The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship among pre-service science teachers' global scientific literacy and various variables within the scope of the structural equation model. Since the relations among the variables were investigated in the structural model established for this study, correlational research methodology was…

Competencies for designing and evaluating scientific inquiries are a key emphasis in national curriculums worldwide and a focus of international large-scale assessment. Teachers globally are encouraged to provide learning opportunities for their students to explore and practice asking and conducting researchable questions. This study focused on…

This study examined the roles of gender and STEM major status as predictors of performance in formulating a research question and designing experiment among 70 undergraduate Taiwanese college students participating in inquiry-based learning (IBL). Student participants in this study were involved in discrepant demonstrations of scientific events…

Science self-efficacy, a student's confidence in being able to perform scientific practices, interacts with science identity and outcomes expectations, leading to improved performance in science courses, persistence in science majors, and ultimately, the pursuit of advanced training in the sciences. Inquiry-based laboratory courses have been shown…

This study examines how classroom activities, student gender and student personal interest in science studies and careers predict situational interest in physics learning. Teaching modules were designed based on the secondary physics curricula in Finland (Helsinki) and Chile (Santiago and Viña del Mar) emphasising students engagement in scientific…

Examining the interaction between content knowledge, inquiry proficiency, and writing proficiency is central to understanding the relative contribution of each proficiency on students' written communication about their science inquiry. Previous studies, however, have only analyzed one of these primary types of knowledge/proficiencies (i.e. content…

Research on predictors of achievement in science is often targeted on more traditional content-based assessments and single student characteristics. At the same time, the development of skills in the field of scientific inquiry constitutes a focal point of interest for science education. Against this background, the purpose of this study was to…

Demands placed on teachers and students continue to increase in order to develop the skills required of the 21st century workforce. There continues to be a need to utilize curriculum and instruction to inspire students to engage in STEM majors and careers. Improving instructional methods and providing opportunities for students to question and…

Engaging in science as an argumentative practice can promote students' critical thinking, reflection, and evaluation of evidence. However, many do not approach science in this way. Furthermore, the presumed confrontational nature of argumentation may run against cultural norms particularly during the sensitive time of early adolescence. This paper…

This study compares the inquiry competence of the 8th-grade students participating in the science and environmental education program GLOBE in the Czech Republic with a sample of students of the same age not participating in the program from the Slovak and Czech Republics. Inquiry competence is analyzed as a set of variables representing students'…

Informed understandings of nature of science and scientific inquiry are generally accepted goals of biology education. This article points out central features of scientific inquiry with relation to biology and the nature of science in general terms and focuses on the relationship of students' inquiry skills in biology and their beliefs on the…

Through in-class observations of teaching assistants (TAs) and students in the lab sections of a large introductory physics course, we study which TA behaviors can be used to predict student engagement and, in turn, how this engagement relates to learning. For the TAs, we record data to determine how they adhere to and deliver the lesson plan and…

The objective of the termite experiment is to walk students through the process of designing and conducting an experiment while allowing them to use inquiry-based methods to infer why, in this lab, termites follow the line of blue Bic or Paper Mate brand ballpoint pens. This experiment also reinforces the concept of observation versus inference…

By thinking about the concept of density and taking into account the research on children's ideas about this concept, the authors were able to unpack the typical sink or float activity and realize that it has students unscientifically making comparisons between objects by changing two independent variables (mass and volume) at one time. With this…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…