Research-based science education (RBSE) is an instructional model that integrates scientific research with education by giving introductory-level undergraduate astronomy students an opportunity to do authentic research with real data. Its goals are threefold: (1) to teach that science is a process of discovery, not just a body of knowledge, (2) to…

Empirical evidence highlighted the problem of underprepared graduates who lack the critical thinking skills required in the work environment. Institutions of higher learning have been mandated to provide graduates with these critical thinking skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the integrated assessment conducted with…

This study aims at investigating the direct effects of three motivation factors, self-efficacy, task value, and mastery goal orientation, and a deep cognitive strategy, critical thinking skills on students' mathematical reasoning ability. Besides, the study focuses on the examination of the mediating effects of critical thinking skills on the…

This study investigated contributions of pre-service teachers' endogenous and exogenous instrumentalities, their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and their use of self-regulation strategies to explain the extent to which they used strategies to purposefully integrate their knowledge across courses (extensive knowledge integration). With a…

"ArtInSight" is a three-pronged constructivist education model for museum teaching. Utilizing (1) conversational tours, (2) mindfulness-based insight activities, and (3) art-making exercises, viewers develop critical and visual thinking skills and apply them to both arts-based experiences and to everyday life. This approach broadens…

Critical thinking remains a challenge for students even at the undergraduate level. In this article, I describes how he utilized the tenets of self-study to explore introducing critical thinking instructional strategies to preservice teachers. Frustrated and curious, I attempted to better understand the group's reluctance to using these methods…

Our everyday life is influenced by an overproduction of images and by an iconogenic surplus that is connected to the proliferation of media. These contribute to both the quality and quantity of communication, but simultaneously amplify the knowledge gap between an audience that is able to critically process messages and another that is affected…

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that focuses on the source, nature, limitations, system and accuracy of human knowledge. Children's epistemological views start to develop in the very early years as they gradually develop the ability to understand others' beliefs, actions, and desires, with primary attention to the onset of this cognitive…

This dissertation presents three papers, each focus on a different aspect of the nature of learning in a specific hybrid community of practice, an undergraduate Living-Learning Community (LLC). A hybrid community of practice is initially established to address an institutional goal, yet membership is voluntary and members have autonomy in…

There is a gap in the literature regarding the association between critical thinking (CT) skills and student success in chemistry. This study sought to fill this gap by evaluating the association between CT skills and student success in chemistry. The purpose of this study was (a) to determine whether there is a positive correlation between CT…

The study endeavored to determine if teaching test-taking strategies had an impact on the students' performance on the ACT science subsection exam. Students received test-taking strategies instruction for the ACT science subsection exam. Students were administered a pre-and post-test, confidence survey, and strategies ranking list. The study also…

The study examined student utilization and application of learning strategies in college level online courses and the context was a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) in the Southwest. Even though online courses continue to grow at a steady pace, few research studies have taken the task to analyze the utilization of learning strategies and their…

In a global economy, stakeholders need to keep themselves well-informed in terms of how their local schools perform when compared with schools across the country and around the world. In doing so, they will be able to consider how well their schools are doing in a larger context and identify strengths as well as areas to target for improvement.…

This chapter provides the critical leadership logic model as a tool to help educators develop leadership-learning opportunities. This proactive logic model includes curricular and co-curricular educational experiences to ensure critical thinking through leadership education.

This paper describes the principles of transformative pedagogy that lead to the development of distinct student voices in academic writing classes. Whether the course is taught at the undergraduate level through research, expository, and argumentative writing assignments or at the graduate level through literature review essays, research articles,…