The aim of this longitudinal research is to examine the development process of scientific and consistent knowledge structures of first, second, and third-grade students in middle school within the concepts of melting and dissolution according to conceptual change theories at the end of the education and training processes carried out in…

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of the Common Knowledge Construction Model (CKCM) on 10th-grade students' conceptual understanding of the buoyancy and density of liquids topic. Within a pre-experimental (one group pre-test/post-test) research design, this study was conducted with 22 of 10th-grade students. To collect data, the…

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) can serve as a summative assessment of students' conceptual knowledge at the end of introductory physics, but previous work has suggested that the knowledge measured by this instrument is not a unitary construct. In this article, we consider the idea that FCI performance may reflect a number of student attributes…

The aim of this study was to investigate 9th grade biology students' cognitive structures about the basic components of the living organisms and association between the concepts forming these basic components. Participants consisted of 50 9th grade biology students in two secondary schools in the northwest of Turkey. Data were collected by the…

Cross-grade studies are valuable for the development of sequential curriculum. However such studies are time and resource intensive and fail to provide a clear representation to integrate different levels of representational complexity. Lin (Lin, 2006; Lin & Chiu, 2006; Lin, Chiu, & Hsu, 2006) proposed a cladistics approach in conceptual…

An investigation of Ontario high school students' understanding of acids and bases with quantitative and qualitative methods revealed misconceptions. A concept map, based on the objectives of the Chemistry Curriculum Guideline, generated multiple-choice items and interview questions. The multiple-choice test was administered to 34 grade 12…

Three purposes of this study were to: (1) propose some organizing theoretical and observational definitions of the anchor construct; (2) present some initial findings from a diagnostic test designed to uncover anchors for high school physics instruction; and (3) provoke an initial discussion of the new methodological issues that arise in this…

One hundred and forty students in grades 6 and 7 were asked to process 32 science statements. Half of the statements were consistent with their prior knowledge, whereas the remaining facts were inconsistent with it. Half of the students were instructed to read the sentences for understanding (reading controls). The remaining students were…