This study explored factors of students' mental states, including emotion, intention, internal mental representation, and external mental representation, which can affect their learning performance. In evaluating students' mental states during the science learning process and the relationship between mental states and learning…

This research involved naive physics learners who were interested in majoring in science or engineering. In a semester-long quasi-experimental study, open-ended pretests and weekly interviews were used to analyse the progressive development of students' conceptions relating to sound and wave motion. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted…

Students are generally known to memorise and regurgitate chemical equations without sufficient understanding of the changes that occur at the particulate level. In addition, they often fail to recognise the significance of the symbols and formulas that are used to represent chemical reactions. This article describes an evaluation of the ability of…

Background: This study developed from observations of apparent achievement differences between male and female chemistry performances in a state university entrance examination. Male students performed more strongly than female students, especially in higher scores. Apart from the gender of the students, two other important factors that might…

With increasing numbers of students learning science through a second language in many school contexts, there is a need for research to focus on the impact language has on students' understanding of science concepts. Like other countries, Brunei has adopted a bilingual system of education that incorporates two languages in imparting its…

Background: The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assesses the quality of the teaching and learning of science and mathematics among Grades 4 and 8 students across participating countries. Purpose: This study explored the relationship between positive affect towards science and mathematics and achievement in science and…

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…

Background and purpose: This study investigated Indonesian and Japanese senior high-school students' understanding of electrochemistry concepts. Sample: The questionnaire was administered to 244 Indonesian and 189 Japanese public senior high-school students. Design and methods: An 18-item multiple-choice questionnaire relating to five conceptual…

The purpose of the study was to investigate secondary students' understanding of the descriptive and predictive nature of teaching models used in representing compounds in introductory organic chemistry. Of interest were the relationships between teaching models, scientific models, and students' mental models and expressed models. The results from…

This study reports on teaching practices in science classrooms of Indonesian lower secondary schools in rural areas. Using six schools from three districts in the province of Kalimantan Selatan as the sample, this study found that most teaching practices in science classrooms in rural schools were teacher-centred with students copying notes.…

A large scale study involving 1786 year 7-10 Korean students from three school districts in Seoul was undertaken to evaluate their understanding of basic optics concepts using a two-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument consisting of four pairs of items, each of which evaluated the same concept in two different contexts. The instrument, which…

Explores a case study of a class of 10th grade students whose learning of genetics involved activities using BioLogica, a computer program that features multiple external representations (MERs). Findings indicate that the MERs in BioLogica contributed to students' development of genetics reasoning by engendering their motivation and interest but…

Reports on a study involving two each year-12, undergraduate and postgraduate Australian students. Elicits learners' mental models for chemical bonding using semi-structured interviews comprising a three-phase interview protocol. Concludes that learners across all three academic levels preferred simple, realistic mental models for chemical…

Discusses student and teacher perceptions of a new development in the use of the predict-observe-explain (POE) strategy. This development involves the incorporation of POE tasks into a multimedia computer program that uses real-life, digital video clips of difficult, expensive, time consuming, or dangerous scenarios as stimuli for these tasks.…

The purpose of this paper was to investigate students' views on models and modelling in science as well as the role that models play in learning, using a theoretical framework of models in learning. Students' views on models in science were investigated using a pencil-and-paper questionnaire given to 275 students from Grade 8 (13 years old) to…