Learning progressions (LPs) serve as frameworks for understanding the level of complexity of students' ideas within a domain. Multifaceted LPs contain multiple interrelated constructs where increased knowledge in one construct may increase knowledge of a separate construct. While it is challenging to identify and test these contingencies between…

This article describes revisions to four of the eight constructs of the Duncan molecular genetics learning progression [Duncan, Rogat, & Yarden, (2009)]. As learning progressions remain hypothetical models until validated by multiple rounds of empirical studies, these revisions are an important step toward validating the progression. Our…

The literature provides confounding information with regard to questions about whether students in high school can engage in meaningful argumentation about socio-scientific issues and whether this process improves their conceptual understanding of science. The purpose of this research was to explore the impact of classroom-based argumentation on…

In this article we apply a novel analytical framework to explore students' difficulties in understanding molecular genetics--a domain that is particularly challenging to learn. Our analytical framework posits that reasoning in molecular genetics entails mapping across ontologically distinct levels--an information level containing the genetic…

Changes in grade 10 students' (n=79) conceptions of genes during genetics instruction was studied from multiple perspectives. Ontologically, most students moved from passive to active models of genes. Affectively, students were interested in genetics but unmotivated by microscopic mechanistic explanations; however, teaching approaches were…

This article explores the conceptual change of students in Grades 10 and 12 in three Australian senior high schools when the teachers included computer multimedia to a greater or lesser extent in their teaching of a genetics course. The study, underpinned by a multidimensional conceptual-change framework, used an interpretive approach and a…

Verified the efficacy of concept and Vee mapping heuristics under cooperative, cooperative-competitive, and individualistic whole-class learning conditions in improving (n=808) eighth graders' achievement in ecology and genetics. Experimental groups achieved significantly better than the control groups; students in cooperative-competitive…