Background: Hands-on activities and makerspaces have rapidly gained popularity in recent years. One of the reasons for this is that they have the potential to stimulate interest and identity development in STEM or STEAM. Taiwan has organized many technology and science competitions for students to raise their interest and creativity in the past…

Background: The role of students' epistemic understanding of science in mediating their engagement in learning activities and tasks has been highlighted in the literature. Although researchers recognize epistemic knowledge of science as a multi-faceted framework, the so-called person-centered approach that aims to generate meaningful and distinct…

Background: In the field of science education, the importance of assessment in students' learning process has been recognized. Understanding of how students perceive science assessment and feedback may be an important issue that science education researchers need to pay attention to in order to achieve meaningful learning. Purpose: The purpose of…

Background: The linkage between group members' characteristics, group cohesiveness, knowledge application, and competitive performance has rarely been studied. Purpose: This study aimed to explore the correlations among individual characteristics (i.e. prosociality), collective mind (i.e. collective efficacy and cohesiveness), and how these…

Aim and background: This study investigated the effects of information and communication technology (ICT) use patterns, moderated by socioeconomic status (SES), on science and mathematics achievements. This investigation aims to address the issue of whether ICT use has 'conditioned' (linear and quadratic) effects on achievements with SES as social…

Background: As inquiry-based instruction is not universally implemented in science classrooms, it is crucial to introduce instructional strategies through the use of contextualized learning activities to allow students with different background knowledge and abilities to learn the essential competencies of scientific inquiry and promote their…

Background: STEM education has become a focus of research and teaching interest in recent years. However, not all scholars agree on the definition and purpose of STEM education. This paper summarizes related past research and suggests that, according to the requirements of Taiwan's educational environment, STEM education should focus on the…

Background: Despite the growing body of research on self-efficacy, previous studies have failed to clarify exactly how it is constructed. Meanwhile, the literature indicates that, in Taiwan, junior high school students tend to show lower self-efficacy in learning science compared with elementary and senior high school students. Purpose: This study…