Context is the background or the settings of an event or idea. It is only when events or ideas are considered within the context in which they occur that they can be fully understood. In education, the application of knowledge communicated in one context to a different one is a central feature of learning. However, knowledge transfer can be…

Equally as important as growing the body of human knowledge through scientific discoveries and analysis is relaying this information to the general public in a digestible manner to establish a scientifically literate society. This dissertation approaches the multifaceted issue by combining an in-depth study of brown dwarf binary atmospheres with…

This dissertation includes two independent research projects, one in astronomy education research and the other in planetary science/astrophysics research. In the first research effort, we investigate college students' conceptual and reasoning difficulties on the topic of planet formation pre-instruction. Through an analysis of over 1,000…

Learning in the sciences is difficult for students from elementary school to university due to misconceptions, or incorrect prior knowledge, interfering with the acquisition of new knowledge. The process of replacing previously incorrect ideas with new and accurate ones is referred to as conceptual change. Which factors and to what extent they…

This dissertation examines the thesis that implicit learning plays a role in learning about scientific phenomena, and subsequently, in conceptual change. Decades of research in learning science demonstrate that a primary challenge of science education is overcoming prior, naive knowledge of natural phenomena in order to gain scientific…

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…

The field of Physics Education Research (PER) seeks to investigate how students learn physics and how instructors can help students learn more effectively. The process by which learners create understanding about a complex physics concept is an active area of research. My study explores this process, using solar cells as the context. To understand…

Electrochemistry is the area of chemistry that studies electron transfer reactions across an interface. Chemistry education researchers have acknowledged that difficulties in electrochemistry instruction arise due to the level of abstraction of the topic, lack of adequate explanations and representations found in textbooks, and a quantitative…

The purpose of this dissertation is to study students' competencies in generating scientific explanations within the domain of complex systems, an interdisciplinary area in which students tend to have difficulties. While considering students' developing explanations of how complex systems work, I investigate the role of prior knowledge…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the instructional effectiveness of animated signals among learners with high and low prior knowledge. Each of the two treatments was presented with animated instruction either with signals or without signals on the content of how an airplane achieves lift. Subjects were eighty-seven undergraduate…

Biochemistry education relies heavily on students' ability to visualize abstract cellular and molecular processes, mechanisms, and components. As such, biochemistry educators often turn to external representations to provide tangible, working models from which students' internal representations (mental models) can be constructed, evaluated, and…

The heart of learning chemistry is the ability to connect a compound's structure to its function; Lewis structures provide an essential link in this process. In many cases, their construction is taught using an algorithmic approach, containing a set of step-by-step rules. We believe that this approach is in direct conflict with the precepts of…

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 explored what cognitive resources (i.e., units of knowledge necessary to learn) first-semester organic chemistry students used to make decisions about acid strength and how those resources guided the prediction, explanation and justification of trends in acid strength. We were specifically interested in the identifying and…