Nowadays, outreach labs are important informal learning environments in science education. After summarizing research to goals outreach labs focus on, we describe our evidence-based gene technology lab as a model of a research-driven outreach program. Evaluation-based optimizations of hands-on teaching based on cognitive load theory (additional…

Laboratory activities have long had a distinctive and central role in the science curriculum, and science educators have suggested that many benefits accrue from engaging students in science laboratory activities. Many research studies have been conducted to investigate the educational effectiveness of laboratory work in science education in…

This research investigated the similarities and differences between Korean and U.S. 9-12th grade science classrooms. The Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol was used to observe sixty-six classrooms (26 Korean and 40 U.S.) to examine the extent to which principles of constructivism framing both Korean and U.S. standards documents were observed.…

In examining open inquiry projects among high-school biology students, we found dynamic inquiry performances expressed in two criteria: "changes occurring during inquiry" and "procedural understanding". Characterizing performances in a dynamic open inquiry project can shed light on both the procedural and epistemological scientific understanding…

This study was aimed at finding out if the level of performance of selected Jamaican Grade 12 students on an achievement test on the concept of genetics was satisfactory; if there were statistically significant differences in their performance on the concept linked to their gender, self-esteem, cognitive abilities in biology, school-type and…