Biology, a living science, is known as a balance and complement among other branches of science. Just like the science of biology, biology as a course also plays a very important role among other courses at all school types and grades. It is thought that the adults of the future should not be deprived of knowledge in the field of biology and…

This study aimed to explore the beliefs and attitudes of 36 science teachers (biology, physics and chemistry) in six high schools in Ankara towards the use of Interactive White Boards (IWB). Of these, three teachers from each school were chosen for interview and classroom observations according to their questionnaire results with purposeful…

As certain groups--low income, ethnic minority, and/or first generation college students--continue to be underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields, interest in improving outcomes for these students has grown. In order to understand what pedagogy students experience when they begin course work in a STEM major, we…

We built on two cognitive and three motivational theoretical constructs to create a combined intervention aiming to improve course achievement and retention in STEM for first-year ("gateway") biology students. Participants were 350 students in one of 8 conditions or a no-treatment control group. Messages supporting cognition and…

To design a series of assessments that could be used to compare the learning gains of high school students studying the cardiopulmonary system using traditional methods to those who used a collaborative computer simulation, called "Mr. Vetro". Five teachers and 264 HS biology students participated in the study. The students were in…

A comparative approach to the study of communication can be seen as extremely valuable for a thorough understanding of human communication. In its broadest sense, communication is a biological phenomenon, defined as the interchange of information between an organism and its environment. Communication systems of living organisms differ…

Perceived influences of biology and English department heads were investigated using a discriminant analysis test of Biglan's model. Attention was directed to the influence of discipline versus the structural variables of department size, type of institution, and highest degree awarded. Questionnaires completed by 586 heads of biology and English…

When Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Scale was administered to 26 healthy and 26 chronically ill children, it was found that the chronically ill were significantly more anxious than the healthy. Results also suggested that the question of sex differences in children's emotional response to illness deserves further investigation in studies…

One direction that science education reform has taken is an investigation into the content knowledge structure, instructional beliefs, and teaching practices of middle school, high school, and college science teachers. This research study follows that same path to determine whether systematic differences exist between academic levels on these…

Examines the image production and management of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Eastern and Western blocs during and immediately after the reactor accident in April 1986. (JK)

Since 1986, the Teacher Assessment Project (TAP) at Stanford University (California) has been exploring performance-based modes of assessment that capture the complexity of the practice of teaching. After a brief description of the rating procedures, the raters, and the situated-performances designed by the TAP for assessment, this paper describes…

Results of a formative evaluation of a decision aid for students of taxonomic domains such as statistics or biology are reported. The tool, XPT-EASE, is designed to allow a student to search a taxonomy by traversing its branches in an arbitrary order, presumably the order simplest for the student, rather than by starting from the root node and…

The predictive and incremental validity of both the Old and New Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) was examined and compared with a sample of over 300 medical students. Results of zero order and incremental validity coefficients, as well as prediction models resulting from all possible subsets regression analyses using Mallow's Cp criterion,…

As part of a larger effort to determine marital and procreative trends in the South, an historical comparison was made of two samples of Northeast Alabama high school seniors. Similar questionnaires were group administered to all seniors present on the prescribed contact day in 19 randomly selected high schools in 1966 and again in 1972. The study…

This paper summarizes and compares three studies which used different approaches to diagnostic/prescriptive instruction: (1) voluntary diagnosis and remediation; (2) required diagnosis with no formal remediation; and (3) required diagnosis with prescribed remediation. It includes an examination of the influence of selected student entry…