We investigated undergraduate students' approaches to reading primary scientific literature (PSL). Self-report surveys and think-aloud reading interviews were used to uncover students' approaches to PSL with respect to evidence finding, prioritisation of paper sections, and reading skill in relation to task context. Self-report and observational…

In this study, we propose an 'Approach to Modeling' (AtM) framework for examining how undergraduates approach tasks that require modelling scientific phenomena. Our framework is adapted from Approach to Learning (AtL) theories and consists of three observable behavioural constructs: metacognition, generative thinking, and causal reasoning. Twenty…

This research aimed to investigate the nature of cognitive processes when college students reason about evidence on global climate change (GCC). Twenty-six undergraduate students participated in this qualitative study, where they were interviewed to evaluate competing arguments on key issues related to GCC and discuss their own perspectives.…

This paper describes the results of a comparative study into the approaches used by science undergraduates when solving open-ended problems. This study adopted a pseudo-grounded theory framework to analyse six case studies, one from each of the science disciplines studied. The study involved 70 participants from 5 institutions solving open-ended…

This study examines the epistemic beliefs about justification employed by physics undergraduate and graduate students and faculty in the context of solving a standard classical physics problem and a frontier physics problem. Data were collected by a think-aloud problem solving session followed by a semi-structured interview conducted with 50…

We present a quantitative model for predicting the level of difficulty subjects will experience with specific problems. The model explicitly accounts for the number of subproblems a problem can be broken into and the difficultly of each subproblem. Although the model builds on previously published models, it is uniquely suited for blending with…

Two independent lines of research--mental simulations and thought experiments--provide strong arguments about the importance of perceptual modalities for the instructional practices in science education. By situating the use of mental simulations in the framework of thought experiments, this study investigated the nature and the role of mental…

Chemical phenomena can be described using three representation modes: macro, submicro, and symbolic. The way students use and connect these modes when solving conceptual problems was studied, using a think-aloud interview protocol. The protocol was validated through interviews with six faculty members, and then applied to four graduate and six…