This article introduces a network approach to describe the quality of written scientific explanations. Existing approaches evaluate explanations mainly on the level of sentences or as a whole but not on the elementary level of single terms. Moreover, evaluation of explanations is often based on highly inferential scoring techniques. We addressed…

The aim of this study was to characterise thoroughly the differences between Physics Olympiad competitors' and regular students' successes and approaches in relation to counterintuitive dynamics problems (CDPs) in order to discover some of the differences between skilled problem-solvers and those with fewer such skills. A total of 23 Physics…

The primary objective of this research was to compare various groups of Greek university students for their level of knowledge of Evolution by means of Natural Selection (ENS). For the purpose of the study, we used a well known questionnaire the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) and 352 biology majors and non-majors students from…

Energy is an abstract science concept, so the ways that we think and talk about energy rely heavily on ontological metaphors: metaphors for what kind of thing energy is. Two commonly used ontological metaphors for energy are "energy as a substance" and "energy as a vertical location." Our previous work has demonstrated that…

We assessed the impact of expert students' instructional quality on the academic performance of novice students in 12th-grade physics classes organized in an expert model of cooperative learning ("jigsaw classroom"). The instructional quality of 129 expert students was measured by a newly developed rating system. As expected, when…

In this paper, we expose the unique challenges confronting graduate field-ecology students and the coping strategies they adopt to overcome such challenges. To do so, we used a qualitative ("in vivo") research method that combines interviews, observations and open questionnaires with a group of five Israeli graduate students. The two…

Scientific inquiry involves a variety of abilities scientists use to investigate the natural world. In order to develop students' scientific inquiry, researchers and educators have developed different curricula and a variety of instructional resources, which make features and descriptors of scientific inquiry in teaching and learning even more…

The nature of expertise in astronomy was investigated across a broad spectrum of ages and experience in China and New Zealand. Five hypotheses (capable of quantification and statistical analysis) were used to probe types of expertise identified by previous researchers: (a) domain-specific knowledge-skill in the use of scientific vocabulary and…