This special issue of "Journal of Research in Science Teaching" reflects conclusions and recommendations in the "Discipline-Based Education Research" (DBER) report and makes a substantial contribution to advancing the field. Research on undergraduate science learning is currently a loose affiliation of related fields. The…

Differences in problem-solving ability among organic chemistry graduate students and faculty were studied within the domain of problems that involved the determination of the structure of a molecule from the molecular formula of the compound and a combination of IR and [to the first power]H NMR spectra. The participants' performance on these tasks…

Students given sufficient information to be able to design chemical separations of cations performed better on a post-test, and on a four-month retention test on chemical knowledge and laboratory procedures, than students given a detailed laboratory guide listing the steps to follow. (AL)

College freshmen chemistry students who performed best on the course examinations possessed both relevant facts and relevant subsuming concepts. This conclusion supports Ausubel's theory of learning. The presence of facts unorganized by subsumers had little facilitating effect on learning of new materials. (AL)

Some early results are reported of a study to examine trends of student evaluations in college level physics courses. Higher ratings were consistently given for higher level courses. (PS)

Different learner characteristics are related to success in audio-tutorial and traditional" courses when step-wise multiple regression analysis is used. (AL)

College physics students' understanding of the process of science, as measured by the Science Process Inventory, was better for students in a traditional, structured laboratory than in an inquiry laboratory that covered the same experiments. (MLH)

Concludes that the group taught by the audio-tutorial method made significantly higher scores than did the lecture-laboratory group on both (1) achievement tests and (2) a retention test administered 11 weeks after the termination of the college Animal Biology course. (MLH)

Investigates the effect of three models of teaching college astronomy on knowledge acquisition, based on the principles of kinetic structure analysis and the psychological concept of mass versus distributed practice. Results indicate that distributed integration is better than nondistributed integration in teaching certain fields in astronomy. (HM)

Reports on procedures utilized by the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) between 1974 and 1977 to define priorities for research in science education. (CP)

Examines statistical correlations between six student traits and five measures of course success for 103 college students enrolled in an audio-tutorial introductory chemistry course. Among the conclusions was that the best predictors of success are the measures of prior achievement, notably grade-point average. (MLH)

Identifies 20 out of 108 science misconceptions, selected by 30 percent or more of a sample of 1,444 high school and university students in Lebanon. (MLH)

Showed that Piagetian measures of formal reasoning ability are significantly related to achievement, aptitude, and knowledge of the processes of science in a sample of college freshman and sophomore elementary education majors. (MLH)

Investigated was the development of word associations of physics students from age 12 to university graduates. Results indicated response availability increased with age, irrespective of science/nonscience distinction, but that associative indices could be useful as tools in studying early stages of learning. (SL)

A descriptive study conducted to identify characteristics and attitudes of college physics students as related to their perceptions of the study of physics. A questionnaire was administered to 1,108 students, of whom five percent were physics majors. Chi Square Analysis indicated students with high school physics background liked physics to a…