This study investigated the students' learning process of the concept of concentration at the elementary school level in Taiwan. The influence of different representational types on the process of proportional reasoning was also explored. The participants included nineteen third-grade and eighteen fifth-grade students. Eye-tracking technology was…

The purposes of this study are to examine young children's explanations of floating and sinking and to investigate how scaffolding strategies provided by a tutor could promote their scientific understandings. Fifteen 4-year-olds and fifteen 5-year-olds from a public kindergarten in northern Taiwan participated in this study. The children were…

Despite many scholars' recommendations, science is often avoided during early childhood education. Among the reasons provided by early childhood teachers for the exclusion of science from their daily routines included science anxiety, low self-efficacy with respect to teaching science, lack of experience participating in science activities as…

In the last 15 years there has been an increased emphasis in both educational research and curriculum development upon investigating children's perspectives of their experience of learning. Children naturally have very particular and important insights to offer in helping us to develop our understanding of teaching and learning. However, research…

Children from England and the United States of America have a basic similar knowledge of plants and animals, which they observe during their everyday life. Nine children of ages 4, 6, 8, and 10 years, in each country, were asked to free-list plants and animals. Afterwards, they were interviewed individually about the plants and animals they listed…

A student's motivational orientation is considered to be a predictor of a range of related education decisions, from attending classes to choosing a particular course or a profession. This survey study conducted with student volunteers (males = 519; females = 904) enrolled in secondary school science-math academic stream in Thailand investigated…

Animation has great potential for improving the way people learn. A number of studies in different scientific disciplines have shown that instruction involving computer animations can facilitate the understanding of processes at the molecular level. However, using animation alone does not ensure learning. Students sometimes miss essential features…

This study examined elementary preservice teachers' beliefs about the role/image of a science teacher and science teaching and how these beliefs change during an elementary science methods course; this examination was conducted through an analysis of their metaphor writing. Data included personal metaphors and rationale papers for supporting them…

This study investigated the connection between the use of video cases within a multimedia learning environment and students' inquiry into a socio-scientific problem. The software program was designed based on principles from the Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT) and incorporated video cases of experts with differing perspectives. Seventy-nine…

The purpose of this study was to compare different conceptual change methods within a topic on "sound propagation". The study was conducted with 80 grade 5 students (aged 11-12 year old) drawn from four cohort classes in an elementary school on the north coast of Black Sea Region in Turkey. While one class was assigned as a control group, the…

This paper articulates the importance of epistemological beliefs (EBs) and draws a parallel between EBs literature in educational psychology and nature of science (NOS) literature in science education. The paper stresses that EBs in science and NOS ideas have common ground and they can be best improved through explicit-reflective instruction…

Epistemological beliefs refer to an individual's thinking and beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. The present study examined two research questions: (1) how do prospective elementary teachers' epistemological beliefs in science change as a result of instruction specifically designed to improve their epistemological beliefs and (2)…

Radford University was recently configured with a campus-wide wireless local area network. Using these new capabilities, a classroom-based Honors section of Concepts of Biology was conducted solely using electronic technologies (paper was never transferred from professor to student). To accomplish this, students used common software and freeware.…

Among science educators, current interest in undergraduate research (UR) is influenced both by the traditional role of the research apprenticeship in scientists' preparation and by concerns about replacing the current scientific workforce. Recent research has begun to demonstrate the range of personal, professional, and intellectual benefits for…

The goal of the Department of Biological Sciences faculty was to evaluate how effectively our undergraduate biology program supports the goals and intended outcomes of our department and institution. Student responses in written assessment tests have provided the foundation of this evaluation. Each semester questions were selected by a…