Learning about the nature of science is an important aspect of becoming part of the culture of practicing physicists. While these topics have a long-standing tradition in U.S. curricula they are currently not part of German educational standards or curricula. And while there is some research concerning primary and secondary school students'…

University professors' views of nature of science play an important role when guiding undergraduate students into the culture of practicing physicists. While these topics have a long-standing tradition in U.S. curricula they are not part of German educational standards or curricula. Additionally professors' views--in contrast to those of their…

Research in organic chemistry education has revealed that students often rely on rote memorization when learning mechanisms. Not much is known about student productive resources for causal reasoning. To investigate incipient stages of student causal reasoning about single mechanistic steps of organic reactions, we developed a theoretical framework…