Mass balance (MB) reasoning offers a rich topic for examination of students' scientific thinking and skills, as it requires students to account for multiple inputs and outputs within a system and apply covariational reasoning. Using previously validated constructed response prompts for MB, we examined 1,920 student-constructed responses (CRs)…

Conceptual approaches to contemporary physics topics pose many learning challenges. One factor influencing knowledge integration is a student's epistemic framing. Epistemic frames provide a context within which a particular situation is perceived, interpreted, and judged. The objective of this study is to explore secondary students' framings…

Literature suggests that "current characterizations of the terms procedural knowledge and conceptual knowledge are limiting and are, in fact, impediments to careful investigation of these constructs" (Star, 2005, p. 405). We examined secondary mathematics teachers' understanding of procedural and conceptual knowledge at superficial and…

Children often learn abstract mathematics concepts with concrete manipulatives. The current study compared different ways of using specific manipulatives -- base-ten blocks -- to support children's place value knowledge. Children (N = 112, M age = 6.88 years) engaged in place value learning activities in one of four randomly assigned conditions in…

The basic design lesson is an introductory course that teaches students the fundamental principles of design, including elements such as form, space, scale, proportion, and composition. It is also an introduction to both concrete thinking and abstract one, which is rather about ideas and general thought. Abstraction is one of the steps ap- plied…

Visualisation has been a critical means of scientific reasoning, knowledge development, and communication. In science classrooms, visualisation plays significant roles for teaching and learning. To better understand the landscape of the existing research on visualisation for supporting student science learning in K to 12 classroom contexts, we…

One of the goals of science education is to help students make sense of the world around them. To that end, it is critical that students understand the central ideas in each discipline like, in chemistry, energy and interactions. These ideas are of particular importance because they are directly related to one another and are relevant across other…

Several studies have explored the use of iconic gestures to improve the learning of foreign vocabulary. In this quest, words for abstract concepts have been largely neglected, under the assumption that abstract concepts have poor or non-existent sensory-motor representations. Yet, the Conceptual Metaphor Theory suggests that they are grounded on…

Mathematics teaching and learning goes beyond computations and procedures; it rather includes complex problem-solving and critical thinking. Kilpatrick, Swafford, and Findell (2001) identify five mathematical competencies that are present in mathematics learning: conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, adaptive reasoning, strategic…

This research explored the interrelationship among Taiwanese high school students' conceptions of learning science (COLS), self-regulated learning science (SRLS), and science learning self-efficacy (SLSE). A total of 309 students participated in the study, and the self-report survey data were collected to measure these three constructs. Four COLS…

To promote learning and transfer of abstract ideas, contemporary theories advocate that teachers and learners make explicit connections between concrete representations and the abstract ideas they are intended to represent. "Concreteness fading" is a theory of instruction that offers a solution for making these connections. As originally…

Semiotics is simply defined as the sign-using to represent a mathematical concept in a problem-solving. Semiotic reasoning of constructing concept is a process of drawing a conclusion based on object, representamen (sign), and interpretant. This paper aims to describe the phases of semiotic reasoning of elementary students in constructing the…

Newton's third law is one of the most important concepts learned early in introductory mechanics courses; however, ample studies have documented a wide range of students' misconceptions and fragmented understandings of this concept that are difficult to change through traditional instruction. This research develops a conceptual framework model to…

Learning trajectories are built upon progressions of mathematical understandings that are typical of the general population of students. As such, they are useful frameworks for exploring how understandings of diverse learners may be similar or different from their peers, which has implications for tailoring instruction. The purpose of this…

The present study investigates the effects that concreteness fading has on learning and transfer across three grade levels (4-6) in elementary school science education in comparison to learning with constantly concrete representations. 127 9- to 12-years-old elementary school students studied electric circuits in a computer-based simulation…