In this article I build on the review of research by Black and Wiliam which provided extensive evidence of the role of assessment for learning for raising standards in pupils' attainment. The purpose of the present empirical study was to explore the extent to which science teachers use assessment for learning practices when they teach physics…

Preservice elementary teachers in a conceptual physics course were given multiple resources to use during several inquiry activities in order to investigate how materials were chosen, used, and valued. These students performed significantly better on assessment items related to the inquiry physics activities than on items related to traditional…

This curriculum guide uses hands-on activities to help grade 5-8 students and teachers understand the significance of space-based astronomy--astronomical observations made from outside the Earth's atmosphere. The guide begins with a survey of astronomy-related spacecraft that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has sent into…

An annual survey was conducted of the career plans of 1992 recipients of bachelors degrees in physics and astronomy. The survey has been carried out every year since the 1960s and is a reliable indicator of the graduates' postbaccalaureate intentions and how those trends reflect America's changing economy. For the 1992 survey 2715 of 4965 physics…

The limited language capability of CAI systems has made it difficult to personalize problem-solving instruction. The intelligent tutoring system, ALBERT, is a problem-solving monitor and coach that has been used with high school and college level physics students for several years; it uses a natural language system to understand kinematics…

As a person learns, his problem solving ability improves and one reason for this is the increased acquisition of "macro-rules" which make problem solving more efficient. An intelligent computer assisted learning (ICAI) system is being developed which automatically acquires the useful knowledge from the domain experts; as experts give the learning…

This study was designed to investigate the effects of a dynamic instructional environment, English proficiency, and visualization level, independently and interactively, on middle school students' construction of the concepts of reflection and rotation. The effects of a dynamic instructional environment and English proficiency on students' two-…

The process of students' conceptual change was evaluated during a computer-supported physics unit in a Grade 10 science class. Computer simulation programs were developed to confront students' alternative conceptions in mechanics. A conceptual test was administered as pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests to determine students' conceptual change.…

Schematism is proposed as part of an epistemological framework for constructing and employing scientific knowledge. Within this framework, it is proposed that a concept of physics can be explicitly defined in a scientific theory by a schema that includes: (1) the domain of the concept; (2) its organization, i.e., the relationships between this…

This study was an ethnography of high school students working as apprentices in university solid state physics labs, as part of a summer science program. It was designed to explore the learning potential for high school students in such an environment. It examined the social interactions between scientists and students and how these…

In the past decade, research on students' ideas has drawn attention to underestimated problems of learning physics. This also particularly applies to Science/Technology/Society teaching. Proposed solutions are mainly inspired by a constructivist cognitive science perspective and are formulated as general teaching strategies that aim at a process…

Using hands-on activities and the "Plan, Do, Review" approach, this physics curriculum for 3-year-old children is designed to develop an early interest in and enthusiasm for science and to excite children about learning in general. The curriculum is designed to be implemented biweekly in preschool or child care programs but may also be…

This research investigates comprehension monitoring by studying the relation between the perception of comprehension during reading and detection of comprehension failures. Two groups of four college students (good and poor learners) defined by a post-hoc median split learned a physics chapter while rating their comprehension on a four-point scale…

One purpose of this research is to develop models of cognitive processes in understanding mechanical systems. A particular focus was on the processes in mentally animating the representation of a mechanical system, and the contribution of animation graphics in comprehension. Several studies, involving eye fixations, verbal protocols, and process…

Instructional materials are provided for a course that covers basic concepts of physics and chemistry. Designed for use in a workplace literacy project developed by Mercer County Community College (New Jersey) and its partners, the course describes applications of these concepts to real-life situations, with an emphasis on applications of…