The process of thinking in and about models as a scientific practice should be integrated into science teaching and learning. Empirical studies show that students see models primarily in their role as media to facilitate content learning while rarely appreciating models as instruments of scientists which allow the deduction and the testing of…

This study investigates the relationships between professional knowledge, self-concept, and interest of pre-service physics teachers. In order to support student learning and interest development alike, teachers need a profound professional knowledge and respective motivational orientations. Developing both professional knowledge and motivational…

One barrier to the adoption of evidenced-based teaching practices may be that faculty do not see teaching as an important part of their identities as professionals. Graduate school is a key time for professional identity development, and currently we know little about how doctoral students develop identities as college teachers. In this…

The shortage of qualified STEM teachers and researchers in these fields can be recognized as an existing and forthcoming problem. The aim of the present study was to explore the influence of the content of STEM subjects Biology, Chemistry, Informatics, Mathematics, Physics, and Technics and Technology and corresponding classroom experiences, as…

Our short-term longitudinal study explored undergraduate students' experiences with performing authentic science practices in the classroom in relation to their science achievement and course grades. In addition, classroom experiences (felt recognition as a scientist and perceived classroom climate) and changes over a 10-week academic term in STEM…

Carbon cycling is a key natural system that requires robust science literacy to understand how and why climate change is occurring. Studies show that students tend to compartmentalize carbon movement within plants and animals and are challenged to make sense of how carbon cycles on a global scale. Studies also show that students hold faulty models…

Prior research shows that undergraduates tend to identify more strongly with the field of science after participating in scientific research. However, mediators that might account for this association are not well understood. In the current study, we propose that science self-efficacy may serve this mediational function. Specifically, data from a…

This study investigates the effect of physics education on students' achievement in a large-scale quantitative study of pre-academic high school students throughout the Netherlands. Two aspects of teacher characteristics as perceived by their students are included: "pleasantness" principally defined by their perceived friendliness and…

The central goal of this study was to characterize the mental models of acids and acid strength expressed by advanced college chemistry students when engaged in prediction, explanation, and justification tasks that asked them to rank chemical compounds based on their relative acid strength. For that purpose we completed a qualitative research…

The purpose of this investigation was to explore possible relationships between Socioscientific Issues instruction and students' development of reflective judgment. The usefulness of the Reflective Judgment Model as a tool for assessing the value of SSI is established in the parallels that can be drawn between them. Both involve ill-structured…

The goal of this study was to explore Christian biology-related majors' perceptions of conflicts between evolution and their religious beliefs. This naturalistic study utilized a case study design of 15 undergraduate biology-related majors at or recent biology-related graduates from a mid-western Christian university. The broad sources of data…

Achievement goal theory distinguishes between mastery goals (the goals of developing competence) and performance goals (the goals of demonstrating competence) [Ames [1992] "Journal of Educational Psychology" 84: 261-271]. In this study, we employed this theory aiming to better understand why adolescents' motivation to learn science…

The purpose of this study was to determine the best-fitting structural equation model between the freshmen's physics achievement and selected affective characteristics related to physics. These characteristics are students' situational interest in physics, personal interest in physics, aspiring extra activities related to physics, importance of…

This study uses a new-to-educational-research methodology, based on the legal process, to build a case that U.S. students have been largely ignored in discussion and planning for their own, presumed futures. A variety of evidence, from two large and distinct data bases, is drawn together to show: (1) students perceive their classrooms in ways…

The aim of this study is to explore the ways in which students, aged 11-14 years, account for certain changes in physical systems and the extent to which they draw on an energy model as a common framework for explaining changes observed in diverse systems. Data were combined from two sources: interviews with 20 individuals and an open-ended…