The goal of this article is to contribute to understanding the interplay between students' disciplinary engagement and their identity construction. The term appropriation, borrowed from scholars in linguistics and education, was chosen to capture this broader sense of productive learning that sits at the nexus of disciplinary engagement and…

As secondary students' interest in science is decreasing, schools are faced with the challenging task of providing adequate instruction to engage students--and more particularly the disadvantaged students--to learn science and improve their science inquiry skills. In this respect, the integration of Web-based collaborative inquiry can be seen…

We present a method for assessing science inquiry performance, specifically for the inquiry skill of designing and conducting experiments, using educational data mining on students' log data from online microworlds in the Inq-ITS system (Inquiry Intelligent Tutoring System; www.inq-its.org). In our approach, we use a 2-step process: First we…

Field trips to science museums can provide students with educational experiences, particularly when museum programs emphasize scientific inquiry skill building over content knowledge acquisition. We describe the creation and study of 2 programs designed to significantly enhance students' inquiry skills at any interactive science museum exhibit…

This study examines first graders' epistemic reasoning, in tacit "practical epistemologies" reflected in thinking about an investigation of their own design. I analyzed children's epistemic reasoning, following a design experiment scaffolding increasing regulation of scientific inquiry in a domain they studied in depth. Participants consisted of…

Research and practice has placed an increasing emphasis on aligning classroom practices with scientific practices such as scientific argumentation. In this paper, I explore 1 challenge associated with this goal by examining how existing classroom practices influence students' engagement in the practice of scientific argumentation. To do so, I…

This article investigates the development of agency in science among low-income urban youth aged 10 to 14 as they participated in a voluntary year-round program on green energy technologies conducted at a local community club in a midwestern city. Focusing on how youth engaged a summer unit on understanding and modeling the relationship between…

Argumentation skills play a crucial role in science education and in preparing school students to act as informed citizens. While processing conflicting scientific positions regarding topics such as sustainable development in the domain of ecology, argumentation skills such as evaluating arguments or supporting theories with evidence are…

The current study examines variation in other-regulation, conceptualized as efforts by one student to regulate their group's work. This study extends research which has conceptualized other-regulation as temporarily guiding others' conceptual understanding and skill development by broadening the spectrum of other-regulation to include…

In this study we examined change in students' situational interest as a function of student and task characteristics. Fifth- and sixth-graders (n = 52) were assigned to one of two task conditions that used a different version of a science simulation. The versions differed in how concrete vs. abstract the simulation elements were.…

The study examined the effects of two different instructional interventions as support for scientific discovery learning using computer simulations. In two well-known categories of difficulty, data interpretation and self-regulation, instructional interventions for learning with computer simulations on the topic "ecosystem water" were developed…

The purpose of this study is to understand the nature of pre-instructional knowledge transferred by students into problem situations and the change process on students' knowledge system during classroom discussions. This study was framed by two interrelated theoretical frameworks on knowledge structures, phenomenological primitives and…

This paper presents an analysis of the scientific reasoning of a dyad of secondary school students about the phenomenon of dissolution of gases in water as they work on this in a simulated laboratory experiment. A web-based virtual laboratory was developed to provide learners with the opportunity to examine the influence of physical factors on gas…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of representation sequences and spatial ability on students' scientific understandings about the mechanism of breathing in human beings. 130 seventh graders were assigned to two groups with different sequential combinations of static and dynamic representations: SD group (i.e., viewing…

We report the effect of different sequences of high vs low levels of instructional guidance on children's immediate learning and long-term transfer of simple experimental design procedures and concepts, often called "CVS" (Control of Variables Strategy). Third-grade children (N = 57) received instruction in CVS via one of four possible orderings…