A visual aid teaching tool, the DanceChemistry video series, has been developed to teach fundamental chemistry concepts through dance. These educational videos portray chemical interactions at the molecular level using dancers to represent chemical species. Students reported that the DanceChemistry videos helped them visualize chemistry ideas in a…

The focus of this study was student teachers at a South African university enrolled in a Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) programme and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), respectively. The purpose of this study was to explore students' understanding and acceptance of evolution and beliefs about the nature of science (NOS), and to…

In response to a report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, President Obama issued a challenge to the U.S. education system to create more than 1,000 new STEM-focused schools, including 200 high schools. Inclusive STEM-focused high schools--which focus their efforts on females, minorities, and students who are…

Why and under what conditions might students value their science learning? To find out, the authors observed approximately 400 science classes. They found that although several teachers were amazingly adept at regularly promoting the value of science, many others missed out on important opportunities to promote the value of science. The authors…

This study examined the effectiveness of computer-assisted instruction on Student Team Achievement Division (STAD) and Learning Together Model (LTM) cooperative learning strategies on Nigerian secondary students' achievement and motivation in physics. The efficacy of Authors developed computer assisted instructional package (CAI) for teaching…

General chemistry is a gateway course that impacts the STEM trajectory of tens of thousands of students each year, and its role in the introductory curriculum as well as its pedagogical design are the center of an ongoing debate. To investigate the role of general chemistry in the curriculum, we report the results of a posthoc analysis of 10 years…

Rigorous studies of the impact of digital games on student learning remain relatively rare, as do studies of games as supports for learning difficult, core curricular concepts in the context of normal classroom practices. This study uses a blocked, cluster randomized controlled trial design to test the impact of a digital game, played as homework…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the gender composition of university physics laboratory groups on student self-efficacy and quiz performance. Students from a Chinese university was chosen and subdivided into two groups, which were assigned either same-sex or coed laboratory teams while executing identical laboratory…

Engagement is one of the most widely misused and overgeneralized constructs found in the educational, learning, instructional, and psychological sciences. The articles in this special issue represent a wide range of traditions and highlight several key conceptual, theoretical, methodological, and analytical issues related to defining and measuring…

This study investigates the relationship among (1) college major, (2) knowledge used in reasoning about common health beliefs, and (3) judgment about the accuracy of those beliefs. Seventy-four college students, advanced biology and non-science majors, indicated their agreement or disagreement with commonly believed, but often inaccurate,…

This study was undertaken to explore the effects of informal science learning outside the classroom on preschool students' achievement in the Early Science learning topic (plant-related topics that presented concepts about tree leaves, height and roots) using an inquiry method. A sample of 64 preschool students was selected using purposive…

The study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of Predict-Explain-Observe-Explain (PEOE) approach to student's performance in chemistry. This study also determined the correlation of metacognition to student achievement. Specifically, it sought to find out: (1)if there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores…

Nigerian students have not been performing up to expectation in public chemistry examinations. One of the causes identified as being responsible for this is the teachers' use of inappropriate instructional strategies. This study was conducted to determine the effects of mastery learning instructional strategy on secondary school students'…

To help provide context to Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) normative percentiles, this document includes multiple College and Career Readiness (CCR) benchmarks, including those from ACT® and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced).

During the 2014-2015 academic year, 1,148 students registered and 820 elementary, middle, and high-school students played the New Digital Energy Game (NDE) game in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). The NDE game was designed to enrich students' science experiences in order to stimulate their interests and attitudes to pursue science…