Educational reform priorities such as emphasis on quantitative modelling (QM) have positioned undergraduate biology instructors as designers of QM experiences to engage students in authentic science practices that support the development of data-driven and evidence-based reasoning. Yet, little is known about how biology instructors adapt to the…

Context-based learning (CBL), promoting students' scientific text comprehension, and fostering metacognitive skills, plays an important role in science education. Our study involves CBL through comprehension and analysis of adapted scientific articles. We developed a module which integrates metacognitive prompts for guiding students to monitor…

Physical and virtual experimentation are thought to have different affordances for supporting students' learning. Research investigating the use of physical and virtual experiments to support students' learning has identified a variety of, sometimes conflicting, outcomes. Unanswered questions remain about how physical and virtual experiments may…

The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the changes in preservice science teachers' beliefs about science teaching during a science teacher training programme. The study was designed as a panel study, and the data were collected from the same participants at the end of each academic year during a four-year period. The participants…

This study examined the role of computer-supported knowledge-building discourse and epistemic reflection in promoting elementary-school students' scientific epistemology and science learning. The participants were 39 Grade 5 students who were collectively pursuing ideas and inquiry for knowledge advance using Knowledge Forum (KF) while studying a…

This investigation sought to identify patterns in elementary science teachers' computer simulation use, particularly implementation structures and instructional supports commonly employed by teachers. Data included video-recorded science lessons of 96 elementary teachers who used computer simulations in one or more science lessons. Results…

This study investigates the role of automated scoring and feedback in supporting students' construction of written scientific arguments while learning about factors that affect climate change in the classroom. The automated scoring and feedback technology was integrated into an online module. Students' written scientific argumentation occurred…

We compared two forms of automated guidance to support students' understanding of climate change in an online inquiry science unit. For "specific" guidance, we directly communicated ideas that were missing or misrepresented in student responses. For "knowledge integration" guidance, we provided hints or suggestions to motivate…

The integrative role that Evolutionary theory plays within Biology is recognised by most scientific authors, as well as in governmental education policies, including Brazilian policies. However, teaching and learning evolution seems problematic in many countries, and Brazil is among those. Many factors may affect teachers' and students'…

Research in learning progressions (LPs) has been essential towards building understanding of how students' ideas change over time. There has been little work, however, into how ideas between separate but related constructs within a multi-faceted LP relate. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the idea of "progression webs" to…

Promoting preservice science teachers' experimentation competency is required to provide a basis for meaningful learning through experiments in schools. However, preservice teachers show difficulties when experimenting. Previous research revealed that cognitive scaffolding promotes experimentation competency by structuring the learning process,…

The study explored how to best use scaffolds for supporting students' inquiry practices in computer-supported learning environments. We designed a series of inquiry units assisted with three versions of written inquiry prompts (generic and context-specific); that is, three scaffold-fading conditions: implicit, explicit, and fading. We then…

The teleological bias, a major learning obstacle, involves explaining biological phenomena in terms of purposes and goals. To probe the teleological bias, researchers have used acceptance judgement tasks and preference judgement tasks. In the present study, such tasks were used with German high school students (N = 353) for 10 phenomena from human…

Many studies in science education acknowledge the positive effects of context-based learning on students' interest and attitudes. However, little is known about the design criteria of contextual situations generating these effects and how facets of students' situational interest are affected while learning in a contextualised setting. This paper…

This study investigated the degree that Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) criteria from the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were included in self-reported teaching practices of twelfth-grade science teachers in Jordan. This study sampled (n = 315) science teachers recruited from eight different public school directorates. The…