This article reports on a study investigating how computational essays can be used to help students in higher education STEM take up disciplinary epistemic agency--cognitive control and responsibility over one's own learning within the scientific disciplines. Computational essays are a genre of scientific writing that combine live, executable…

Previous research has demonstrated the potential of examining log-file data from computer-based assessments to understand student interactions with complex inquiry tasks. Rather than solely providing information about what has been achieved or the accuracy of student responses ("product data"), students' log files offer additional…

The purpose of this phenomenographic study was to: (a) gain an understanding of the meaning of inquiry held by beginning science teachers and their instructors in an Alternative Teacher Certification Program (ATCP); and (b) compare science teachers' views of inquiry with what they learned in their ATCP. Participants were four beginning science…

This article investigates three teachers' conceptions and use of inquiry-based instructional strategies throughout a professional development program. The professional development program consisted of a 2-week summer inquiry institute and research experience in university scientists' laboratories, as well as three academic year workshops. Insights…

This study explored the understandings of data and measurement that school students draw upon, and the ways that they reason from data, when carrying out a practical science inquiry task. The two practical tasks used in the study each involved investigations of the relationships between two independent variables (IVs) and a dependent variable…

The use of inquiry-based laboratory in college science classes is on the rise. This study investigated how five nonmajor biology students learned from an inquiry-based laboratory experience. Using interpretive data analysis, the five students' conceptual ecologies, learning beliefs, and science epistemologies were explored. Findings indicated that…