Globally, science interest in diminishing among students, and as a result the science career field has begun to suffer from a lack of science career aspirations. The issue is especially relevant in developed countries, such as the United States, Japan, and South Korea, because of their policies and efforts to promote science and science education…

Despite agreement among teacher educators, scholars, and policymakers on the importance of teachers' subject matter knowledge (SMK), existing models provide limited information about the nature of this foundational component of teacher knowledge. The common assumption is that teachers need to know more about the science subject matter than their…

The purpose of this qualitative study was: (a) to explore the cognitive and metacognitive processes of mathematics problem-solving discourse of 10-year-old students in Russia, Spain, Hungary, and the United States; and (b) to explore the patterns of social interactions during small group work. Data were analyzed using a cognitive/metacognitive…

The problems that we face in our ever-changing, increasingly global society are multidisciplinary, and many require the integration of multiple science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts to solve them. National calls for improvement of STEM education in the United States are driving changes in policy, particularly in…

The purpose of the study was to examine what science views were accepted or rejected by the Chinese university students. We administered the Thinking about Science Survey Instrument (TSSI) to 75 Chinese students in the Sichuan province who were enrolled in Science and Technology English classes. The TSSI focuses on nine key areas of science and…

Since slope is a fundamental topic that is embedded throughout the U.S. secondary school curriculum, this study examined standards documents for all 50 states to determine how they address the concept of slope. The study used eleven conceptualizations of slope as categories to classify the material in the documents. The findings indicate that all…

The purpose of this paper is to show the similarities as well as the differences of fundamental fraction knowledge owned by preservice elementary teachers from the United States (N = 89) and Taiwan (N = 85). To this end, we examined and compared their performance on an instrument including 15 multiple-choice test items. The items were categorized…

Science curriculum and instruction in K-12 settings in the United States is currently dominated by an emphasis on the science standards movement of the 1990s and the resulting standards-based high-stakes assessment and accountability movement of the 2000s. We argue that this focus has moved the field away from important philosophical…

The purpose of the study reported herein was to identify the important aspects of statistical knowledge that students in the middle school grades in United States are expected to learn as well as what the teachers are expected to teach. A systematic study of 49 states standards and one set of national standards was used to identify these important…

As the largest international study ever taken in history, the Trend in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) has been held as a benchmark to measure U.S. student performance in the global context. In-depth analyses of the TIMSS project are conducted in this study to examine key issues of the comparative investigation: (1) item flaws in mathematics…

This study compared one lesson across four U.S. "traditional" textbook series, two U.S. reform-based textbook series, and one Chinese mathematics textbook series in teaching the connection between multiplication and division. The results showed the differences across U.S. and Chinese lessons in both the teaching and the practice parts of…

Two years and seven months after the initiation of the U.S. satellite program, Soviet Russia launched a rocket north of the Caspian Sea carrying the now famous "Sputnik I" satellite. U.S. scientists were aware that Soviet Russia was planning on putting an artificial satellite into orbit; however, secrecy surrounding the timing and the…