Background: Gamification is the use of game design elements, such as rules of play, point scoring and competition, in a non-game context, in learning activities. We designed a game, based on the famous augmented reality game "Pokémon GO," called Insects GO in which players should capture images of real insects with their mobile phones.…

Background: Museums have been paying an increasing attention to the design of experiences conducive to informal learning. While spontaneous inquiries in museums often pique visitors' intrinsic motivation to learn, certain structures or scaffolds are needed to facilitate sense making in museum learning. Two promising approaches are identified:…

Background: Being able to think independently is a must for students to construct new knowledge in their minds. Self-explaining is a constructive learning strategy that encourages students to think for themselves and to make inferences that go beyond the given information. The Self-explain--Discuss--Re-explain (SDR) strategy adapted from…

Background: It is a challenging task to teach students who get diagnosed with a specific learning difficulty. Given that they can easily get distracted, they need more support than students without any disability. Accordingly, the use of any instructional technology that could attract their attention might have a positive impact on their learning…

Background: There is a growing interest in investigating attitudes towards science and views of Nature of Science among elementary grade students in terms of gender, cultural backgrounds, and grade level variables. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes toward science and views of Nature of Science among Spanish students,…

Background: Uncertainty is a crucial element of scientific knowledge growth. Students should have some understanding of how science knowledge is developed and why scientific conclusions are considered more or less certain than others. A component of the nature of science, it is considered an important aspect of science education and allows…

Background: Cognitive conflict has been identified as an important factor for bringing about students' conceptual change. Researchers draw attention to the need to study not only cognitive factors related to cognitive conflict but affective factors as well. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of cognitive…