Understanding experimental design (e.g. control of variable strategy or CVS) is foundational for scientific reasoning. Previous research has demonstrated that demonstrations with cognitive conflict (e.g. asking students to evaluate and explain different experimental designs) are effective in promoting children's scientific reasoning, however, the…

In science education, the improvement in students' ability to construct arguments at the primary school level has been reported. Although these studies have identified difficulties in arguments written by primary school students, they do not indicate areas that require improvement in teaching methods. This study aims to explore the possibility of…

This paper examines the roles of multimodality and thematic patterns in the teaching of the particle model of matter. Although the particle model is a fundamental topic in science education, there is no consensus on (1) whether or not the model should be introduced in early grades and (2) how to introduce the model to students for the very first…

This research explored dream science classrooms of primary school third and fourth-grade students. Research is designed as a case study. The students were first asked to illustrate their dream science classroom and produce a short description of their drawings. Second, they were asked to write their expectations of their teachers, their…

"Active learning" has been used to describe classrooms that have varied widely with respect to instructional topics, age of learners, and the procedures used to operationalize the general notion of the term. In most cases, the specific variant of active learning under investigation has been more effective than the particular control used…

The aim of this research is to establish the contribution of demonstration and student-led experiments on the quality of students' knowledge about the air-related content in the third grade of primary school. This research included 120 students from Serbia, divided into two groups: control (C) and experimental (E). In group C the experiments were…

"Active learning" has been used to describe classrooms that have varied widely with respect to instructional topics, age of learners, and the procedures used to operationalize the general notion of the term. In most cases, the specific variant of active learning under investigation has been more effective than the particular control used…