This study evaluated recent advances in learning progressions for the concept of matter (LPCM) and explored trends by reviewing the literature on the topic published between 2005 and 2021. A total of 21 studies were reviewed. Fifteen studies were devoted to developing LPCM of varying spans and grain sizes. There were six follow-up studies based on…

Science in schooling has for the first time been recently considered as a verified whole for the 10 or 12 of its compulsory years, rather than for a limited sector of schooling or for a particular group of students. This has also been occurring as part of a wider review and plan for the whole curriculum of schooling. A framework has been provided…

Learning progressions (LPs) are considered to have great potential to improve pedagogical practices. However, even with LPs, teachers may still be unaware of the barriers that keep students from progressing; many are struggling with essential pedagogical strategies to support students' progression. This study thus proposed an educative LP (ELP), a…

In this study, we explore the use of analogies with classical physics in introductory quantum physics (QP) teaching. This work is part of a larger project in which a learning sequence covering three introductory QP topics was designed, tested, and evaluated in collaboration with high school teachers and physics education researchers. Based on the…

Critical thinking is essential in academia and the workforce. Although writing can be used as a pedagogical tool for fostering deeper subject matter understanding, increased retention, and critical thinking, relatively few science courses are writing based. This writing-based introductory science course provided an opportunity for students to…

International science education reforms seek to support teachers in using everyday assessment to draw out and work with student ideas; however, developing these instructional practices requires time and support. This paper investigates how a professional development program supported high school chemistry teachers to learn about formative…

The activities designed by 91 teams of primary teacher education students as part of their teaching proposals in a course on science teaching are analysed together with the subsequent reformulations of those activities. The objective of the study was to gain insight into the students' professional practical knowledge and the underlying focus of…

Students struggle to acquire the needed energy understanding to meaningfully participate in the energy discourse about socially relevant topics, such as energy transformation or climate change. Identifying students on differing learning trajectories, as well as differences in knowledge used, is essential to help students achieve the needed energy…

Supply of students to 'the science pipeline' remains an important imperative for economic policy, and for individual life chances. In England, Science courses from age 14-16 have been divided into 'Double' and (extended) 'Triple' Science. This article draws on data from 6,053 students to investigate the effects of science course designation on…

One agenda of science instruction in primary schools is to develop learners' scientific reasoning abilities and to equip them with the necessary twenty-first-century skills. Few studies have been conducted to develop measurement tools that aspire to assess primary school learners' scientific reasoning. Most of these studies lack a theoretical…

"Representational transformation diagrams" are used to compare and contrast standard textbook presentations of vector line integrals in undergraduate courses in both mathematics and physics. These presentations are taken as the lower anchor in a learning trajectory. Two principal approaches in the lower division are identified, roughly…

The ability to communicate science effectively is a key attribute for science graduates, and considerable work has been done to establish the techniques and skills associated with effective communication. What is less clear however, is the learning progression students traverse as they develop proficiency in science communication. In this study we…

Learning Analytics are an academic field with promising usage scenarios for many educational domains. At the same time, learning analytics come with threats such as the amplification of historically grown inequalities. A range of general guidelines for more equity-focused learning analytics have been proposed but fail to provide sufficiently clear…

Learning progressions (LPs) are novel models for the development of assessments in science education, that often use a scale to categorize students' levels of reasoning. Pictorial representations are important in chemistry teaching and learning, and also in LPs, but the differences between pictorial and verbal items in chemistry LPs is unclear. In…

Historically, reforms designed to transform teaching from rote, teacher-centered instruction to progressive student-centered instruction have had varied levels of success. Plentiful research juxtaposes teachers' enacted instruction with the instructional ideals of reform efforts to determine the extent to which teachers' instruction aligns with…