We show that boys still have a greater access to the space for interaction in science classrooms, which is unexpected since in Sweden today girls perform better in these subjects than boys. Results from video-recorded verbal communication, referred to here as "interaction," show that the distribution of teacher-student interaction in the…

Engineering design challenges offer important opportunities for students to learn science and engineering knowledge and practices. This study examines how students' engineering notebooks across four units of the curriculum "Engineering is Elementary" (EiE) support student work during design challenges. Through educational ethnography and…

Experts are more proficient in manipulating and translating between multiple representations (MRs) of a given concept than novices. Studies have shown that instruction using MR can increase student understanding of MR, and one model for MR instruction in chemistry is the chemistry triplet proposed by Johnstone. Concreteness fading theory suggests…

Argumentation has been a prominent concern in science education research and a common goal in science curriculum in many countries over the past decade. With reference to this goal, policy documents burden responsibilities on science teachers, such as involving students in dialogues and being guides in students' spoken or written argumentation.…

This study of three science teachers' lessons on heat and temperature seeks to characterise classroom talk that highlighted the ways language is used and to examine the nature of the language demands revealed in constructing, negotiating, arguing and communicating science ideas. The transcripts from the entire instructional units for these…

Since the late 1990s, there has been consensus among educational researchers that argumentation should play a central role in science education. Although there has been extensive relevant research, it is not clear enough how oral argumentation spontaneously occurs in science teaching. This is particularly important with regard to the empirical…

Science education research has recommended cooperative inquiry based science in the primary science context for more than two decades but after more than 20 years, student achievement in science has not substantially improved. This study, through direct observation and analysis, investigated content-related student interactions in an authentic…

In the Budding Science and Literacy project, we explored how working with an integrated inquiry-based science and literacy approach may challenge and support the teaching and learning of science at the classroom level. By studying the inter-relationship between multiple learning modalities and phases of inquiry, we wished to illuminate possible…