Representational competence is essential for the acquisition of conceptual understanding in physics. It enables the interpretation of diagrams, graphs, and mathematical equations, and relating these to one another as well as to observations and experimental outcomes. In this study, we present the initial validation of a newly developed…

Cross-grade studies are valuable for the development of sequential curriculum. However such studies are time and resource intensive and fail to provide a clear representation to integrate different levels of representational complexity. Lin (Lin, 2006; Lin & Chiu, 2006; Lin, Chiu, & Hsu, 2006) proposed a cladistics approach in conceptual…

Over the past several years, technical communicators have been struggling to change some of the stylistic traditions inherited from scientific discourse. Rhetoricians, writing teachers, and psychologists all agree that the use of analogy and first- or second-person sentence construction make for more effective communication than the absence of…

In the introductory section of this report, the Second International Mathematics Study (1981-82) is described. The study, which involved about 500 classrooms in the United States and classrooms in 24 other countries in grades 8 and 12, was designed to provide detailed information about the content of the mathematics curriculum, how mathematics is…

The major literature review by Black and Wiliam (1998a) provided strong research evidence indicating that assessment for learning can produce significant gains in students' learning. The present study applied the main aspects of assessment for learning, as highlighted in the Black and Wiliam review, in a specific area of science education, that of…