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…

Vee diagrams have been a metacognitive tool to help in learning the nature and structure of knowledge by reflecting on the scientific process and making knowledge much more explicit to learners during the practical work. This study aimed to assess pre-service science teachers' understanding some aspects of NOS by analyzing their reflections…

Nowadays, the importance given to astronomy teaching in science and physics education has been gradually increasing. At the same time, teachers play an important role in remediating the misconceptions about astronomy concepts held by students. The present study aims to determine the misconceptions of pre-service physics teachers (n = 117),…

This paper presents an approach to preservice science teacher education coupling video analysis with dialogue as tools for fostering teachers' ability to notice and reflexively interpret events captured during teaching practicum with the intent of transforming classroom practice. In this approach, video becomes a tool with which teachers…

The aim of this study was to investigate the attitudes of prospective science teachers at Sultan Qaboos University towards and their views about using journal writing in the Methods of Teaching Science course. Twenty-six prospective science teachers were asked to write about each topic in the course in their journal to show their understanding of…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of technology-embedded scientific inquiry (TESI) on senior science student teachers' (SSSTs) self-efficacy. The sample consisted of 117 SSSTs (68 females and 49 males aged 21-23 years) enrolled in an Environmental Chemistry elective course. Within a quasi-experimental design, the…

This study explored the impact of explicit instruction on argumentation-based pedagogy, coupled with modelling and hands-on learning activities on pre-service physics teachers' perceived self-efficacy to teach science through argumentation. Participants consisted of 24 pre-service physics teachers attending an established teacher education…

This study explored pre-service teachers' conceptual understanding and performance on science process skills. A sample comprised 91 elementary pre-service teachers at a university in the Midwest of the USA. Participants were enrolled in two science education courses; introductory science teaching methods course and advanced science methods course.…

A total of 448 first-year university students participated in the study at the beginning of the academic year 2009/10. A paper-pencil liquid crystal questionnaire (LCQ) comprising 20 items was used to evaluate students' general conceptions related to liquid crystals, their properties and to the state of matter in general. The results show that 2/3…

Our work is based on two premises. The first is that affective factors (beliefs, attitudes, and emotions) influence teaching and learning mathematics, and problem solving in particular. The second is that initial teacher education is an important element in the process of improving overall educational practice. On this basis, our research group…

Choosing graphs to display quantitative information is a component of "graph sense". An important aspect of pre-service elementary teachers' content knowledge; ability to choose appropriate graphs in applied contexts is investigated in this study. They were given three scenarios followed by four graphs representing the same quantitative data. They…

Initial teacher education (ITE) is being challenged internationally to prepare teachers with the understandings needed to teach an increasingly diverse student population. Science teachers need to prepare students with both conceptual and procedural understanding. The challenge is to prioritise a balance in ITE courses between theoretical…

This paper suggests an innovative idea of using the "technology fair" as a means for promoting pre-service teachers (university students) decision-making skills. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of a procedure of working with primary school children to complete and present a technology fair project, on the decision-making…

The purpose of this study is to determine the experience of mathematics preservice teachers related to function and equation concepts and the relations between them. Determining preservice mathematics teachers' understanding of function and equation concepts has great importance since it directly affects their future teaching careers. Data were…

The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure student teachers' perception of digital learning objects. The participants included 308 voluntary senior students attending courses in a college of education of a public university in Turkey. The items were extracted to their related factors by the principal axis factoring method.…