This study describes how teachers use their personal knowledge of a school district and their students to cope with teaching under stressful situations associated with economic, social, and institutional factors. The 3 teachers dealt with these issues in unique ways, focusing on helping students to overcome negative perceptions, value the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the conceptual change text oriented instruction over traditionally designed instruction on ninth grade students' understanding of the human circulatory system concepts, and their retention of this understanding. The subjects of this study consist of 73 ninth grade female students…

Following the introduction of a National Curriculum for Science, all secondary science teachers in England need to be prepared to teach all aspects of a broad and balanced science curriculum. This is the second paper in which we explore science student teachers' subject knowledge development during a one-year postgraduate teacher preparation…

Conceptions of sustainable development were elicited using a questionnaire completed by three cohorts of postgraduate students starting a secondary science teacher-training course (N = 123). Qualitative responses were analysed in three ways: (i) development of categories to capture features of sustainable development; (ii) scrutiny of individual…

This study focused on differences between teacher-centred and learner-centred experiments in soil ecology. After a pilot study, we selected three experiments simple enough to be carried out by pupils even with little experience in self-determined learning and hands-on practice. The sample comprised 123 fifth and sixth graders from a middle school…

This paper reports some of the findings from the science subject design initiative team in the ESRC Interactive Education Project at the University of Bristol. The subject culture of secondary school science, characterised by a content-laden curriculum and assessment, but also with a tradition and requirement for practical work, is briefly…

The purpose of this research study was to examine the effectiveness of problem-based learning (PBL) on eleventh grade students' understanding of "The effects of temperature, concentration and pressure on cell potential" and also their social skills. Stratified randomly selected control and experimental groups with 20 students each were used in…

This paper draws on earlier work on ideas that underpin the collection and use of evidence in science in schools. It establishes that different types of practical work share the same procedural underpinnings. It then takes the work of Toulmin on argumentation to suggest that the idea of the "public claim" can be used to forge a link between…

This paper combines the quality management principles of Deming with the educational theories of Feuerstein and Bloom in the design of a system of engineering education in which every student, on graduation, will display mastery of the subjects in the curriculum.

This study has reviewed the last two decades of student conception research in solution chemistry pertaining to aims, methods of exploring students' conception, general knowledge claims, students' conceptions and difficulties, and conceptual change studies. The aims of solution chemistry studies have been to assess students' understanding level of…

Many topics in chemistry are difficult for learners to understand, including symmetry. Reasons for this difficulty include its multi-level content, instructional methodologies utilized, and learner variables. This study examined the effect of initial instructional modality and prior knowledge on learning of point group symmetry. Forty-four…

This paper presents an innovative approach to introducing pre-service early childhood teachers to math, science and technology education. The approach involves the creation of partnerships between pre-service early childhood and engineering students to conceive, develop, implement and evaluate curriculum in the area of math, science and technology…

This paper begins by examining the profound impact of energy usage on our lives, and on every major sector of the economy. Then, the anticipated US energy needs by the year 2025 are presented based on the Department of Energy's projections. The paper considers the much-touted National Energy Policy Report, and identifies a major flaw where the…

For the past year we have been developing and implementing a program in which students design and construct remote operated vehicles. In this paper, we report on a pilot study that occurred over the course of an academic year in an inner city high school. Specifically, we have been investigating whether students learn meaningful science content…

This study investigates factors affecting the degree of novice physics students application of the naive impetus theory. Six hundred and fourteen first-year university engineering physics students answered the Force Concept Inventory as a pre-test for their calculus-based course. We examined the degree to which students consistently applied the…