High-stakes testing (HST) is critical in the educational system of East-Asian countries like China, and the ongoing standards-based reform in many Western countries like the USA. HST has been criticized for corrupting an educational system through means like disengaging students from authentic learning. It seems that students' affective learning…

This paper analyses students' conceptual sense-making of two representations of protein synthesis: animations and static visualizations. Even though several studies have focused on the effect of animations versus static visualizations or support aspects that enable students to effectively benefit from animations, existing research has not yet…

In response to the 2001 National curriculum review in China, which explicitly promotes scientific inquiry in science-related subjects, many editions of new textbooks were published. Among them, this study explored the quality of scientific inquiry in the most popular science textbooks. There are nine sets of high school science textbooks published…

This paper reports a case study of four grade 10 physical sciences teachers' PCK about graphs of motion. We used three data collection strategies, namely teachers' written accounts, captured by the content representation (CoRe) tool, interviews and classroom observations. We conceptualised the PCK displayed in the CoRe tool and the interviews as…

In this article, I make a case for the potential educative worth of distractions for learning science in the school laboratory. Distractions are operationalized as experiences lying outside the main purpose of the laboratory activity, thereby diverting students' attention from that purpose. Through a practical epistemology analysis, I…

The study compared the effect of two adaptations of a scientific article on students' comprehension and use of scientific inquiry skills. One adaptation preserved as much as possible the canonical form of the original article (APL, Adapted Primary Literature) and the other was written in a more narrative mode typical of secondary literature (SL).…

It is considered important for students to participate in scientific practices to develop a deeper understanding of scientific ideas. Supporting students, however, in knowing and understanding the natural world in connection with generating and evaluating scientific evidence and explanations is not easy. In addition, writing in science can help…

In teaching inquiry to high school students, educators differ on which method of teaching inquiry is more effective: Guided or open inquiry? This paper examines the influence of these two different inquiry learning approaches on the attitudes of Israeli high school biology students toward their inquiry project. The results showed significant…

Learners' ability in dealing with socio-scientific issues has been highlighted in contemporary science education. This study explored the effects of different on-line searching activities on high school students' cognitive structure outcomes and informal reasoning outcomes. By using a quasi-experimental research approach, thirty-three students…

We report on two studies in which high school students who had been exposed to a cognitive training procedure known as the Conceptual Mediation Program (CMP) were compared to students who had not participated within the program. In the first study, based on data from two sites, it was found that 70 CMP students exhibited higher levels of school…