The call for inquiry science to be a part of the school science curriculum is popular in many parts of the world. While some research in this area revealed success stories of students' learning when they are engaged in student-directed, open-ended scientific inquiry activities, others are more sceptical about how these activities impact students'…

In literature, several processes have been suggested to describe conceptual changes being undertaken. However, a few parts of studies analyse in great detail which students' learning processes are involved in physics classes during teaching, and how they are used. Following a socio-constructivist approach using tools coming from discourse…

Letting students deliberate on socio-scientific issues is a tricky affair. It is yet unclear how to assess whether, or even support that, students weave science facts into value-laden socio-scientific deliberations without committing the naturalistic fallacy of deducing "ought" from "is". As a preliminary step, this study investigated how Danish…

The Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) was used to gauge the relative effectiveness of three different methods of pedagogy, "Reading, Presenting, and Questioning" (RPQ), "Experimenting and Discussion" (ED), and "Traditional Methods" (TM), on increasing students' level of scientific thinking. The data of a one-semester-long…

In this paper, a novel approach to engaging students in personal inquiry learning is described, whereby they carry out scientific investigations that are personally meaningful and relevant to their everyday lives. The learners are supported by software that guides the inquiry process, extending from the classroom into the school grounds, home, or…

The science education literature demonstrates that scientific literacy is generally valued and acknowledged among educators as a desirable student learning outcome. However, what scientific literacy really means in terms of classroom practice and student learning is debatable due to the inherent complexity of the term and varying expectations of…

Given the accumulating evidence that performance in medical school and beyond is related to personality, it is important for research to consider how personality assessment can be included as part of the process of selecting medical students. Interviews are one way of measuring personality and this study extends prior research investigating…

Skepticism exists regarding the role of continuing medical education (CME) in improving physician performance. The harshest criticism has been reserved for didactic CME. Reviews of the scientific literature on the effectiveness of CME conclude that formal or didactic modes of education have little or no impact on clinical practice. This has led…

This study presents the design, effect and utility of using audiovisual material containing real images of dissected human cadavers as an innovative educational strategy (IES) in the teaching of Human Anatomy. The goal is to familiarize students with the practice of dissection and to transmit the importance and necessity of this discipline, while…

The quality of items written for in-house examinations in medical schools remains a cause of concern. Several faculty development programs are aimed at improving faculty's item writing skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a faculty development program in item development. An objective method was developed and used…

Clinicians are believed to use two predominant reasoning strategies: system 1 based pattern recognition, and system 2 based analytical reasoning. Balancing these cognitive reasoning strategies is widely believed to reduce diagnostic error. However, clinicians approach different problems with different reasoning strategies. This study explores…

Examinees who initially fail and later repeat an SP-based clinical skills exam typically exhibit large score gains on their second attempt, suggesting the possibility that examinees were not well measured on one of those attempts. This study evaluates score precision for examinees who repeated an SP-based clinical skills test administered as part…

Recent debates question the extent to which adopting an educational innovation requires compromise between the innovation's original design and the adoption site's context. Through compromises, the innovation's fundamental principles may be transferred, transformed, or abandoned. This paper analyzes such compromises during the piloting of…

Medical schools employ a variety of preadmission measures to select students most likely to succeed in the program. The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and the undergraduate college grade point average (uGPA) are two academic measures typically used to select students in medical school. The assumption that presently used preadmission…

In the domain of self-assessment, researchers have begun to draw distinctions between summative self-assessment activities (i.e., making an overall judgment of one's ability in a particular domain) and self-monitoring processes (i.e., an "in the moment" awareness of whether one has the necessary knowledge or skills to address a specific problem…