The use of texts is an indispensable resource for students' learning, especially in science domains. While developing understanding of a specific topic usually is the main goal of reading expository texts, an important consideration is how to best measure whether this understanding has been reached. In this study, we aimed to analyze gains in…

This study examined high school chemistry students' understandings of big ideas--matter and energy, how these understandings are related to macro and submicro representations and fine-grained distinguishing characteristics of students' explanations. The study was conducted in the context of computer-based models and model-based assessments.…

This study provides insights into the use of metaphors in protein synthesis descriptions in upper secondary chemistry and biology textbooks. Data were collected from seven Swedish textbooks and analyzed with the Metaphor Identification Protocol and categorized within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The results reveal two main parallel…

Teacher educators have focused on designing learning environments 'for' rather than 'with' teacher candidates. However, a co-design collaboration with teacher candidates has been recently suggested as a critical feature for effective teacher education programs. In this study, a co-design team, including preservice science teachers (PSTs) as…

One of the critical goals of teaching chemistry is to enable learners to gain conceptual understanding. Traditional instruction has often been associated with rote memorisation, resulting in learners failing to explain observed chemical phenomena, make predictions based on acquired concepts, advance convincing arguments, and engage in meaningful…

Computer-based learning environments (CBLEs) are powerful tools to support student learning. Increasingly of interest is the data that is recorded as learners interact with a CBLE. This "process data" yields opportunities for researchers to examine learners' engagement with a CBLE and explore whether specific interactions are associated…

Chemical reasoning, and in particular structure--property reasoning, is an important goal of chemistry education. Johnstone's triangle (1982, 1991) is often used to explicate this type of reasoning. This triangle describes the multilevel thought chemical reasoning requires and shows why students find chemistry so difficult. However, this model…

Intellectual demands of learning outcomes in the intended curriculum have always been a concern across the field of science education. In particular, the representation of those learning outcomes stipulated by the intended curriculum in science textbooks has become a big issue for both science curriculum studies and science teaching practice. To…

This study aims to evaluate students' ability to process the context information embedded in chemistry problems. To achieve this goal, a diagnostic measurement instrument was developed, comprising 28 short-answer items embedded in seven context-based chemistry tasks. Four hundred and ninety-three ninth-graders took part in the testing in Jiangsu,…

The significance of the role of students' interpretation and creation of multiple forms of representation in science learning has long been established and advocated, but there is a paucity of research into the extent to which this emphasis in science education is reflected in high stakes final year high school science examinations. This study…

While there has been much interest in the power of student-generated multiple representations to promote student reasoning and conceptual understanding, most studies of student explanations have been of written artefacts or only included diagrams as an adjunct to written explanations. This approach may be because teachers do not have an accessible…

Many researchers have reported that bridging analogies can productively support students' scientific meaning-making. How this can be understood semiotically is, however, not well understood. This research followed an ethnographic case study approach to investigate Year 11 students meaning-making through a process of transduction (Kress, 2000;…

Teaching pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) at a topic-specific level requires clarity on the content-specific nature of the components employed, as well as the specific features that bring about the desirable depth in teacher explanations. Such understanding is often hazy; yet, it influences the nature of teacher tasks and learning opportunities…

This research draws on Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to understand the epistemic dimension of the higher education classroom discourse of a professor who is well evaluated by his students. In expository science classroom discourse, concepts are loaded with different meanings, a process that is called "condensation of meanings" in LCT,…

Drawing, constructing, and explaining a model of a given abstract phenomenon is a challenging task. In this study, students were engaged in the "Project-Based Inquiry Science (PBIS)-Air Quality" learning unit, as part of their chemistry curriculum. The study aim is to determine how well students understand chemistry conceptually after…