In the current study, the problems posed by pre-service primary school teachers within the context of semi-structured problem formation were analyzed according to their type, cognitive structure, and content knowledge. A total of 134 pre-service primary school teachers attending a state university in Turkey participated in the current study…

In this paper, we share results from a classroom intervention that used a conceptual representation to support reasoning about ecosystems. Engaging students in modeling allows them to make their ideas visible while being malleable and available for discussion, which enables students to make meaning out of systems. Further, the…

Science teachers, while teaching their students the science concepts, should also be teaching life skills. To ensure that future science teachers are competent to teach these skills, it can help assess the cognitive structures they hold as pre-service teachers. The current study aimed to reveal the cognitive structures and conceptual knowledge…

With increasing attention to examining cognitive strengths and achievements related to social and emotional variables, it is imperative that instruments developed and used to assess change be valid and reliable for measuring underlying constructs. This study examines instruments identified and/or developed to measure four noncognitive constructs…

Light is used ubiquitously across science and engineering to explore, characterise, understand matter, and catalyse processes. Relative to its utility in science and engineering, very little research has been conducted on how students develop an understanding of light-matter interactions, especially at the quantum level, which is necessary to…

The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) can serve as a summative assessment of students' conceptual knowledge at the end of introductory physics, but previous work has suggested that the knowledge measured by this instrument is not a unitary construct. In this article, we consider the idea that FCI performance may reflect a number of student attributes…

Laypeople are increasingly confronted with scientific controversies, as science concerns many aspects of everyday life. In the present study, we investigated how epistemic beliefs regarding the uncertainty of knowledge (i.e. uncertainty beliefs) and invested mental effort during task processing contribute to how individuals evaluate scientific…

What do we know about how well graduate teaching in economics addresses cognitive challenges to learning? In short, very little. There is a dearth of research that investigates how graduate student, program and professor characteristics, and choices impact graduate student learning and other outcomes. Some of the broader literature on graduate…

With the help of the Word Association Test (WAT), the present study aimed to reveal elementary school fourth grade students' cognitive structures regarding the values to be taught in relation to the learning areas within the scope of the course of social studies. The participants in the study were elementary school fourth grade students. In the…

This study examined and compared the intended mathematics curricula according to topic coverage, focus, coherence, and learning progression in grades 1-12 within China and the province of Ontario, Canada. The findings show that the overall topics in the two curricula are similar: Chinese curriculum covers 78 topics out of 79 while the Ontario…

We report our qualitative study of twenty-four students enrolled in the second-semester of a second-year undergraduate (sophomore-level) organic chemistry course, Organic Two. We asked the research participants to propose the product and electron-pushing mechanism of elementary mechanistic steps in the absence and presence of the corresponding…

Determination of the relationship between individuals' cognitive styles and cognitive structure outcomes was the main aim of this study. Sixty-six participants were enrolled in the study and their cognitive styles were determined by using the Hidden Figure Test (for their field dependent/independent dimension of cognitive style) and the…

The Mathematics students who perform truth-seeking process upon solving mathematical problems were unique. Therefore, the study deems it necessary to know students' mental structure and mechanism so that they can make the right decision by performing truth-seeking. However, no research has delved into the mental structures and mechanisms of…

Chemistry is traditionally perceived as difficult to comprehend. Its mastery requires that a variety of concepts be linked to form an organized knowledge system. The connections need to be made not only between the concepts associated with the macroscopic level of the chemistry triplet but also between the submicroscopic and symbolic levels. Many…

In this twin pandemic moment, educational leaders face increasing pressure to assume a transformative leadership stance committed to racial justice, wherein curriculum, pedagogy, policies, norms, and mindsets are critically appraised and transformed into a new normative state of anti-racism. Flux leadership is a framework for equitable,…