Teachers' professional knowledge is considered one of the most important predictors of instructional quality. According to Shulman, such professional knowledge includes content, pedagogical content and pedagogical knowledge. Although recent research shed some light on the structure of the dimensions of professional knowledge, little is known how…

Empirical analysis of secondary biology classrooms revealed that, on average, 68% of teaching time in Germany revolved around processing tasks. Quality of instruction can thus be assessed by analyzing the quality of tasks used in classroom discourse. This quasi-experimental study analyzed how teachers used tasks in 38 videotaped biology lessons…

Teachers' content-related knowledge is a key factor influencing the learning progress of students. Different models of content-related knowledge have been proposed by educational researchers; most of them take into account three categories: content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and curricular knowledge. As there is no consensus about…

Three subscales of the "Science Motivation Questionnaire II" (SMQII; motivational components: career motivation, self-efficacy and self-determination), with 4 items each, were applied to a sample of 209 secondary school students to monitor the impact of a 3-hour structured inquiry lesson. Four testing points (before, immediately after, 6…

Structure in the form of feedback has been shown to be highly relevant to students learning. Offering feedback, stating clear expectations and instructions, might enhance students' perceived competence. The context chosen for this study were experiments studying bird flight in biology lessons. Students experimented in a scientific discovery…

The need to develop clean-energy storage systems, harvesting technologies, and new functional materials are but a few of the many contemporary challenges in the domain of science today. To address these challenges, problem solving has become a key skill of the 21st century. It is generally documented, however, that experts and students differ in…

Many studies in science education acknowledge the positive effects of context-based learning on students' interest and attitudes. However, little is known about the design criteria of contextual situations generating these effects and how facets of students' situational interest are affected while learning in a contextualised setting. This paper…

Considering the reported lack of interest in the STEM-domain and the consequential difficulties in recruiting talented and interested young academics, the development of effective enrichment measures is indispensable. This requires a precise picture of students' interests. The paper presents an approach to characterize interest profiles in…

That the interplay of random and deterministic processes may result in both the limited predictability of nonlinear systems and the formation of structures seems to be a most valuable general insight into the nature of science. This study investigates the possibility of teaching and learning the interplay of chance and determinism in nonlinear…

Teachers' professional knowledge is assumed to be a key variable for effective teaching. As teacher education has the goal to enhance professional knowledge of current and future teachers, this knowledge should be described and assessed. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies quantitatively measures physics teachers' professional…

One aim of environmental education is fostering sustainable environmental action. Some environmental behaviour models suggest that this can be accomplished in part by improving people's knowledge. Recent studies have identified a distinct, psychometrically supported environmental knowledge structure consisting of system, action-related and…

To date, there has only been little conceptual change research regarding conceptions about glaciers. This study used the theoretical background of embodied cognition to reconstruct different metaphorical concepts with respect to the structure of a glacier. Applying the Model of Educational Reconstruction, the conceptions of students and scientists…

The concept of energy is one key component of science education curricula worldwide. While it is still being taught in many science classrooms from a mainly conceptual knowledge perspective, the need to frame the concept of energy as a socioscientific issue and implement it in the context of citizenship education and education for sustainable…

Research in the field of students' understandings of models and their use in science describes different frameworks concerning these understandings. Currently, there is no conjoint framework that combines these structures and so far, no investigation has focused on whether it reflects students' understandings sufficiently (empirical evaluation).…

There are a wide range of student emotions in academic settings, but apart from emotions such as interest and well-being, disgust is a negative emotion which might be relevant in biology education, for instance, during dissection or when encountering living animals. This paper addresses the issue of situational disgust during a course at the…