The recent expansion of research on children's understanding of others' minds (or 'theory of mind', ToM) into middle childhood provides fresh opportunities to consider its origins and consequences. In this paper, we propose that, in addition to supporting children's social interactions, individual differences in ToM benefit academic achievement,…

Many biology students struggle to learn about the process of meiosis and have particular difficulty understanding the molecular basis of crossing over and the importance of homologous pairing for proper segregation. To help students overcome these challenges, we designed an activity that uses a newly developed Chromosome Connections Kit® from 3-D…

We describe the development, design, implementation, and preliminary classroom results of an innovative curriculum, "Focus on Energy," that supports learning about energy in Grades 4-5. The curriculum is grounded in the concepts of science as practice, model-based reasoning, and learning progressions, and builds on students' pre-existing…

The aim of this study was to compare the analytical thinking skills of the 8th grade students who received emergency distance and face-to-face education in a science course and to get student ideas concerning emergency distance education. An unequal control group model from the quasi-experimental models was used in the study. The study group…

During the SARS-2-COVID pandemic our institution sought to continue the teaching and learning of experimental laboratories by designing, assembling, and delivering a microscale chemistry kit to the students' homes. Thanks to this approach students were able to perform [approximately]25 experiments during each one of the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021…

The efforts shown in recent years related to the reform movements in science education have focused on the assertion that informed nature of science understandings (NOS, hereafter) should be developed. In line with this idea, NOS has become the central component of numerous science curricula. In the study, therefore, it was aimed to determine…

The role of virtual simulations in the evolution of primary school students' mental models about electrostatics is investigated by analysing the answers of two groups of 9-10 years old pupils inside instructional sequences that combine two hands-on activities using balloons and jackets with the same activities using PhET simulations: one group…

The centrality of knowledge construction to student learning is well-recognised in education. In this study, we explore what it means to go beyond knowledge construction to knowledge evaluation, and how knowledge evaluation combined with direct disciplinary access improves opportunities for meaningful learning. We first review literature to…

Exams constitute the predominant form of summative assessment in undergraduate biology education, with the assumption that exam performance should reflect student conceptual understanding. Previous work highlights multiple examples in which students can answer exam problems correctly without the corresponding conceptual understanding. This…

Concerns about the health effects of frequent exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted from mobile towers and handsets have been raised because of the gradual increase in usage of cell phones and frequent setting up of mobile towers. Present study is targeted to detrimental effects of EMF radiation on various biological systems mainly due…

This paper reports on how a group of students think when trying to solve a set of thermodynamic revision exercises in the context of collaborative small group conversation at the undergraduate level. The revision exercises involved exploring the relationship between enthalpy and temperature, entropy and temperature, and entropy of a gas under…

Background: Museum exhibits encourage exploration with physical materials typically with minimal signage or guidance. Ideally children get interactive support as they explore, but it is not always feasible to have knowledgeable staff regularly present. Technology-based interactive support can provide guidance to help learners achieve scientific…

Student understanding of chemical equilibrium in aqueous solutions (CEAS) plays a vital role in their upper secondary school chemistry learning and everyday life. Diagnosis of students' alternative conceptions (ACs) of the CEAS will provide teachers with valuable information to make instructional decisions on student learning. This study aims to…

In this paper, we investigate the intentions of kindergarten teachers to use the content and to apply the teaching methods that they acquired in a one-day teacher training seminar. According to the theory of planned behavior, the answer to this research question is directly related to a series of social-psychological personal criteria assessments,…

Computational and atmospheric chemistry are two important branches of contemporary chemistry. With the present topical nature of climate change and global warming, it is more crucial than ever that students are aware of and exposed to atmospheric chemistry, with an emphasis on how modeling may aid in understanding how atmospherically relevant…