This report presents some of the results of two national surveys which assessed the performance of 13-year-old students in science. It includes an outline of the assessment framework; some of the questions which were written to match it; a description of how well, and how differently, students responded to the questions; and suggests how the…

This study tested the effectiveness of having fifth-grade students generate their own examples of selected concepts on energy. Hypotheses were that subjects would perform better on sections of a test related to definitions and recognition of exemplars of the concepts for which they found their own examples than on sections related to comparible…

This study develops and employs the construct, personal orientation to science learning, to study the processes by which children construct meaning as they learn science in school. The theoretical bases of the thesis are the commitments of a constructivist view of learning and the psychological framework of George Kelly's Personal Construct…

A study evaluated the effects of a 5-week study strategies program called RAVES (Read, Answer, Vocabulary, Examples, Share) designed to help intermediate students understand and recall information presented in expository text. Subjects, 156 fifth and sixth grade students enrolled in suburban Maryland science classes, read a section of expository…

This is the third in a series of 12 curriculum guides. These publications are recommendations which the committee made for a broad and balanced education program in science for young people. The main theme of this guide is that science education which young people experience during their period of compulsory schooling needs to be characterized by…

This publication is one in a series of 12 giving the recommendations that were made for a broad and balanced education program in science for young people. Following the introduction, section one discusses content and rationale and the need for an extended range of approaches, basic assumptions about teaching and learning, the purposes of school…

This publication is one in a series of 12 giving the recommendations that were made for a broad and balanced education program in science for young people. This guide aims to raise key issues about assessment; provides a measure of up-dating with regard to development; encourages science teachers and departments to reflect on their current…

This publication is the last in a series of 12 giving the recommendations that were made for a broad and balanced education program in science for young people. This guide shows that learning to teach better science starts formally with initial training, continues through an induction period, and is consolidated through a regular in-service…

The Prime Minister's Committee on Natural Science in Education in Great Britain reported in 1918 that "...in many schools more time is spent in laboratory work than the results obtained can justify." Seventy years later this conclusion can often still be drawn. This is particularly a problem in open distance education where laboratory practicals,…

This volume presents a compilation and review of more than 400 research efforts reported in 1987, organized in such a way that studies on related topics are easy to access by practitioners or researchers. The document is organized around four major sections that reflect the process of teaching, learning, and schooling including: (1) "Learners…

This international research report consists of five papers discussing five different topics in education. "Views on the Implementation of the Curriculum--Experiences of the Finnish Practice" (P. Kansanen) analyzes research results regarding the national curriculum for the Finnish comprehensive school system and compares them with a…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of different levels of visual elaborations and practice on application learning of adults in a computer-based science lesson. A total of 141 university students participated in an introductory lesson covering Newtonian mechanics. Three levels of visual elaboration (static graphic, animated…

This paper describes the characterization of a student's framework of heat and temperature, and the development of a microcomputer-based laboratories (MBL) intervention program for grade 9 and grade ll students. The report presents the results of classroom study, including interview questions and answers and pretest/posttest, from experimental and…

This resource book introduces sixth-grade children to the physical and chemical properties of gases. The unit begins with an investigation of acids and bases. Students then generate carbon dioxide, oxygen, and hydrogen, and investigate the properties of each. The unit culminates with an activity involving an unknown gas. Students conduct tests to…

The purpose of this experiment was to compare an inquiry-oriented Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) style laboratory approach with a more directive traditional approach on student outcomes in the cognitive and affective domains of learning at two private, midwestern liberal arts colleges. Intact laboratory sections of students enrolled…