This article describes the development and validation of an instrument that can be used to assess students' perceptions of their learning environment as a means of monitoring and guiding changes toward social constructivist learning environments. The study used a mixed-method approach with priority given to the quantitative data collection.…

This article describes how biology textbooks can work to discursively constitute a particular kind of "ethical subjectivity." Not only do textbooks constrain the possibilities for thought and action regarding ethical issues, they also require a certain kind of "subject" to partake in ethical exercises and questions. This study…

Although substantial gender differences in motivation, engagement and enrolment behaviour are frequently reported in the international physics education literature, the majority of studies focus on students who intend to choose physics for their future study. The present multi-occasional study examines the gender difference in motivation,…

For students to be successful in school chemistry, a strong sense of self-efficacy is essential. Chemistry self-efficacy can be defined as students' beliefs about the extent to which they are capable of performing specific chemistry tasks. According to Bandura ("Psychol. Rev." 84:191-215, 1977), students acquire information about…

There is no consensus in the science education research community on the meanings and representations of western science and indigenous knowledge or the relationships between them. How students interpret these relationships and their perceptions of any connections has rarely been studied. This study reports student perceptions of the meaning and…

Information and communication technologies (ICT), namely the Internet, can play a valuable educational role in several school subjects, including science education. The same applies to problem-based learning (PBL), that is, a student-centered active learning methodology that can prepare students for lifelong learning. WebQuests (WQs) combine PBL…

In the present STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)-driven society, socioscientific issues (SSI) have become a focus globally and SSI research has grown into an important area of study in science education. Since students attending the social and science programs have a different focus in their studies and research has shown…

In recent years, inquiry-based science instruction has become widely advocated in science education standards in many countries and, hence, in teacher preparation programmes. Nevertheless, in practice, one finds a wide variety of science instructional approaches. In South Africa, as in many countries, there is also a great disparity in school…

In this study, the author developed a model to describe academic self-concept (ASC) in science and validated an instrument for its measurement. Unlike previous models of science ASC, which envisage science as a homogenous single global construct, this model took a multidimensional view by conceiving science self-concept as possessing distinctive…

This study investigates Swedish biology teachers' inclusion of proteins when teaching genetics in grade nine (students 15-16 years old). For some years, there has been a call to give attention to proteins when teaching genetics as a means of linking the concepts "gene" and "trait". Students are known to have problems with…

It is argued that knowledge about models is an important part of a profound understanding of Nature of Science. Consequently, researchers have developed different "levels of understanding" to analyse students', teachers', or experts' comprehension of this topic. In some approaches, "global" levels of…

Students' images of science and scientists are generally assumed to influence their related subject choices and aspirations for tertiary education within science and technology. Several research studies have shown that many young people hold rather stereotypical images of scientists, making it hard for them to see themselves as future…

In our explorations of students' concepts in an inquiry science classroom with grade 6 students from urban schools in India, we uncovered a variety of problems in their understanding of biological cells as structural and functional units of living organisms. In particular, we found not only that they visualised the cell as a two-dimensional…

This paper presents the development and structure of indigenous children's ideas about mixing colours as well as their ideas about each colour, derived from their traditions. The children were interviewed both at school and outside it, and an educational proposal was implemented. Ideas expressed in the school context were analysed using the…

Peer feedback is an inherent feature of classroom collaborative learning. Students invariably turn to their peers for feedback when carrying out an investigative task, and this feedback is usually implicit, unstructured and may positively or negatively influence students' learning when they work on a task. This study explored the…