Given limited funding for school-based science education, non-school-based programs have been developed at colleges and universities to increase the number of students entering science- and health-related careers and address critical workforce needs. However, few evaluations of such programs have been conducted. We report the design and methods of…

Evaluation of large-scale professional development programmes in a cost-effective but detailed manner presents challenges. Much of the research evidence on the effectiveness of professional development in science education has been the result of small-scale studies that use clustered or stratified sampling methods. Using the evidence collected…

Students in science and engineering (S&E) are preparing for careers in fields where international partnerships are increasingly important to advancing knowledge and discoveries. It has been over a decade since the National Science Board (NSB) highlighted the importance of international collaboration and called for increased government…

The Playful Invention and Exploration (PIE) Institute project was funded in 2005 by the National Science Foundation (NSF). For the past three years, Inverness Research has served as the external evaluator for the PIE project. The authors' evaluation efforts have included extensive observation and documentation of PIE project activities; ongoing…

In 2002, HM Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) carried out a review of the contribution of the Scottish science centres to formal and informal science education as part of a broader review of all science centres in the United Kingdom. This report identifies many strengths in individual centres and across the network. It is clear that the centres…

Fifty-nine secondary school physics students were assigned to treatment groups: (1) Project Physics units, (2) Project Physics and verbal learning unit, and (3) a training program in scientific inquiry. Posttest results revealed that, on most aspects of a science inquiry test, treatments 2 and 3 had significantly greater effect on achievement than…

This report is the first of three volumes which summarize the results of a comprehensive evaluation of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Local Course Improvement (LOCI) program. Included are college teacher perceived needs of course improvement, profile of applicants for LOCI awards, appropriateness of program guidelines, and outcomes of LOCI…

This report is the second of three volumes describing the results of the evaluation of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Local Course Improvement (LOCI) program. This volume describes the quantitative results of the program. Evaluation of the LOCI program involved answering questions in the areas of the need for science course improvement as…

Assesses the physics, chemistry and biology content of the Nuffield Combined Science Course used in British schools by experimental testing to children's understanding of the course. A model by which the pupils' achievement is mapped to an estimate of their maximum Piagetian level of thinking is presented. (HM)

Describes a study which evaluates the effectiveness of the Thai biology curriculum developed by the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST). Investigates were classroom activities, student affective behavior, and teachers' attitudes toward the curriculum involving 40 teachers and 1,400 students. (Author/DS)

Describes selected findings and discusses effects of an inservice program which focused on the skills and competencies of teacher participants. Factors studied include the effect of the respective ages of the participants on competency, the time of year when the program was taken, and prior knowledge of program implementation. (GS)

Focuses on the response of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the congressional authorization committees to the NSF sponsored precollege science programs. The article also summarizes and analyzes some of the results of the survey conducted by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), North Carolina. (HM)

Student outcomes were assessed by quantitatively combining results of 57 reported evaluations of three major curriculum programs in elementary school science. Thirty-two percent of the comparisons were statistically significant, favoring activity-based programs; six percent favored control groups. (DH)

This study is one of three designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Unified Science and Mathematics for Elementary Schools (USMES) program. The school study is essentially a discussion of the link between program dissemination and student experience, a discussion of the form taken by USMES in schools and classrooms. Part one is a statistical…