The purpose of this article is to review recent research on self-regulated learning and discuss the implications of this research for science education. We draw on examples of self-regulated learning from the science education literature to summarise and illustrate effective instructional methods and the development of metacognitive understanding…

Given that the subject department is recognised by subject specialist teachers as the central and immediate unit of organization in secondary schools it is surprising that so little attention has been paid by researchers to the leadership dynamics within science departments. The leadership dynamics within the science departments of two…

This study examined the features of peer argumentation in middle school students' scientific inquiry. Participants were two boys and six girls in grade 8 of a middle school in Seoul, Korea. Students engaged in open inquiry activities in small groups. Each group prepared the report for peer review and then, during the peer discussion, presented…

This paper addresses the question of how to develop prospective teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in science teacher education. The main focus is on the knowledge transformation process and on the cognitive strategies used to shift prospective teachers' explanations within the domain of modelling thermal physical phenomena. This study…

Difficulties in students' understanding of the spherical model of the Earth have been shown in previous studies. One of the reasons for these difficulties lies in beliefs and preliminary knowledge that hinder the interpretation of the scientific knowledge, the other reason may lie in the low level of verbal and visuo-spatial abilities. The study…

This paper reports and discusses the principal findings of an Australian study exploring the decisions of high achieving Year 10 students about taking physics and chemistry courses (Lyons, 2003). The study used a "multiple worlds" framework to explore the diverse background characteristics that previous quantitative research had shown were…

Self-efficacy has been shown to be an issue of concern for primary teacher education students--many of them have low self-efficacy and this can negatively affect their future teaching of science. Previous research has identified four factors that may contribute towards self-efficacy: enactive mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal…

The article is addressing how students reason about the origin and development of the universe. Students' own views as well as their descriptions of physical models are analysed. Data consists of written surveys, and interviews of a subset of the students. Most of the students relate to the Big Bang model when describing the origin of the…

This study investigates whether the generation of exploratory talk in grade seven, second-language science classrooms in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, has a positive effect on learners in terms of their problem-solving and reasoning skills and whether socio-cultural "milieus" (urban, peri-urban and rural settings of schools) have an…

This paper investigated the change of the Junior Secondary School Chemistry Curriculum (JSSCC) in the P. R. China over the period from 1978 to 2001. Document analysis was employed as the research method and data were collected from various versions of teaching syllabi, textbooks, and teachers' reference books published during this period. The…

This article reports on the third year of a three-year longitudinal investigation into six secondary students' understanding of optics at a secondary school level. In the third year of this investigation the students, who by now were in Year 12, underwent a teaching sequence that centred on the teaching and learning of physical optics and quantum…

Many institutions of higher education increasingly are concerned with retention and graduation rates. Focusing on private Baccalaureate Liberal and General colleges and universities, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between institutional selectivity and institutional expenditures and retention and graduation rates. Framed…

Academic dishonesty (cheating) has been prevalent on college campuses for decades, and the percentage of students reporting cheating varies by college major. This study, based on a survey of 643 undergraduate engineering majors at 11 institutions, used two parallel hierarchical multiple regression analyses to predict the frequency of cheating on…

To what extent do students and teachers hold similar beliefs about excellent teaching? Do differences in beliefs have practical implications (e.g., how students rate their teachers on end-of-semester evaluation forms)? In Study 1, undergraduate students (N=414) and faculty members (N=128) responded to questionnaires assessing their perceptions of…

Scrutiny of intercollegiate athletics has intensified in recent years. This study compares student-athletes with those of non-athletes in terms of their engagement in effective educational practices. Contrary to many reports in the popular media, the findings from this study indicate that, on balance, student-athletes across a large number of…