In this essay, findings from research in science and chemistry education are used to describe and discuss progression in students' structure-property reasoning through schooling. This work provides insights into the challenges that students face to master this important component of chemical thinking. The analysis reveals that student reasoning is…

Background: Preschoolers' knowledge of the principle of static equilibrium is an important research focus for understanding children's science content knowledge. Hitherto studies have mainly used behavioural observation with small samples. Thus, extending these studies with a validated test instrument is desirable. Aims: The aim was to validate an…

The ability to accurately reason using three-dimensional visualizations is vital to success in STEM disciplines, particularly the geosciences. One impediment to learning from visualizations is spatially-based misconceptions. Such errors can arise from a range of sources (e.g., prior beliefs, inaccurate application of analogy, and visual…

Research in developmental psychology has shown that deeply-rooted, intuitive ways of thinking, such as design teleology and psychological essentialism, impact children's scientific explanations about natural phenomena. Similarly, biology education researchers have found that students often hold inaccurate conceptions about natural phenomena, which…

This study aims to reveal the trends and foundations in research on students' conceptual understanding in science education. The literature was selected from three recognized journals in science education. The Structural Topic Model (STM) method was used to categorize articles into ten topics considering information about the semantic cohesion and…

The purpose of this study is to explore community college students' reasoning patterns and argumentation within the context of natural selection. Written assessments and interviews were administered to 2-year college students. Participants were given the Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Argumentation (LCTSR), a Test of Scientific Argumentation…

The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationships between high school students' learning approaches and logical thinking abilities and their understandings of heat, temperature and internal energy concepts. Learning Approach Questionnaire, Test of Logical Thinking and Three-Tier Heat, Temperature and Internal Energy Test were used…

This study investigated relationships between the thinking processes that 28 undergraduate chemistry students engaged in during guided discovery and their subsequent success at reasoning through a transfer problem during an end-of-semester interview. During a guided-discovery laboratory module, students were prompted to use words, pictures, and…

There is a gap between the facts learned in a science course and the higher-cognitive skills of analysis and evaluation necessary for students to secure scientific knowledge and scientific habits of mind. Teaching science is not just about how we do science (i.e., focusing on just "accumulating undigested facts and scientific definitions and…

The ability to evaluate options and make informed decisions about problems in relevant contexts is a core competency in science education that requires the use of both domain-general and discipline-specific knowledge and reasoning strategies. In this study we investigated the implicit assumptions and modes of reasoning applied by individuals with…

The study examined the reasoning skills of first year high school students after learning general science concepts through analogies. Two intact heterogeneous sections were randomly assigned to Analogy-Enhanced Instruction (AEI) group and Non Analogy-Enhanced (NAEI) group. Various analogies were incorporated in the lessons of the AEI group for…

Students tend to learn genetics by rote and may not realise the interrelationships in daily life. Because reasoning abilities are necessary to construct relationships between concepts and rote learning impedes the students' sound understanding, it was predicted that having high level of formal reasoning and adopting meaningful learning orientation…

The "National Science Education Standards" emphasize teaching unifying concepts and processes such as basic functions of living organisms, the living environment, and scale (NRC 2011). Scale includes understanding that different characteristics, properties, or relationships within a system might change as its dimensions are increased or decreased…

The focus of the present study is on the developmental antecedents of domain-general experimentation skills. We hypothesized that false-belief understanding would predict the ability to distinguish a conclusive from an inconclusive experiment. We conducted a longitudinal study with two assessment points (t1 and t2) to investigate this hypothesis.…

A Chemistry Concept Reasoning Test was created and validated providing an easy-to-use tool for measuring conceptual understanding and critical scientific thinking of general chemistry models and theories. The test is designed to measure concept understanding comparable to that found in free-response questions requiring explanations over…