In 1988, Robert O'Hara coined the now ubiquitous phrase "tree thinking" to highlight the importance of cladistics for proper evolutionary reasoning. This accessible phrase has been taken up widely in the professional, popular, and educational literatures, and it has played an important role in helping spread phylogenetic thinking far…

Engaging in the construction and interpretation of graphs is a complex process involving concerted activation of context-specific cognitive resources. As students engage in this process, they apply fine-grained, intuitive ideas to graphical patterns: graphical forms. Using data involving pairs of students constructing and interpreting graphs, we…

This research paper aims to propose a novel didactic sequence inspired by an historical/epistemological study of the evolution of spectroscopy and in particular of colorimetry. The working principles of the historical color comparators and the visual color matching method, first proposed by Duboscq, stimulated us in the development of a five-step…

Our study investigates whether confidence correlates with consistency in reasoning, specifically about radioactive decay. In prior work, we developed and tested a survey designed to measure consistency of student reasoning about radioactive decay by comparing responses to three prompts that are isomorphic, meaning that, despite having different…

Despite representations' central role in conveying chemical phenomena, mastering them is not trivial, given the wide variety of different conventions to interpret and use them. Furthermore, instructional approaches and materials may overlook explicit discussion on how students should reason with representations. To gather evidence that could guide…

People are motivated to maintain consistency between importantly held identities, preferences, and judgments. In political contexts, motivated reasoning can help explain a wide range of political phenomena, including extremism, polarization, and misperceptions. However, recent findings in psychology have challenged this account. These perspectives…

Research suggests exposure to misinformation continues to impact belief and reasoning, even if that misinformation has been corrected (referred to as the Continued Influence Effect, CIE). The present experiment explores two potentially important factors that may impact the effect: (1) learner age; and (2) length of delay between retraction and…

Conspiracy theory (CT) beliefs have become an important policy-relevant research area since the events of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increasing interest has been directed towards strategies that might reduce people's susceptibility to conspiratorial beliefs. In this study, we examined whether encouraging a stronger orientation towards critical…

This study examines the media literacy and critical thinking levels of students of West African higher educational institutions as tools for combating misinformation in the sub-region. Data analysis using the mediation approach revealed differences in students' understanding of media literacy and critical thinking and partially predicted their…

Energy is a concept frequently encountered both in daily life and in various disciplines. Despite such a wide range of scope, conceptualizing it might be challenging at times. This study aims to investigate high school students' views on the concept of energy through a set of various paper-and-pencil tests. For this purpose, 654 high school…

The purpose of this study was to determine K-8 preservice teacher (PST) candidates' statistical thinking when selecting the best center representation for the given data. Forty-four PSTs enrolled in a Statistics and Probability for K-8 Teachers course in a university located in the southeastern region of the United States were asked to complete a…

Background/purpose: This study addresses the lack of statistical thinking skills among Applied College students, a key requirement for professional success. Traditional statistics education focuses on procedural and computational methods rather than conceptual understanding, leading to misconceptions and difficulties in data organization,…

Research suggests exposure to misinformation continues to impact belief and reasoning, even if that misinformation has been corrected (referred to as the "Continued Influence Effect, CIE"). The proposed experiment explores two potentially important factors that may impact the effect: (a) learner age and (b) length of delay between…

Physics Education Research has a rich history of identifying common student ideas about specific physics topics. In the context of electric circuits, existing research on students' ideas has primarily focused on misconceptions, misunderstandings, and difficulties. In this paper, we take a resource-oriented approach to identifying common student…

How we should teach mathematics has long been debated by advocates of different instructional approaches. These debates can lead to tensions that are difficult to navigate for those who are new to (or even veterans of) the profession. Educators often propose a "balance" of different approaches as a solution. Charles Munter considers…