Background: Argumentation, the justification of claims with reasons and/or evidence, has emerged as a significant goal in science education in recent years. Yet, there is limited understanding of secondary students' arguments and particularly their use of warrants in interdisciplinary contexts such as science and religious education. Furthermore,…

Big ideas in science education are meant to be interpretive frameworks that empower student learning. Unfortunately, outside of the broad conception of scientific evaluation, there are few theoretical explanations of how this might happen. Therefore, we contribute one such explanation, an instructional concept called integrative analysis wherein…

There have been many calls for the development of discipline-specific argument writing interventions to integrate science-specific and general literacy standards and goals. Yet, adolescents with and without exceptionalities struggle to meet existing writing demands. This explanatory sequential mixed methods design draws from the strengths of…

This study addressed the following research questions: 1) What is the effect of differentiated gamified instruction on the cognitive engagement of ninth grade students in the unit of plant and animal systems? 2) What is the effect of differentiated gamified instruction on the behavioral engagement of ninth grade biology students in the unit of…

In this research, we have explored the possible differences in students' performance in grade nine chemistry exams that could have been influenced by a different instructional approach in grade eight. We compared two groups of students: one group had received a transmissive propaedeutic approach in grade eight (especially related to the memorising…

To promote scientific literacy in school science, students need to learn key concepts in science, along with the nature of scientific knowledge and how it is generated. Ideally, this learning mirrors authentic scientific inquiry through student engagement in three key epistemic practices: flexibility and creativity, knowledge construction, and…

The integration of engineering into existing school science curricula is arguably an effort to move beyond a mono-disciplinary goal of learning to one that teaches real-world applications and problem-solving in science. This study adopted dual theoretical lenses to scrutinize and compare the distribution of engineering elements in past and present…

Integrating virtual laboratories (VLs) with science education promotes inquiry-based learning by providing an interactive, dynamic environment in which students actively engage with scientific concepts. While previous research highlights the effectiveness of VLs as tools in the IBL process, few studies have embedded the entire inquiry process…

Since the viscous behaviour of liquids is evident in many everyday situations, it is plausible to assume that students have (pre-)conceptions about the physics behind these phenomena. As yet, no reliable studies exist on this topic. Therefore, the present study aims to address this research gap by exploring secondary school students' conceptions…

Teaching Science innovatively has become a key motivation in educational parlance to uplift the academic achievement of the learners. There are numerous teaching strategies and skills developed by educationists, researchers and teachers to teach the subject creatively in the classroom. Thinking Maps is one such teaching strategy that enables the…

Deep science understanding is reflected in students' ability to use content and skills when making sense of the world. Assessing deep understanding requires measuring complex constructs that combine elements of content and skills. To develop valid measures of complex constructs, we need to understand how their theoretical dimensionality, reflected…

This study examined integrated science questions of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in Ghana at the end of grade 9. Results from BECE determine which senior high school a student can attend. Science questions (n = 751) over the span of eight years were analyzed in this study and viewed under the lens of the revised Bloom's…

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of scripted biology curriculum as a means of providing students with the information required to increase content knowledge, while comparing curriculum developed by the teacher that utilizesthe Understanding by Design (UbD) framework (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). The study used a mixed…

Multiple representations are widely recognized for their significant role in concept learning. This study aimed to investigate the multiple representation translation skills of high school students at different grade levels about the concept of one-dimensional motion. 239 9th, 10th, and 11th-grade students participated in the study using a…

Allowing students to practice science inquiry in the classroom is fundamental for science education. Students should master investigation skills, promoting their understanding of science concepts. Virtual laboratories have emerged as a powerful interactive tool that can be a suitable alternative to real laboratories, especially when lacking enough…