The main purpose of this research is to examine the informal strategies of fifth and sixth grade students while solving inverse proportional word problems. Multiple case study was used in this study. The research was carried out in a public middle school from a southern city of Türkiye. The participants of the research consist of three fifth and…

Use of modeling as a learning strategy in introductory science courses could serve to support the persistence of all students, including those who identify with a traditionally underrepresented ethnic minority (URM). If students find inherent value in working on modeling-type problems then this authentic practice would aid in transforming personal…

This cross-national study examined students' evaluation of strategies for solving linear equations, as well as the extent to which their evaluation criteria were related to their use of strategies and/or aligned with experts' views about which strategy is the best. A total of 792 middle school and high school students from Sweden, Finland, and…

In this article, a theoretically derived grid is presented combining Pólya's phases of the problem-solving process with the way in which teachers emphasize their students' strategic diversity in problem solving. It is used to categorize previous results from the literature. In an empirical part, the grid is also used to describe mathematics…

Research on number sense presents contradictory arguments and results regarding the effects of context-based tasks and activities on students' number sense. The aim of this study was to examine fourth-grade elementary school students' number sense as they solve context-based (CB) and non-context-based (NCB) items. A survey design was employed and…

Educators usually mean different constructs when they speak of open tasks: some may refer to pure-mathematics investigative tasks while others may have authentic real-life tasks in mind; some may think of the answer being open while others may refer to an open method. On the other hand, some educators use different terms, e.g. open and open-ended,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of strategic problem solving with peer instruction on college students' performance in physics. The students enrolled in 2 sections of a physics course were studied; 1 section was the treatment group and the other section was the comparison group. Students in the treatment group received peer…

Equation rearrangement is an important skill required for problem solving in mathematics and science. Eye movements of 40 university students were recorded while they were rearranging simple algebraic equations. The participants also reported on their strategies during equation solving in a separate questionnaire. The analysis of the behavioral…

There were two purposes in the study. One was to explore the cognitive activities during spatial problem solving and the other to probe the relationship between spatial ability and science concept learning. Twenty university students participated in the study. The Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test (PVRT) was used to assess the spatial…

The purpose of this study is to assess students' conceptual learning of electricity and magnetism and examine how these conceptions, beliefs about physics, and quantitative problem-solving skills would change after peer instruction (PI). The Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM), Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey…

An understanding of geologic time is comprised of 2 facets. Events in Earth's history can be placed in relative and absolute temporal succession on a vast timescale. Rates of geologic processes vary widely, and some occur over time periods well outside human experience. Several factors likely contribute to an understanding of geologic time, one of…

Educators and policymakers envision the future of education in Egypt as enabling learners to acquire scientific inquiry and problem-solving skills. In this article, we describe the validation of a model for problem solving and the design of instruments for evaluating new teaching methods in Egyptian science classes. The instruments were based on…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether patterns of strategy use in second, third and fourth grade children's arithmetic supported Steffe's model of numerical development. In addition to student-generated strategies, we looked at commonly taught algorithms not considered in Steffe's model to determine whether these algorithms reflected…

The current study is framed within an ongoing effort of probing students' attitudes and expectations about knowing and learning physics, which has driven several investigations during the past decade. The questionnaire we developed focuses on physics students' views regarding a variety of specific learning activities, which are presented by title…