Background: Context-based learning approaches are used to enhance students' interest in, and knowledge about, science. According to different empirical studies, students' interest is improved by applying these more non-conventional approaches, while effects on learning outcomes are less coherent. Hence, further insights are needed into the…

Background: Sustainable development (SD) is a complex idea, based on environmental, economic and social dimensions. In line with SD, education for sustainable development (ESD) is an approach to teaching that combines cognitive and affective domains and aims to build empowerment abilities. Purpose: The purpose of this article is to investigate…

A range of characteristics of learners is described and their relationship to working memory discussed in the context of teaching and learning in the sciences. The characteristics are extent of field dependency, visual spatial abilities, divergency and convergency. These learner characteristics were measured for a large sample of school pupils…

Describes a study that was designed to apply the learning hierarchy paradigm in an instructional unit in high school biology. Findings indicated that regardless of the pupils' sex or the type of school, students taught the hierarchically organized learning task achieved significantly higher than students whose learning task was not hierarchically…

Reports on a study which tested eight categories of logical fallacies with secondary students, student teachers, and teachers from Australia, South Africa, and Israel. Results indicate that logical fallacies were exhibited by all the groups. Implications are discussed. (ML)

Presents study findings which supported the use of answer-until-correct tests. Discusses results based on responses of secondary students from England (N=387) that revealed that the answer-until-correct test of mechanical reasoning had similar findings to the spatial reasoning test. (ML)

Investigated concept development related to particulate theory of matter in 130 children (ages 8-12) in two contrasting Warwickshire middle schools. Results are set against background policies/practices in science teaching as revealed by responses from teacher questionnaires (N=60) and analysis of several science curricula. (JN)

Described in this study are student teachers' frameworks of purity and the related concepts of the states of matter. The concept of natural versus pure substances, classifying states of matter, and implications for teaching drawn from the results are discussed. (Author/KR)

Assesses the ability of tenth grade students (n=364) to acquire meanings of graphs that are frequently used in their biology textbooks. Indicates that the main source of failure to process information equally well from tables and graphs was not a lack of basic analytical skills but rather a lack of understanding of the relationship between…

Reports on specific problem-solving difficulties of 240 chemistry teachers from 5 Nigerian states who volunteered to take part in 3 written tests and an interview. Describes the contrasts between successful and unsuccessful problem solvers, and discusses the pedagogical and psychological implications of the findings. (16 references) (JJK)

Reports on research into children's understanding of mountainous landscapes and mountain genesis as revealed in their drawing and modeling representations and in subsequent interviews. Compares younger and older children aged 7-11 from United Kingdom inner city schools. Concludes that the interpretation of children's pictures is problematic and…

Focuses on the familiar problem of students' understanding of elementary electrical circuits from a much neglected point of view. Suggests that the patterning commonly found in students' ideas might have its roots in the cognitive processing with which students operate their mental models of d.c. electrical circuits. Studies Japanese 10-11 year…