The aim of this research is identify the effectiveness of a multiple representation-based learning model, which builds a mental model within the concept of atomic structure. The research sample of 108 students in 3 classes is obtained randomly from among students of Mathematics and Science Education Studies using a stratified random sampling…

This article notes the convergence of recent thinking in neuroscience and grounded cognition regarding the way we understand mental representation and recollection: ideas are dynamic and multi-modal, actively created at the point of recall. Also, neurophysiologically, re-entrant signalling among cortical circuits allows non-conscious processing to…

In this paper we focus on some of the findings of the science education research community in the area of representations and problem solving. Problem solving depends on the construction and manipulation of mental models (internal representations) in the mind. A large knowledge base (declarative, procedural, strategic, situational, and schematic…

This article offers a plausible domain-general explanation for why some concepts of processes are resistant to instructional remediation although other, apparently similar concepts are more easily understood. The explanation assumes that processes may differ in ontological ways: that some processes (such as the apparent flow in diffusion of dye in…

A study of students' understandings of the nature of science makes science itself the focus of inquiry. This book is an account of a research project undertaken to elicit and to describe the range and nature of school students' understandings of the nature of science. The features of students' representations which are focused on include their…

Reviews science education research into representations constructed by students in their interactions with the world, its phenomena, and artefacts. Features discussions of mental models, conceptual models, and the activity of modeling. (Contains 30 references.) (Author/WRM)