Constructivist-based pedagogy is particularly applicable to gifted secondary students in the sciences due to the increased background knowledge of the population and the nature of the study of science. This research was an investigation of the effectiveness of a residential constructivist-based summer learning experience in aquatic biology and…

For students in biology, chemistry, or environmental science, diatoms offer excellent insight into watershed health and human impact on the environment. Diatoms are found globally in virtually every habitat that has sunlight and moisture, including polar seas, tropical streams, and on moist soils and mosses. Studying diatoms as biological…

This study examines the impact of argumentation on pre-service science teachers' (PST) conceptual understanding of chemical equilibrium. The sample consisted of 57 first-year PSTs enrolled in a teacher education program in Turkey. Thirty two of the 57 PSTs who participated in this study were in the experimental group and 25 in the control group.…

We examined the role of justification for knowing beliefs in learning and comprehension when ethnic majority and ethnic minority students from the same school classes read five conflicting documents on the scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Results showed that the more ethnic minority students trusted scientific authorities and the less…

In an introductory biology course, we implemented a learner-centered, model-based pedagogy that frequently engaged students in building conceptual models to explain how genes determine phenotypes. Model-building tasks were incorporated within case studies and aimed at eliciting students' understanding of 1) the origin of variation in a population…

This phenomologic study was carried out in order to determine how 63 pre-service chemistry teachers graduated from Chemistry Branch of Science Faculty in the pedagogical training program during 2013-2015 academic years defined the concepts of density and melting and boiling points and how they interpreted the data in micro levels. A diagnostic…

Energy is one of the most central and richly connected ideas across all science disciplines. The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement instrument for assessing students' understanding of the energy concept within and across different science disciplines. To achieve this goal, the Inter-Disciplinary Energy concept Assessment (IDEA) was…

This study aims to examine Malaysia's involvement in the Polar Regions, in the context of education, outreach, and communication (EOC), and consequently, to determine the effectiveness of these initiatives. Using qualitative and quantitative research analyses, this study found that Malaysia's experiences in EOC can be used to increase public…

Almost 700 Swedish and South African students from the upper secondary school and first-term chemistry university level responded to our survey on concepts of chemical bonding. The national secondary school curricula and most common textbooks for both countries were also surveyed and compared for their content on chemical bonding. Notable…

Graduate medical students of India are taught Biochemistry by didactic lectures and they hardly get any opportunity to clarify their doubts and reinforce the concepts which they learn in these lectures. We used a combination of teaching-learning (T-L) methods (open book assignment followed by group tutorials) to study their efficacy in improving…

As learning is a product of the interaction between certain concepts which are already present within an individual's mind, it is becoming increasingly important to determine the cognitive structures in relation to these concepts which are present within the minds of students. It has been said that the word association test, which is a technique…

This study investigated the use of Guided Student-Generated Questioning (GSGQ) as a metacognitive instructional strategy to increase chemistry achievement and self-efficacy of elementary preservice teachers. The Chemistry Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES), modified from the Biology Self-Efficacy Scale (BSES),was used to determine elementary preservice…

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences between science lessons taught by Chinese astronauts in a space shuttle and those taught by American astronauts in a space shuttle, both of whom conducted experiments and demonstrations of science activities in a microgravity space environment. The study examined the instructional structure…

The main objective of this research is to find out how the teacher candidates who graduated from the Faculty of Theology and study in pedagogical formation program perceive the theory of evolution. Having a descriptive characteristic, this research is conducted with 63 Faculty of Theology graduate teacher candidates of which 36 is women and 27 is…

While haptics (simulated touch) represents a potential breakthrough technology for science teaching and learning, there is relatively little research into its differential impact in the context of teaching and learning. This paper describes the testing of a haptically enhanced simulation (HES) for learning about buoyancy. Despite a lifetime of…