Research in cultural anthropology and the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS) has demonstrated that environmental disasters are not only techno-scientifically and socio-politically complex but also epistemically complex -- involving perspectival diversity; multiple, often conflicting forms of evidence; data gaps and…

All chemistry students must develop competency in analyzing and making sense of data. However, there are many difficulties that chemistry students may experience while analyzing data. Many students may not use relevant prior knowledge to aid in making sense of data, or they may not form conclusions using all the data provided. Additionally, prior…

Students reasoning with data in an authentic science environment had the opportunity to learn about the process of science and the world around them while developing skills to analyze and interpret self-collected and secondhand data. Our results show that nearly 50% of the treatment group responses were accurate when describing the reason for…

Physics education research (PER) has long used concept inventories to investigate student learning over time and to compare performance across various student subpopulations. PER has traditionally used normalized gain to explore these questions but has begun to use established methods from other fields, including Cohen's "d," multiple…

In light of the replication crisis in psychology, null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and "p"-values have been heavily criticized and various alternatives have been proposed, ranging from slight modifications of the current paradigm to banning "p"-values from journals. Since the physics education research community…

This paper connects the technological practice of activity monitor gaming to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) science and engineering practice of "analyzing and interpreting data," and to the foundational constructionist idea of personal meaning. In our larger study, eighth-grade students, ages 12-14, wore physical activity…

The "Next-Generation Science Standards" emphasize the importance of teaching the practices of science alongside content ideas and crosscutting concepts (NGSS Lead States 2013). Chief among these practices is the ability to gather, assess, analyze, and interpret data. Authentic inquiry near the leading-edge of science offers a wonderful…

We present an innovative course-based undergraduate research experience curriculum focused on the characterization of single point mutations in p53, a tumor suppressor gene that is mutated in more than 50% of human cancers. This course is required of all introductory biology students, so all biology majors engage in a research project as part of…

Students at the middle school level are expected to use appropriate tools and techniques, including mathematics and graphing, to analyze and interpret data and communicate experimental findings. Measures of central tendency (mean, median, and mode--see sidebar for definitions) are often used as descriptive statistics when students conduct…

Describes an exercise which provides a small data set consisting of the localities where various genera of a fictitious group of fossil "Archaeomorphs" have been found on various continental blocks. The activity can be used to develop hypotheses regarding plate tectonic processes and the present arrangement of fossil localities. (TW)

Describes an activity for determining how long and when a tree lived by comparing its ring sizes with local precipitation records. Suggests benefits for this type of dendrochronology activity. (TW)