This study aims to determine the cognitive structures of students at different educational levels (8th grade and 12th grade) related to acid-base chemistry. The research was designed as a case study and structured in two stages. The first stage analyzed concepts related to acid-base chemistry and their direction and strength in students' knowledge…

The topic of physical and chemical changes is one of the basic and essential issues of both the lowersecondary school science curriculum and the upper-secondary school chemistry curriculum in many countries. The focus of the present study is to investigate the students' cognitive structures on the topic of physical and chemical changes at…

The aim of the study was to investigate the university students' thinking styles. The research was a descriptive study in the screening model. The study was carried out with 382 students from the faculties of physical education and sports, education, science and letters, theology, business administration, engineering, forestry and agriculture at…

This study aims to determine the changes in the cognitive structures of the 35 participants after ecology-based nature education in Bursa Uludag and its vicinity. This study used a single group pretest-posttest experimental mode where the data was collected by a word association test. It included the key concepts of nature, national parks,…

This study aims to compare and contrast the connotations of the concepts of "science" and "history" that were formed in the minds of students attending both Faculty of Science and Letters, History Department and Faculty of Education, Science Education Department at Agri Ibrahim Çeçen University. The participants of the study…

The importance of well elaborated cognitive structures in a science knowledge domain has been noted in many studies. Therefore, the main aim of this particular study was to employ a new diagrammatic assessment approach, students' generated systemic synthesis questions (SSynQs), to evaluate and compare the quality of high school students' and…

Success in complex and holistic engineering practices requires more than problem-solving abilities and technical competencies. Engineering education must offer proficient technical competences and also train engineers to think and act ethically. A technical "engineering-like" focus and demand have made educators and students overlook the…

Photosynthesis is the most important biochemical process on Earth. Most living beings depend on it directly or indirectly. Knowledge about photosynthesis enables us to understand how the world functions as an ecosystem and how photosynthesis acts as a bridge between the non-living and living worlds. It is, therefore, understandable that…

The sequence in which problems of different concepts are studied during instruction impacts concept learning. For example, several problems of a given concept can be studied together (blocking) or several problems of different concepts can be studied together (interleaving). In the current study, we demonstrate that the 2 sequences impact concept…

The current study aims to explore how children explain the concepts of biology and how biological knowledge develops across ages by focusing on the structure and functions of the digestive system. The study was conducted with 60 children. The data were collected through the interviews conducted within a think-aloud protocol. The interview data…

A wealth of research suggests that youth whose parents use corporal punishment are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior during childhood and adolescence. Questions remain, however, about: (a) whether this relationship extends reliably to samples outside the US and Canada; (b) whether corporal punishment is associated with antisocial…

In an attempt to reveal potential threshold concepts in the field of higher education pedagogy, groups of university teachers (in the UK and in Panama) were encouraged to develop personal reflection upon their conceptions of teaching. This was initiated through concept mapping activities. It was hoped that this would help participants to address…

It is widely documented that the density property of rational numbers is challenging for students. The framework theory approach to conceptual change places this observation in the more general frame of problems faced by learners in the transition from natural to rational numbers. As students enrich, but do not restructure, their natural number…

Mental models are basic cognitive constructs that are central for understanding phenomena of the world and predicting future events. Our comparison of two analysis approaches, SMD and QFCA, for measuring externalized mental models reveals different levels of abstraction and different perspectives. The advantages of the SMD include possibilities…

Purpose: While the natural expectation is that students seek greater depth of learning as they develop intellectually during their studies, some research calls this into question and even suggests that student learning can become shallower from year to year. The present study aims to investigate the relative depth of students' learning at…