Professional development courses help teachers integrate new content knowledge into the high-school curriculum. Designing practical online courses for this purpose is challenging, particularly in emerging fields such as nanotechnology. In this study, we evaluated such a course in three complementary dimensions: (1) knowledge, (2) the complexity of…

This study aims at investigating students' awareness of green chemistry principles (GCPs) which are infused in two context-based projects that are related to socio-scientific issues, namely climate change and materials' recycling. At first, content analysis of the projects' activities showed the infusion of four GCPs. Subsequently, the students'…

Getting students to understand the particulate nature of matter is a major challenge for chemistry education. In upper secondary school students commonly struggle to distinguish between intra- and intermolecular bonding and analyse chemical bonding in terms of electronegativity. In this study, we explore how creative drama may be used in chemistry…

This paper presents the findings of a three-year longitudinal study (Grades 9-11; N = 756 students in German secondary schools; mean starting age = 14.7 years) that explores the development of and the interplay between upper-secondary students' individual interest and conceptual understanding in chemistry. Students' individual interest was…

The purpose of this study is to examine the salient characteristics of the 'Question-Answer Process' (QAP) in senior high school chemistry class between pre- and in-service teachers. We first developed the 'Instrument of Question-Answer Process' (IQAP), and then, applied it to compare salient characteristics of QAP between pre- and in-service…

One of the challenges of context-based science education is to construct high quality teaching materials. This paper presents results from a study investigating the heuristic value of an activity-based instructional framework for transformation of authentic scientific practices for use in the science classroom, in line with cultural historic…

Context-based learning aims to make learning more meaningful by raising meaningful problems. However, these types of problems often require reflection and thinking processes that are more complex and thus more difficult for students, putting high demands on students' problem-solving capabilities. In this paper, students' approaches when solving…

Context-based learning (CBL), promoting students' scientific text comprehension, and fostering metacognitive skills, plays an important role in science education. Our study involves CBL through comprehension and analysis of adapted scientific articles. We developed a module which integrates metacognitive prompts for guiding students to monitor…

The purpose of this study is to examines the relationship between the communicative approach of classroom talk and the modes of representations used by science teachers. Based on video data from two physics classrooms in Singapore, a recurring pattern in the relationship was observed as the teaching sequence of a lesson unfolded. It was found that…

This paper reports on the design and enactment of an instructional strategy aimed to support students in constructing scientific explanations. Informed by the philosophy of science and linguistic studies of science, a new instructional framework called premise--reasoning--outcome (PRO) was conceptualized, developed, and tested over two years in…

There is on-going international interest in the relationships between assessment instruments, students' understanding of science concepts and context-based curriculum approaches. This study extends earlier research showing that students can develop connections between contexts and concepts--called "fluid transitions"--when studying…

This paper reports the results of a survey of 3006 Year 10-12 students on their understandings of metallic bonding. The instrument was developed based on Chi's ontological categories of scientific concepts and students' understanding of metallic bonding as reported in the literature. The instrument has two parts. Part one probed into students'…

Science teachers need to understand the subject matter they teach. While subject matter knowledge (SMK) can improve with classroom teaching experience, it is problematic that many secondary science teachers leave the profession before garnering extensive classroom experience. Furthermore, many new science teachers are assigned to teach science…

Considerable attention has been devoted to factors affecting the persistence of women and historically underrepresented ethnic groups in their science education trajectories. The literature has focused more on structural factors that affect longitudinal outcomes rather than classroom experiences. This exploratory survey study described…

In 2006 in England an innovative suite of science qualifications for 14-16-year-olds called Twenty-First Century Science (21CS) was introduced. These qualifications have a strong focus on developing scientific literacy in all students whilst simultaneously providing preparation for the study of post-compulsory science for a smaller proportion of…