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…

Argumentation as a scientific practice has largely been examined along an epistemic and/or dialogic perspective in science education research. Both perspectives have sidelined the use of real material objects that are indispensable for scientists to construct arguments about the natural world. To address this gap, this article investigates how…

This article discusses a case study of a pair of students mentored by a physics teacher as they engaged in a long-term (15 months) engineering maker-based inquiry (EMBI), a mandatory part of these students' formal learning of physics at the advanced high school level. We conceptualize the students' engagement as participating in a particular…

Research on nature of science (NOS) and scientific inquiry (SI) has indicated that a teacher's knowledge of each, however well developed, is not sufficient to ensure that these conceptions necessarily manifest themselves in classroom practice (Lederman & Druger, 1985; Lederman, 2007). In light of considerable research that has examined…

Research experience is increasingly considered an important component of science education at the secondary school and undergraduate levels. This paper presents a case study of students learning in a unique apprenticeship model in which students are engaged in long-term (18 month) open-ended research projects in physics that are done at the…

This study examines how students' experimentation with a virtual environment contributes to their understanding of a complex, realistic inquiry problem. We designed a week-long, technology-enhanced inquiry unit on car collisions. The unit uses new technologies to log students' experimentation choices. Physics students (n = 148) in six diverse high…

Teachers often have difficulty implementing inquiry-based activities, leading to the arousal of negative emotions. In this multicase study of beginning physics teachers in Australia, we were interested in the extent to which their expectations were realized and how their classroom experiences while implementing extended experimental investigations…

This study aimed to investigate the comparative value of experimenting with physical manipulatives (PM) in a sequential combination with virtual manipulatives (VM), with the use of PM preceding the use of VM, and of experimenting with PM alone, with respect to changes in students' conceptual understanding in the domain of heat and temperature. A…

College physics students' understanding of the process of science, as measured by the Science Process Inventory, was better for students in a traditional, structured laboratory than in an inquiry laboratory that covered the same experiments. (MLH)

Uses two assessment methods to measure student competence in conducting scientific inquiry. Investigates 32 high school students for a relationship between scientific inquiry capability and success in making discoveries. Defines scientific inquiry, scientific discovery, and the relationship between these two concepts. (Contains 70 references.)…

Fifty-nine secondary school physics students were assigned to treatment groups: (1) Project Physics units, (2) Project Physics and verbal learning unit, and (3) a training program in scientific inquiry. Posttest results revealed that, on most aspects of a science inquiry test, treatments 2 and 3 had significantly greater effect on achievement than…

Examines ways that teachers' knowledge about teaching and their educational situations grow when they are engaged collaboratively with other teachers in inquiry on their own practice. Results indicate that mechanisms for enhancement of normal practice include anecdote telling, trying out ideas, and systematic inquiry. Contains 66 references.…

Presents an existence proof of how preservice science teachers used analogies embedded in their course materials, Physics by Inquiry. Reports three distinct roles of analogies: a) cognitive process skills; b) scientific conceptual understanding; and c) social contexts for problem solving. Agrees on the importance of collaborative problem solving…

Outlines an in-depth case study of teachers' use of image processing in biology, earth science, and physics classes in one high school science department. Explores issues surrounding technology implementation. Contains 21 references. (DDR)

Summarizes case studies developed by a group of collaborating educators. Investigates ways of speaking that encourage students to formulate insightful questions about science topics and express their own ideas during reflective discussions. (Contains 68 references.) (Author/YDS)