Mobile devices have become a popular form of education technology, but little attention has been paid to the use of their sensors for data collection and analysis. This article describes some of the benefits of using mobile devices this way and presents five challenges to help students overcome common misconceptions about force and motion. The…

Learning about scientific inquiry (SI) is an important aspect of scientific literacy and there is a solid international consensus of what should be learned about it. Learning about SI comprises both the doing of science (process) and knowledge about the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI). German reform documents promote inquiry generally but do…

Research experiences for undergraduates (REUs) seek to increase the participating students' knowledge and perceptions of scientific research through engagement in laboratory research and related activities. Various REU outcomes have been investigated including influence on participants' content knowledge, career plans, and general perceptions of…

The worry or concern over confirming negative gender group stereotypes, called stereotype threat, is one explanation for women's worldwide underrepresentation in undergraduate science classes and majors. But how does stereotype threat translate into fewer women motivated for science? In this quantitative study with a sample from the US, we use…

Consistent, high-quality introductions to organic chemistry laboratory techniques effectively and efficiently support student learning in the organic chemistry laboratory. In this work, we developed and deployed a series of instructional videos to communicate core laboratory techniques and concepts. Using a quasi-experimental design, we tested the…

Student experience surveys have become increasingly popular to probe various aspects of processes and outcomes in higher education, such as measuring student perceptions of the learning environment and identifying aspects that could be improved. This paper reports on a particular survey for evaluating individual experiments that has been developed…

This work describes a single-session laboratory experiment devoted to teaching the principles of factorial experimental design. Students undertook the rational optimization of a luminol oxidation reaction, using a two-level experiment that aimed to create a long-lasting bright emission. During the session students used only simple glassware and…

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is commonly used in modern synthetic chemistry to monitor the conversion of reactants to products. Since instruction in the use of NMR spectroscopy typically does not occur until after the introduction of nucleophilic substitution reactions, organic chemistry students are not able to take advantage of…

An Interactive electronic Atlas (IeA) was developed to assist first-year nursing students with interpretation of laboratory-based prosected cadaveric material. It was designed, using pedagogically sound principles, as a student-centered resource accessible to students from a wide range of learning backgrounds. It consisted of a highly simplified…

The High School Summer Research Program (HSSRP) is a rigorous eight-week research experience that challenges high school students to a novel scientific question in an engineering laboratory at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science (HSSEAS) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The program collates highly…

Students' interest in science declines in secondary school. Therefore, motivating students to become competent and engaged in science topics that are relevant for their everyday lives is an important goal, so they can be better citizens and decision makers with socioscientific issues (e.g., climate change and waste disposal). The present study…

Graduate students who fulfill teaching roles in the undergraduate laboratory play an important role in establishing a positive learning environment. A host of various graduate teacher training programmes have been developed, implemented and evaluated accordingly in order to enhance their teaching capability. In addition research has also…

The purpose of this research is to identify the problems that teachers have experienced during the implementation of the science curriculum and their suggestions for solution to these problems. In the research, survey model has been used among the descriptive research methods in which quantitative and qualitative data have been used together. The…

Spectrophotometric analysis is essential for determining biomolecule concentration of a solution and is employed ubiquitously in biochemistry and molecular biology. The application of the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer Lawis routinely used to determine the concentration of DNA, RNA or protein. There is however a significant difference in determining the…

As part of a biomechanics course aimed at both upper-division Biology and Physics majors, this laboratory exercise introduces students to the ingenious ways in which organisms vary the composition and form of support and defensive structures such as bone and shell to maximize their strength while minimizing the energetic cost needed to produce…