This mixed-methods research study aimed to observe the changes in relational conceptual changes and achievement in photosynthesis and cellular respiration in 15 seventh-grade students using the variation theory of learning, a framework for contextual distinctions, and supports the Common Knowledge Construction Model (CKCM) for science education.…

This study investigated the relationships of teacher-directed approaches with science achievement in Australian schools. The data for this study were drawn from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 database and analysed using multilevel modelling (MLM). MLMs were estimated to test the contribution of each item to students'…

Understanding the nature of science and scientific inquiry constitute foundation stones in scientific education in general and in scientific literacy in particular. Therefore, students must develop informed perceptions regarding science inquiry in order to be scientifically literate. The current study's purpose was to examine students' perceptions…

Inquiry-based science instruction (IBSI) has the potential to contribute to social justice through widening participation and success in science. However, teachers struggle to implement IBSI because of contextual factors. The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of agency as a framework for understanding teachers' decision-making, by asking…

With the critical nature of socio-ecological challenges, the need to empower young people to generatively grapple with these science-related issues is crucial for developing their agentic citizenship. This paper reports on a primary science project that adopted a Socratic Seminar pedagogical strategy to enable student voice and collaborative…

This study explored the differences in the effects of directive versus reflective feedback on elementary school students' conceptual understanding and epistemological beliefs in a simulation-based online science inquiry environment, by comparing more fine-grained differences in the inquiry behaviors of students who received the two types of…

Questioning is a critical strategy for science teachers to scaffold students' exploration and knowledge construction in inquiry-oriented science teaching. In science teacher preparation, open-ended questions asked by teachers are advocated as an advantageous strategy to prompt student thinking. However, insufficient attention has been cast on how…

Drawing, constructing, and explaining a model of a given abstract phenomenon is a challenging task. In this study, students were engaged in the "Project-Based Inquiry Science (PBIS)-Air Quality" learning unit, as part of their chemistry curriculum. The study aim is to determine how well students understand chemistry conceptually after…

This article presents the results of a qualitative study aimed at determining the effectiveness of the camera obscura as a didactic tool to understand image formation (i.e., how it is possible to see objects and how their image is formed on the retina, and what the image formed on the retina is like compared to the object observed) in a context of…

Teachers bring with them a variety of beliefs when they arrive at continual professional development (CPD) training courses focusing on the inquiry-based approach to science education. These beliefs influence the way they understand, accept and ultimately implement the content of the training. The purpose of the present study was to identify the…

There is a long tradition of teaching science through inquiry, with broad agreement about the form it should take. Students should investigate researchable questions; gather and analyse data; and develop and represent evidence-based claims. Authoritative teacher or textbook representations are generally used to guide this learning (Buckley &…

This study is aimed at examining science teachers' views of argument in scientific inquiry and argument-based science instruction. Questionnaires were collected from 53 middle and high school science teachers in the metropolitan area of the Republic of Korea. More than half of these respondents seemed to have a clear understanding of argument in…

Recent international comparison studies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) repeatedly argued that inquiry-based learning (IBL) indicated a negative effect on science literacy (SL). However, those studies included two limitations in revealing the relationship between IBL and SL as they did not consider (1)…

This paper explores the effect teachers' participation in a targeted inquiry-based/nature of science (NoS) continuing professional development programme had on Irish primary children's experiences of scientific inquiry and developing conceptions of NoS. Data were gathered from 459 children from 10 Dublin schools. The findings revealed that their…

This study is a comparative analysis of 15-year-old students' scientific literacy, and its association with the instructional strategies that students experience, across six OECD countries that participated in PISA 2015. Across the six countries, the study investigates the efficacy of inquiry-based instruction in science in contrast with two other…