STEM integration has attracted considerable attention in educational research, yet there has been a dearth of research exploring how STEM integration is perceived and implemented in regular school settings. The purposes of the study were to explore Taiwanese junior secondary teachers' conceptions of STEM integration with regard to their practices,…

Canonical coherence occurs when subject matter in school is organized to align with the logical structures of an academic discipline. Even though it is highly desired, this condition is an assumption that must be empirically tested, which was the rationale behind our examination of the coherence of topics from middle-school (grades 7-9) integrated…

This study explored how a 2-year, maker-centered science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (M-STEM-PjBL) curriculum aimed at leading students to be makers changed students, science teachers, and a rural middle school in Taiwan, where teachers were stressed due to the low birth rate and low grades in the…

Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao, in the Greater China Region, have similar yet different educational systems and curriculum standards, and each has performed well in international tests for science achievement. Using revised Bloom's taxonomy, this study analyzed and explored the similarities and differences among these four Chinese…

This study aimed to explore low and non-low achievers' motivation towards science learning among 8th graders in two public schools in central Taiwan under inquiry-based instruction. Mixed design research methods were adopted, and students were divided into experimental (n = 56) and control groups (n = 45). Six non-consecutive inquiry units…

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic rise in the number of middle and high school students from Asian countries participating in U.S.-based summer experiences (Perlez & Gao, 2013). Although summer science camps have been shown to improve students' attitudes and interests related to science and science learning (Bhattacharyya, Mead &…

Common core standards, interdisciplinary education, and discipline-specific literacy are common international education reforms. The constructive-interpretative language arts pairs (speaking-listening, writing-reading, representing-viewing) and the communication, construction, and persuasion functions of language are central in these movements.…

The strong humanistic and ethics-oriented philosophy of Confucianism tends to lead people influenced by these principles to undervalue the importance of hands-on practice and creativity in education. GreenMech, a science and technology contest, was implemented to encourage real-world, hands-on problem solving in an attempt to mitigate this effect.…

The purpose of this study was to develop a computer-based measure of elementary students' science talk and to report students' benchmarks. The development procedure had three steps: defining the framework of the test, collecting and identifying key reference sets of science talk, and developing and verifying the science talk instrument. The…