The purpose of the study is to explore the third year elementary education students' views about the effect of learning-knowing the biographies of scientists on students' studying at every level from primary school to university in terms of thinking, questioning, inquiry skills as well as studying, learning and achievement. The study is a…

Background: Children's interest in science is known to decline around the upper primary age, and botanical topics are unpopular with students. Drama in education has the potential to increase motivation and interest in school science. Purpose: The study examined the impact of immersive drama on knowledge about biological classification and…

We report on our experience with the implementation of project-based teamwork on nuclear energy with 14 ninth-grade students from a lower secondary model school and its assessment using two written questionnaires, which were answered by the students after the completion of the project. The first questionnaire elicited students' opinions about the…

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…

U.S. national data show that American Indians earn lower math and science scores than other ethnic/racial groups. In the current study, a brief, self-affirmation intervention was aimed at increasing science motivational beliefs in American Indian middle school students (n = 212, M[subscript age] = 12.7 years). Students, each read a biography of a…

Students' beliefs that success in science depends on exceptional talent negatively impact their motivation to learn. For example, such beliefs have been shown to be a major factor steering students away from taking science and math courses in high school and college. In the present study, we tested a novel story-based instruction that models how…

All science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educators working in urban public school systems are expected to provide opportunities for students to develop foundational scientific literacy skills in mathematics and science learning. However, the demands on STEM educators teaching the "gifted" or…

How does learning about scientists' struggles during their scientific knowledge building affect students' science learning? Two hundred and seventy-one high school students were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: (a) the struggle-oriented background information (n = 90) condition, which presented students with stories about 3 scientists'…