Discusses a two-year assessment undertaken to evaluate the Nuffield A-Level chemistry course. Secondary teachers selected chemistry experiments for assessment purposes and assessed their students in manipulative skills, observational skills, interpretation skills, creative skills, and attitudes. (MLH)

A battery of tests was administered to three groups of high school students who studied the Israel Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) Adaptation Program for several years. Compared with non-BSCS students, the progress of the BSCS students in biological knowledge, inquiry skills, and understanding of science demonstrates the feasibility of…

Explores the use of free sort methodology to compare BSCS student and teacher understanding of the BSCS conceptual framework. Results support the idea that teachers who have better understanding of the BSCS conceptual framework, as shown by their sort patterns, may impart this understanding more effectively to students. (CS)

Achievement scores of Israeli high school students using Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) materials were shown to be significantly higher than those for students using another curriculum. (MLH)

Conclusions include that, between Intermediate Science Curriculum Study (ISCS) courses and non-ISCS courses, there is no difference between the students' perception of both classroom activities and teacher personality traits. (MLH)

The study was conducted in Victoria on grade 11 pupils taking the first year of a two-year course based on Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) materials. The magnitudes of the teacher behavior and pupil personality effects were much larger than the effects associated with different curricula. (Author/MLH)

Fifty-nine secondary school physics students were assigned to treatment groups: (1) Project Physics units, (2) Project Physics and verbal learning unit, and (3) a training program in scientific inquiry. Posttest results revealed that, on most aspects of a science inquiry test, treatments 2 and 3 had significantly greater effect on achievement than…

Reports on a survey of 72 schools and 51 teachers who have used the Nuffield Combined Science program. The study sought to determine teachers' opinions of material suitability, discovery learning, and to describe physical characteristics of schools using the program. (CP)

Ten Australian seventh-grade classes using Australian Science Education Project (ASEP) materials and ten control classes were administered the Science Class Inventory to determine classroom climate. results showed that the ASEP students underwent more favorable changes in their enjoyment of science classes. (MLH)

Reports a study to assess the relationship between student self ratings on ten variables considered skills of self-direction and (1) success in the course, (2) level of the student in the Intermediate Science Curriculum Study program, (3) school where the student attended, and (4) sex of the student. (GS)

The purpose of this study was to survey the Nuffield Science Teaching Projects' adoption and diffusion into British secondary schools. This report presents a narrative of the three-phase research strategy. The first year was of an exploratory nature aimed at elucidating the various forms that adoption and rejection of innovations could take, the…

This study was designed to assess the attitudinal outcomes of Introductory Physical Science (IPS) curriculum materials used in schools. Random samples of 240 students receiving IPS instruction and 240 non-science students were assigned to separate Solomon four-group designs with non-equivalent control groups. Random samples of 60 traditional…

Profiles for all curriculum research and development projects financed by the Schools Council and which have published reports or other material available to the public are provided in a loose-leaf format. The profiles are grouped under the following broad subject headings: English; Humanities; Languages; Creative Studies; Mathematics; Science;…

Evaluates the Nuffield Combined Science program in terms of the Piagetian developmental levels required for successful achievement in the various program divisions. (CP)

Reports on the administration of a biology cognitive preference test to 177 science-oriented high school students. Subjects were asked to rank responses or "extension statements" to items according to their preference. It was found that the high-ability students as a group had a very high preference for questioning and low preference for recall.…