported by the Piagetian or non-Piagetian research reviewed. (SLD)

A review of the research on the cognitive development of middle school students is presented and ways of promoting intellectual growth in middle school science classrooms are offered. The annotations in this review are organized into four sections. The first part focuses on the research on the cognitive development of the middle school student.…

This paper aims to clarify and describe the process of change in learners' conceptual understanding of natural phenomena. It begins by reviewing the existing literature on models of conceptual change and on children's conceptions in a number of selected topic areas. Strategies for exploring and developing children's ideas in these areas have also…

Research on science education in the Caribbean which has been completed and published between 1970-1987 in the form of doctoral or masters theses, published papers, conference/seminar papers, and university-based mimeograph research material was examined, synthesized, and organized around the following themes: (1) agricultural education; (2)…

A concept/process-based science education program is any science education program in which curriculum instruction, learning, activities, and evaluation are organized by an identified set of fundamental concepts and processes to be developed by students. This differs from science education programs that are topically based. Although topical…

Presented is an annotated list of 422 science education research reports published during 1983. Provided with each entry is the title, author(s), source, annotation, and (when applicable) educational level. Also provided is the ED number for those items available from the Educational Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). The following types of…

This review presents a broad picture of science education research during 1977 and discusses how this research relates to the past and how it can be of use to teachers. The review is organized in four sections. The Overview is a presentation and discussion of research dealing with the philosophy of science education, its goals, objectives and…

Reports on research studies concerning cognitive learning in the environment as it relates to elementary schools. Indicates that field instruction is useful in promoting and achieving cognitive gain when effectively planned, managed, and coordinated with other modes of instruction. (RT)

Beneath educational pedagogies lie philosophical assumptions about the nature of learning, knowledge, truth and morality. These different philosophies form the foundations of a variety of instructional programs in all academic disciplines. This paper addresses constructivism, a recent attempt to provide a philosophical pedagogy which affects…

This book reviews the literature on effective science teaching, examining research from the United Kingdom and other countries. The studies included were those that made comparisons between two or more groups differing in science education experiences; those that involved upper elementary or lower secondary students; those that made comparisons in…

Major efforts are underway to identify and define a science of science education which will reverse the relationship between research and program development. This trend is toward using research on how learners grow and develop prior to program development and the organization of instructional techniques. Clear scientific explanations of how…