A review of research into teaching and learning in political science education concludes that this literature emphasizes student outcomes and "show and tell" descriptions of pedagogical interventions (Craig 2014). The present study instead aims to open the "black box" of conceptual learning in political science, illustrating…

Background: Microorganisms are very important in day-to-day life, but they are inadequately addressed in the Spanish educational system. It is essential that students are well informed about their characteristics and functions. Purpose: The study aims to find out primary school students' perceptions of microorganisms and to analyze whether…

Misconceptions are a barrier to understanding biology hence, to promote meaningful learning, it is necessary to overcome these difficulties with the help of different instructional methods rather than traditional instructional methods. Therefore it could be very interesting to find out "how students' prior knowledge of genetics affects…

Mass assessment of large samples' nature of science views has been one of the core concerns in science education research. Due to impracticality of using open-ended questionnaires or conducting interviews with large groups, another line of research has been required for mass assessment of pupils' nature of science conception meaningfully.…

Threshold concepts are essential ideas about the natural world that present either a barrier or a gateway to a deep understanding of science. Weight, mass, and gravity are threshold concepts that underpin students' abilities to understand important ideas in all fields of science, embodied in the performance expectations in the Next Generation…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the instructional effectiveness of animated signals among learners with high and low prior knowledge. Each of the two treatments was presented with animated instruction either with signals or without signals on the content of how an airplane achieves lift. Subjects were eighty-seven undergraduate…

When students enter the classroom, they often hold prior knowledge or conceptions about the natural world. These conceptions will influence how they come to understand what they are taught in school. Some of their existing knowledge provides good foundation for formal schooling, but other prior conceptions, however, are incompatible with currently…

This study examined the impact of two epistemic commitments on the quality of college students' scientific reasoning in the domain of hydrostatics. These were the commitment to the consistency of theory with prior knowledge and commitment to the consistency of theory with evidence. Participants were 12 sophomore science majors enrolled in a large…

The term scientific literacy is defined differently in different contexts. The term literacy simply refers to the ability for one to read and write, but recent studies in language literacy have extended this definition. New literacy research seeks a redefinition in terms of how skills are used rather than how they are learned. Contemporary…

Analyzes junior high school students' astronomy conceptions by means of a written questionnaire and delineates the main findings. Focuses on the effect on climate of the relative positions of the earth, moon and sun. (Contains 41 references.) (DDR)

The aim of this research was to evaluate and analyse second-year industrial engineering and chemical engineering students prior knowledge of conceptual aspects of "circuit theory". Specifically, we focused on the basic concepts of electric potential and current intensity and on the fundamental relationship between them as expressed by Ohm's law.…

The aims of this study were considered under three headings. The first was to elicit misconceptions that students had about the terms "solute", "solvent" and "solution." The second was to understand how students' prior learning affected their misconceptions. The third was to determine if students were able to make a…