A cross-sectional study of Portuguese primary school pupils' conceptions on digestion and the digestive tract was carried out before and after teaching this topic. Pupils of the prior four school years (5/6 to 9/10 year old) drew what happens to a cookie inside their body. In some cases they also wrote a short text or were interviewed. To identify…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between student understanding of the nature of science and their problem-solving strategies. Six hundred and twenty Year 8 students in Taiwan twice completed two conceptual problem-solving tests and a questionnaire on the nature of science. Four of these students were selected for follow-up…

A shortage of qualified science teachers has been recognized as a serious problem in the field of education in many countries. Taiwan, however, has successfully recruited graduate-level science students into teaching through newly established teacher education programs at universities in recent years. This study seeks to examine why such students…

'Science as inquiry' is a key content standard in the "National Science Education Standards" to be enacted by US science teachers. This paper is the result of a study that was conducted in order to understand factors that impacted the inquiry-based instruction of 14 beginning secondary science teachers. These teachers were part of a collaborative…

An inquiry-type laboratory was implemented into the chemistry curriculum in high schools in Israel. The study included development of inquiry-type experiments, assessment tools for a continuous assessment of students' achievements and progress, and a long-term professional development program for teachers who decided to implement the program in…

The purposes of this study were: to compare students' performance on conceptual and algorithmic chemistry problems; to investigate the relationships between learning orientation, formal reasoning, and mental capacity and students' performance on conceptual and algorithmic problems; and to investigate interactions among learning orientation, formal…

This study explores the extent to which small group argumentation and discussion was used as part of a series of three practical inquiry-based science lessons in each of two Year 8 (age 12-13) classes. The actions and talk of the teacher and two target groups of students in each class were recorded using video-recorders and audiorecorders.…

This paper argues for the integration of metacognitive thinking into the content of school science. It describes the ' metacognitive instances ' approach of implanting metacognitive activities, such as classroom discussions, annotated drawing, keeping diary-like notes and concept-mapping, at selected points of the teaching procedure, in an attempt…

In this study, we investigated the perceived professional needs of Korean science teachers majoring in chemical education, and examined their preferences for online and on-site inservice teacher training programmes. The results were also compared with those of preservice teachers. Participants were 120 secondary school teachers and 67 preservice…

The paper reports findings from research into the extent to which an on-line course, "Try Science", achieved its objectives compared with a face-to-face course with the same content and objectives. "Try Science" has the dual aims of developing participants' understanding of science content and of teaching science through enquiry. Whilst the…

We compare the content that was expected with what actually was put into practice in a course of ongoing education of secondary education (12-16 year olds) science teachers, and describe the most relevant problems that arose. We believe that the educational content--its nature, how it is organized and presented to the teacher participants, and so…

This paper reports design experiments on two Japanese elementary science lesson units in a sixth-grade classroom supported by computer support for collaborative learning (CSCL) technology as a collaborative reflection tool. We took different approaches in the experiments depending on their instructional goals. In the unit 'air and how things…

This article reports the use of a computer-based collaborative learning instruction designed to help students develop understanding of image formation by lenses. The study aims to investigate how students, working in dyads and mediated by multimedia computer-assisted learning (CAL) programs, construct shared knowledge and understanding. The…

Efforts to promote more realistic conceptions about science are often limited by teachers' inexperience in this domain. In this paper, we describe an 'inductive-deductive, dialectic immersion' approach towards assisting teachers in developing more realistic conceptions about science--along with corresponding revised perspectives about science…

This paper reports on a qualitative case study investigation of the knowledge and use of learning strategies by 16 students in a final year high school biology class to expand their conscious knowledge of learning. Students were provided with opportunities to engage in purposeful inquiry into the biological, social and ethical aspects of cancer. A…