The purpose of this study was to gain insight into 30, first year calculus students' understanding of the relationship between the concept of vertex of a quadratic function and the concept of the derivative. APOS (action-process-object-schema) theory was applied as a guiding framework of analysis on student written work, think-aloud and follow up…

In this article, attempts were made to examine students' thinking about the concepts of infinity and their ideas about transiting from finite to infinite states through the concept of limits of sequences. The participants included 78 senior high-school students ranging in age between 17 and 19 years old. The data were collected through a…

There is a growing need for public understanding about groundwater resources. Knowing what groundwater and aquifers are is fundamental to understanding more complex issues such as groundwater quality and availability. However, groundwater and related concepts are among the topics that instructors most struggle to teach. Although constructivist…

The purpose of this study is to explore community college students' reasoning patterns and argumentation within the context of natural selection. Written assessments and interviews were administered to 2-year college students. Participants were given the Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Argumentation (LCTSR), a Test of Scientific Argumentation…

The purpose of this research was to investigate an efficient method to assess year 8 (age 13-14) students' conceptual understanding of heat and temperature concepts. Two different types of instruments were used in this study: Type 1, consisting of multiple-choice items with open-ended justifications; and Type 2, consisting of two-tier…

This study investigates middle school students' concept images of algebraic concepts which are term, constant term, variable, and coefficient. Also, the study aimed to explore their performances in defining these concepts correctly. A phenomenological method was used to support methodological perspective and to reveal the findings of the study.…

The aim of this study was to investigate how reciprocal peer assessment in modeling-based learning can serve as a learning tool for secondary school learners in a physics course. The participants were 22 upper secondary school students from a gymnasium in Switzerland. They were asked to model additive and subtractive color mixing in groups of two,…

The research aims to get representations and cultural causes of cross-cultural differences in Chinese and American University Students' "friend" concepts by empirical studies including questionnaire and interviews. Based on the statistics of the research, the research analyzes the different interactions of "friends" in…

Background: One of the topics students have difficulties in understanding is electromagnetic induction. Active learning methods instead of traditional learning method may be able to help facilitate students' understanding such topics more effectively. Purpose: The study investigated the effectiveness of physical models and simulations on students'…

The vignettes approach has emerged as a popular tool in quantitative and qualitative research. It has proven to be particularly effective in measuring sensitive topics. This paper focuses on the construction and validation process of questionnaire-based vignettes, which were used as an instrument to examine Omani secondary school girls' cultural…

Several challenges arise when researchers or practitioners attempt to assess the literacy skills of toddlers, including a lack of developmentally appropriate measures, toddlers' more limited communication ability, and how literacy is defined in the years before age three. This paper describes four new measures of early literacy development and…

This study with 79 students in Montreal, Quebec, compared the educational use of a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) global climate model (GCM) to climate education technologies developed for classroom use that included simpler interfaces and processes. The goal was to show how differing climate education technologies succeed…

This paper follows undergraduate students' engagement with the concept of childhood presented to them during a year-long childhood and youth studies module. Through the application of "threshold concepts" as concepts which transform students' understandings of a subject, the challenges of learning new ideas or concepts of childhood are…

Sociology research methods students in 2013 and 2016 implemented a series of "real world" data gathering activities that enhanced their learning while assisting the department with ongoing program assessment and program review. In addition to the explicit collection of program assessment data on both students' development of sociological…

Multiplicative thinking is a "big idea" of mathematics that underpins much of the mathematics learned beyond the early primary school years. This article reports on a recent study that utilised an interview tool and a written quiz to gather data about children's multiplicative thinking. Our research has so far revealed that many primary…