In citizen science (CS) projects, citizens who are not professional scientists participate in scientific research. Besides serving research purposes, CS projects provide participants opportunities for inquiry-based learning to promote their topic-specific knowledge and scientific reasoning skills. Previous research suggests that participants need…

Determined whether chemistry students (N=332) understood analog tasks that could be used for teaching the mole concept. Also identified possible difficulties that students might have in solving mole problems. Seven major conclusions are reported and discussed, including the finding that two-step problems were more difficult to solve than one-step…

Elementary and junior high school science textbooks were analyzed for the presence of prerequisite topics on evolution (protoconcepts). Results indicated that coverage of evolutionary protoconcepts varies considerably among published textbooks. Recommendations for teacher analysis of textbooks are provided. (ZWH)

This study was undertaken to determine whether a biology preparatory course given at an urban community college was helping students to develop the proper skills and background necessary to successfully complete follow-up courses in biology. Data indicated a mathematics score was the main discriminator between pass/fail groups of the preparatory…

Describes and examines the effects of the eight-week Summer Science Training Program at the University of Iowa. There was no significant differences between students who had completed high school physics and those who had not on the final course examination, course grade, and attitudes toward physics. (Author/YP)

This study compared the effects of an advance organizer and a prerequisite knowledge passage on learning and retention measured at low and high levels of the cognitive domain. The advance organizer group performed better on the framework test; the prerequisite knowledge group performed better on prerequisite knowledge test. (Author/YP)