Design-based learning is considered a powerful way to help students apply and develop understanding of science concepts, but research has shown that the success of this approach is not a given. Examining students' understanding of science concepts in various design-based learning contexts has thus continued to be an important field of research. To…

This study evaluates the use of an open-ended question to determine students' knowledge structure on the topic of galvanic cells. The open-ended question was developed and administered to 163 Grade 10 students who had earlier completed a course on electrochemistry. Students' responses were marked as well as coded on the basis of the fields…

Providing scientific explanations for natural phenomena is a fundamental aim of science; therefore, scientific explanation has been selected as one of the key practices in science education policy documents around the world. To further elaborate on existing educational frameworks of scientific explanation in K-12, we propose a learning progression…

This article describes revisions to four of the eight constructs of the Duncan molecular genetics learning progression [Duncan, Rogat, & Yarden, (2009)]. As learning progressions remain hypothetical models until validated by multiple rounds of empirical studies, these revisions are an important step toward validating the progression. Our…

While the majority of published research on conceptual change has focused on how misconceptions can be abandoned or modified, some recent research findings support the hypothesis that acquired scientific knowledge does not necessarily erase or alter initial non-scientific knowledge but rather coexists with it. In keeping with this…

We present a new system for automated scoring of graph construction items that address complex science concepts, feature qualitative prompts, and support a range of possible solutions. This system utilizes analysis of spatial features (e.g., slope of a line) to evaluate potential student ideas represented within graphs. Student ideas are then…

This article presents an empirical study on an initial learning progression of energy, a concept of central importance to the understanding of science. Learning progressions have been suggested as one vehicle to support the systematic and successful teaching of core science concepts. Ideally, a learning progression will provide teachers with a…

The literature provides confounding information with regard to questions about whether students in high school can engage in meaningful argumentation about socio-scientific issues and whether this process improves their conceptual understanding of science. The purpose of this research was to explore the impact of classroom-based argumentation on…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a web-based learning environment in enhancing 10th grade high-school students' understanding of the concept of "chemical bonding". Two groups participated in this study: an experimental group (N = 161) and a comparison one (N = 93). The teachers in the experimental group were asked to implement four…

In the study of science topics especially in physics students are expected to move between different modes of representation when dealing with a particular concept as any science concept can be represented in several different modes. The difficulty for students is that they are often unable to move between these multi-modal representations and…

In this article we apply a novel analytical framework to explore students' difficulties in understanding molecular genetics--a domain that is particularly challenging to learn. Our analytical framework posits that reasoning in molecular genetics entails mapping across ontologically distinct levels--an information level containing the genetic…

Indicates that the ability of tenth-grade students (N=600) to distinguish between teleological or anthropomorphic explanations and causal ones is different and independent from the ability to distinguish between teleological or anthropomorphic formulations and factual ones, and that special treatment should be given to develop each of these two…

This article explores the conceptual change of students in Grades 10 and 12 in three Australian senior high schools when the teachers included computer multimedia to a greater or lesser extent in their teaching of a genetics course. The study, underpinned by a multidimensional conceptual-change framework, used an interpretive approach and a…

Three psychometric methods for validating learning hierarchies were applied to one data set derived from student responses (N=269) to items representing skills in a hypothesized hierarchy for the mole concept. The hierarchy derived from the analysis was supported by a test for transfer of learning from subordinate to superordinate skills.…

This study aimed to assess grade 10 Turkish students' and science teachers' conceptions of nature of science (NOS) and whether these conceptions were related to selected variables. These variables included participants' gender, geographical region, and the socioeconomic status (SES) of their city and region; teacher disciplinary background, years…