The aspects of inquiry based learning (IBL) are vigorously and frequently in the focus of recent studies. With the use of inquiry in mathematics in the daily school practice, some further questions are arising there: What kind of problems can be useful for an analysis of students' competencies in the field of IBL and how to assess the performed…

We previously reported that students' concept-building approaches, identified a priori using a cognitive psychology laboratory task, extend to learning complex science, technology, engineering, and mathematics topics. This prior study examined student performance in both general and organic chemistry at a select research institution, after…

This study describes the possible variations of thought experiments in terms of their nature, purpose, and reasoning resources adopted during the solution of conceptual physics problems. A phenomenographic research approach was adopted for this study. Three groups of participants with varying levels of physics knowledge--low, medium, and high…