The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Predict-Explain-Enact-Observe-Reflect (PEEOR) instructional strategy on general science students' conceptual understanding and motivation in the topic of motion and force. The research employed a pre-test post-test quasi-experimental design. The sample consisted of 107 general science summer, year…

It is characteristic that besides other duties teacher competence management and development is becoming a part of school responsibilities. Still, school leaders lack the experience and instruments to accomplish these duties. From a teacher's perspective competence management and development can be seen as the process of identification and…

Science education has an important role in children's understanding of the world, making the right decisions in accordance with their perceptions, using problem solving skills and scientific attitudes. In this study, the effects of activities prepared by considering the needs of visually impaired students on the development of scientific process…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a novel inquiry-based instructional sequence using interactive simulations for supporting students' development of conceptual understanding, inquiry process skills and confidence in learning. The study, conducted in Beijing, involved two teachers and 117 students in four classes. The teachers…

Virtual globe programs such as Google Earth replicate real-world experiential learning of spatial and geographic concepts by allowing students to navigate across our planet without ever leaving campus. However, empirical evidence for the learning value of these technological tools and the experience students gain by exploration assignments framed…

Abstract electronics concepts are difficult to develop because the phenomena of interest cannot be readily observed. Visualisation skills support learning about electronics and can be applied at different levels of representation and understanding (observable, symbolic and abstract). Providing learners with opportunities to make transitions…

Student construction of models is a strong focus of current research and practice in science education. In order to study in detail the interactions between students' model generation and evaluation and their development of explanatory ideas to account for magnetic phenomena, a multi-session teaching experiment was conducted with a small number of…

Purpose: Argumentative practices are central to science education, and have recently been emphasised to promote students' reasoning skills and to develop student's understanding of scientific concepts. This study examines the mastery of scientific argumentation, based on the concept of neutralisation, among secondary level science students, when…

The purpose of this study was to compare and describe 8 fifth-grade classrooms by their teachers pedagogy during a quasiexperimental, longitudinal, and field-based project focused on increasing English language learners' (ELLs') achievement in science and language. The larger study found statistically significant and positive intervention effects…

This study developed an analytic framework consisting of four patterns of talk and writing that can support students' engagement in construction and critique: "Talk only," "writing only," "use of talk and writing in sequence," and "use of talk and writing simultaneously." This study aimed to examine how each…

Problem solving is a critical element of learning physics. However, traditional instruction often emphasizes the quantitative aspects of problem solving such as equations and mathematical procedures rather than qualitative analysis for selecting appropriate concepts and principles. This study describes the development and evaluation of an…

In response to calls for reform in undergraduate biology education, we conducted research examining how varying active-learning strategies impacted students' conceptual understanding, attitudes, and motivation in two sections of a large-lecture introductory cell and molecular biology course. Using a quasi-experimental design, we collected…

This paper reports on the design and enactment of an instructional strategy aimed to support students in constructing scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, a new instructional framework called premise--reasoning--outcome (PRO) was conceptualized, developed, and tested over two years in…

Constructing and critiquing scientific arguments has become an increasingly important goal for science education. Yet, the differences in the ways students construct collaborative oral and individual written socioscientific arguments are not well established. Our research with one middle school class in an urban New England school district…

Through a comparative analysis of the chemical content of three teachers' discourse; we propose to give answers to the question: "how is the connection between the experiential level and the generally accepted representation of the three levels of chemistry presented by teachers to Tunisian students, during their first contact with chemical…