The purpose of this study was to quantitatively assess the integration of computational thinking with learning about biological evolution. Specifically, we investigated the effectiveness of a framework from a recently developed learning progression that emphasises the complex nature of teaching both computational thinking and biological evolution.…

This study examined how students' position on social-scientific issues (SSIs) influenced their performance on attitude toward science, science conceptual and argumentation learning. It defined two positions adopted by students regarding SSIs: affirmative and oppositional. The interactions between student position and two learning environments --…

Given the importance of fostering students' interest as a goal of physics education in meeting international science standards, empirical support for the theoretical description of the interest construct is essential. Empirical studies require the use of psychometrically sound measurement instruments. This study developed an instrument to measure…

Context-Based Learning (CBL) and learning through developing and using models are two important teaching approaches for chemistry conceptual understanding. We aimed to examine the influence of a CBL approach on students' understanding of Multiple Models of Knowledge Representations ("MMKRs") and "multiple molecular…

Big Brother, newspeak, doublethink, vapourised people and thought police became worldwide famous expressions. 1984 novel portrays a nightmare society controlled by information manipulation and by suppression of both history and science. This study aimed to investigate the impact of using the 1984 dystopian novel associated with socio-scientific…

This study aims to examine the effect of the instructional plan which includes workshops pedagogically modelling the exhibitions at science centres for an effective field trip, on high school students' learning the concepts on 'Simple Machines: Pulley and Levers'. In this study, a semi-experimental design with the pre- and post-test control group…

Developing students' ability to think about systems, as opposed to isolated facts, is of central importance in much of science teaching. Prior work in this area has focused on students' recognition of the processes occurring within a system. Comparatively, little work has been done on how students organise the objects that are contained within the…

This multiple case study focused on the implementation of a computer-aided design (CAD) simulation to help students engage in engineering design to learn science concepts. Our findings describe three case studies that adopted the same learning design and adapted it to three different populations, settings, and classroom contexts: at the…

This study investigated the time effect of cooperative games on students' emotions of learning science and the treatment effect on their chemistry achievement. This quasi-experimental study compared the use of cards, board games, and riddles, and the use of conventional paper-and-pencil exercises to learn the basics of chemical elements and…

This article draws from an exploratory study of science teachers' experiences when utilising learners' home languages in teaching grade 9 learners in three South African high schools. This research investigated teacher use of learners' home languages in science instruction, with a particular focus on the affordances and challenges of using…

The topic of natural selection presents challenges to high school students since it requires understanding of an emergent process, which is a missing schema for most students. Many interventions for teaching natural selection have limited effect in bringing about substantial ontological conceptual change. This study evaluates the effectiveness of…

Although the benefits of addressing cognitive, social and affective aspects of learning in order to support conceptual change have been discussed in the literature, there are few studies of such interventions in the normal classroom. This study used a multidimensional conceptual change framework in order to teach five biology and physics topics…

In evolution education, misconceptions about evolutionary concepts impact students' learning. Much research exists on assessing knowledge about evolution using different instruments. The current article introduces the KAEVO 2.0 instrument, which includes various evolutionary aspects representing microevolution and macroevolution. The introduced…

The aim of this study was to characterise thoroughly the differences between Physics Olympiad competitors' and regular students' successes and approaches in relation to counterintuitive dynamics problems (CDPs) in order to discover some of the differences between skilled problem-solvers and those with fewer such skills. A total of 23 Physics…

Transfer is an important outcome of science and engineering education, but little work has explored factors that facilitate transfer of science concepts from engineering tasks. The transfer literature suggests that noticing deep structure is critical for transfer, but students often fail to do so in engineering tasks. This case study investigates…