Undergraduate science students are known to struggle in introductory courses and often focus their studying efforts on memorization-based, algorithmic processes instead of focusing on gaining a conceptual understanding of the course material. To address this issue, the current study investigates the effects training undergraduate chemistry…

While it is well established that pedagogies purposefully linking subject matter to students' cultural contexts and prior knowledge can help students learn subject matter, little is known about practices for so doing in undergraduate biology courses enrolling substantial numbers of racially, culturally, and otherwise diverse students. This study…

A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which previous science achievement affected student performance in traditional hands-on and virtual laboratory environments. A sample of 70 first-year college students was employed in a counterbalanced A-B-A-B experimental design. The study spanned four instructional weeks of laboratory…

We used an "approach to learning" theoretical framework to explicate the ways students engage in scientific modeling. Approach to learning theory suggests that when students approach learning deeply, they link science concepts with prior knowledge and experiences. Conversely, when students engage in a surface approach to learning, they…

Research is not clear on how to address the difficulty students have conceptualizing geologic processes and phenomena. This study investigated how animations coupled with seductive details effect learners' situational interest and emotions. A quantitative quasi-experimental study employing an independent-measures factorial design was used. The…

This research is an exploration of students' meaning making around physical concepts through connections to students' funds of knowledge. This qualitative case study, influenced by Indigenous methodologies, focused on two Native students in a tribal college introductory physics course, exploring the personal, cultural, and philosophical…

This study examined the relationship between 2011 freshman college mathematics and science grades and freshman students' high school academics and demographic data, exploring the factors that contribute to the success of first-year STEM majoring freshman students at State University of New York at Oswego. The variables were Gender, Race, SES,…

Elaborative interrogation, which prompts students to answer why-questions placed strategically within informational text, has been shown to increase learning comprehension through reading. In this study, elaborative interrogation why-questions requested readers to explain why paraphrased statements taken from a reading were "true."…

This study investigated the knowledge and skills that biology students may need to help them understand statistics/mathematics as it applies to genetics. The data are based on analyses of current representative genetics texts, practicing genetics professors' perspectives, and more directly, students' perceptions of, and performance in, doing…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of node-link mapping on students' meaningful learning and conceptual change in a 1-semester introductory life-science course. This study used node-link mapping to integrate and apply the National Research Council's (NRC, 2005) three principles of human learning: engaging students' prior…

This study is an investigation into the science literacy of college genetics students who were given a modified curriculum to address specific teaching and learning problems from a previous class. This study arose out of an interest by the professor and researcher to determine how well students in the class Human Genetics in the 21st Century…