Developing a deeper understanding of scientific concepts is one of the primary goals of science education. To improve students' conceptual understanding, it is necessary to explore the major characteristics of their learning process. Informed by previous work on conceptual understanding, this study focuses on the concept of evaporation, exploring…

We discuss an investigation of student sensemaking and reasoning in the context of degenerate perturbation theory (DPT) in quantum mechanics. We find that advanced undergraduate and graduate students in quantum physics courses often struggled with expertlike sensemaking and reasoning to solve DPT problems. The sensemaking and reasoning were…

This study compares direct instruction to two constructivist approaches, namely experimentation and problem-based learning, in fifth-grade science learning in Hong Kong. Constructivist instructional approaches, contrary to direct instruction, stress on students' active role in constructing knowledge in learning. Experimentation and problem-based…

Contemporary science teaching pedagogy in Namibia places a strong emphasis on fostering inquiry-based instruction and practical work in secondary school science education. In recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the need to move beyond traditional, rote-based methods towards more learner-centred approaches that encourage active…

This article provides two additional mnemonics that can serve to help undergraduate students recall how to apply the rules of writing net ionic equations. These mnemonics were incorporated into dozens of lecture and laboratory class content, which includes hundreds of undergraduate (health professions and physical science major) students. As a…

Primarily undergraduate institutions have limited resources to offer required, credit based supplemental instruction for students. Meredith College's Chemistry, Physics, and Geoscience Department revised the laboratory chemistry curriculum to incorporate chemistry concept recitations into the lab course schedule. Activities for the following…

The subject of buffer solutions in chemistry is a challenging concept for students to learn due to its abstract nature. The difficulties that students face in learning about buffer solutions can lead to poor performance and alternative conceptions about the topic. The development of successful conceptual understanding to solve buffer solution…

Within chemistry education, there are various curricular and pedagogical approaches that aim to improve teaching and learning in chemistry. Efforts to characterize these transformations have primarily focused on student reasoning and performance, and little work has been done to explore student perceptions of curricular and pedagogical…

Student learning in simple electric circuits has been extensively studied, which has revealed a large number of persistent misunderstandings. This study applies the conceptual framework model to investigate student difficulties in the knowledge integration perspective. The results are used to guide the design of a concept test that targets the…

The objective of this study is to make a research on the challenges faced in learning the concepts of biology and the reasons for not learning them based on the opinions of teacher candidates. The study group comprises of teacher candidates studying in a state university in Turkey. The challenges faced by teacher candidates in understanding are…

Science includes a multitude of specialized terms that are not consistently taught using effective practices. Often, students with disabilities rely on ineffective strategies in order to memorize word definitions, which inhibits their science achievement. Using a counter-balanced design, we tested whether having access to multimedia videos that…

The academic language of science includes science content words and words that describe the practices of scientists. The present study examined science vocabulary knowledge and science vocabulary instruction practices of pre-service teachers enrolled in a primary science methods course. This exploratory mixed-methods study presents quantitative…

The Krebs Cycle is a highly taught biochemical pathway that is traditionally difficult to learn. Twenty-seven undergraduate students were randomized to a rote memorization arm or to a mnemonic arm. They were given a pre-test, then shown a lecture corresponding to their assigned method, and then given an immediate Week 0 post-test and a Week 4…

The pedagogical approach for both didactic and laboratory teaching of anatomy has changed in the last 25 years and continues to evolve; however, assessment of student anatomical knowledge has not changed despite the awareness of Bloom's taxonomy. For economic reasons most schools rely on multiple choice questions (MCQ) that test knowledge mastered…

This mixed methods research studied the effect of the Journey Method with Google Maps, a memorization strategy for memorizing informational text, on the recallability levels in high school biology students at an urban high school in Paterson, New Jersey. This memorization technique was based on an ancient memorization strategy, called the method…