This study investigates the challenge faced by eighth-grade students at Southern State Middle School in grasping abstract concepts within the domains of physical science, physics, and chemistry. This difficulty is manifested in their poor performance on summative assessments. A comprehensive analysis of state-provided data, in conjunction with…

Promotion of students' scientific literacy has long been and continues to be a central goal for reform efforts in science education. Although there is a great number of research conducted to evaluate student's scientific literacy, less is known about how we can improve students' scientific literacy through variety of scientific practices. In this…

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, many education systems around the world have recognized the value of using technology such as virtual laboratories to teach science subjects. This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of using a virtual laboratory on grade eight students in learning about electricity-related topics. A…

This study aims to develop and evaluate an augmented reality microscope, "MicrosAR", for a middle school Science course, which was aimed for use both in and out of school, and to understand the users' perceptions about it. The study adopted design-based research to iteratively develop and evaluate the MicrosAR. Learning activities and…

This study aimed to develop alternative laboratory experiments (ALEs) in Chemistry 8 and evaluate the perceived improvement of the students' basic science process skills after utilizing the material. This employed a mixed method of research. Initially, a self-assessment survey questionnaire was used to determine the basic science process skills of…

In science classes, students usually learn about the law of definite proportions by the oxidation of copper. However, common procedures usually do not lead to proper results. This leads to confusion among the students because their experimental results do not fit to the theoretical values. Therefore, we invented a new procedure for this experiment…

Science-related competencies are demanded in many fields, but attracting more students to scientific educations remains a challenge. This paper uses two studies to investigate the value of using Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) laboratory simulations in science education. In Study 1, 99 (52 male, 47 female) seventh (49) and eighth (50) grade…

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is an international comparative study that has been implemented by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) since 1995. This proposed study is aimed to identify the correlations of science classroom teachings with eighth graders' science…

Practical activities are the main activities of learning biology whose implementation is rarely evaluated. This study aimed to determine the quality of biology practicum which includes planning and implementation of biology practicum and student learning outcomes thereafter. The population in this study was students, teachers and and laboratory…

This paper reports on the contribution to biological knowledge of three different laboratory technologies and also endeavours to discover which technology students prefer the most. To examine differences in knowledge gained and learners' preferences for different technologies in biology laboratory work, we prepared three variants (triplets) of…

The connective approach is developed by Sir Peter Strawson, emeritus professor of philosophy at Oxford University, as an effective way to understand the fundamental structure of human thinking in the field of analytical philosophy. This article provides insights for extending the work of Strawson, Tay, and Tay et al. to education, in particular,…

Laboratory activity is closely related and yet is essential in the process of science teaching-learning. The hands-on laboratory experiment is the one normally used in school. Particularly with the state of online schooling, it is quite challenging to perform a hands-on laboratory activity. The combination of inquiry-based learning with virtual…

This study explores one teacher's instructional method for teaching life sciences using argumentation and argumentative writing rather than simple templates for writing claims and evidence. The microethnographic discourse analytic case study reported here included the teacher and 26 "advanced" eighth-grade students in a suburban middle…

This research aims to investigate the effect of guided inquiry laboratory activity with video embedded on students' understanding and students' motivation in learning lights and optics topic. The method used in this research was pre-experiment. The sampling technique used in this research was convenience sampling, and the samples were taken from…

One of the most important objectives of teachers, parents, school administrators, and students is to improve student scores on standardized tests, such as the State of Texas Assessment for Academic Readiness (STAAR) in eighth-grade science. This quasi-experimental study examined the science achievement scores between schools that used different…