This study is empirical research about alternative ideas on the concept of force for five different age groups, primary school students (11), middle school students (15), high school students (17), students of the Department of Primary Education (21), and active teachers in primary education (27-50). We used the same questionnaire for all groups,…

If an organic chemistry student explains that she represents a mechanistic step because ''it's a productive part of the mechanism,'' what meaning could the professor teaching the class attribute to this statement, what is actually communicated, and what does it mean for the student? The professor might think that the explanation is based on…

This paper explores strategies for teachers to work with science conceptions, both those consistent and those inconsistent with western science understanding. It emphasises the value of teachers checking their own and their students' prior understanding of concepts to be learnt. A past approach of educators has been to replace old beliefs with new…

This paper presents an integrative framework for analyzing science meaning-making with representations. It integrates the research on multiple representations and multimodal representations by identifying and leveraging the differences in their units of analysis in two dimensions: timescale and compositional grain size. Timescale considers the…

"Culture," a set of principles that trace and familiarize human beings within their existential realities, may provide an invisible lens through which reality could be discerned. Critically explored in this study is how culture- and language-sensitive curriculum materials in physics improve Pangasinan learners' attitude toward science.…

This study describes the process of defining a hypothetical learning progression (LP) for astronomy around the big idea of "Solar System formation." At the most sophisticated level, students can explain how the formation process led to the current Solar System by considering how the planets formed from the collapse of a rotating cloud of…

The current study investigated which dimensions of scientific process are capitalized on by elementary school third graders to explain the concept of science at conceptual level. The study was conducted by using "Basic Qualitative Research", one of the qualitative research approaches with the participation of 225 elementary school third…

Elementary science teaching has been considered by recent researchers as a process in which students should be engaged in a variety of activities to develop science concepts, science process skills and scientific attitudes. From this perspective, hands-on activities are prominent in this approach because it leads the students to both reflect on…

Compares the Ausubelian approach and the traditional one to the content organization of an introductory course in electromagnetism. States the differences between these approaches in terms of the student's ability to apply, relate, and differentiate electromagnetic concepts. (GA)

Discusses the causes and effects of conceptual errors inadvertently introduced and nurtured by scientists, teachers, and textbook writers. Cites ways to prevent the communication breakdowns that prevent the learning of science. (RT)