To support university students' learning, teaching should build on students' prior knowledge. Therefore, teachers need skills to pay attention to students' knowledge in teaching-learning situations. Teachers' underlying conceptual knowledge affects the way they see and interpret situations in classrooms, which is called professional vision. This…

With the introduction of internet as a source of information, parents have observed youngsters' tendency to prefer internet as a source, and almost a reluctance to learn in advance since "you can look it up when needed". Questions arise, such as 'Are these phenomena symptoms of changing beliefs about knowledge and learning? Is it at all…

In this exploratory study, we investigated the personal epistemologies of statisticians in academia with the aim of offering some insight into what might be an availing epistemology for learning statistics. Findings from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with six academics in the UK currently researching within the field of statistics showed…

This article reports on the types of views and misconceptions uncovered after assessing 155 freshman general chemistry students on the concept of particle position during the reversible physical change of melting, using the Melting Cycle Instrument, which illustrates particulate-level representations of a melting-freezing cycle. Animations…

This study aims to map the cognitive structure of pre-service English language (EL) teachers about three key concepts related to approaches and methods in language teaching so as to discover their learning process and misconceptions. The study involves both qualitative and quantitative data. The researcher administrated a Word Association Test…

A well-ordered biological complex can be formed by the random motion of its components, i.e. self-assemble. This is a concept that incorporates issues that may contradict students' everyday experiences and intuitions. In previous studies, we have shown that a tangible model of virus self-assembly, used in a group exercise, helps students to grasp…

The primary objective of this project was to learn what effect a computer program would have on academic achievement and attitude toward science of college students enrolled in a biology class for non-science majors. It became apparent that the instructor also had an effect on attitudes toward science. The researcher designed a computer program,…

College students often come to the study of evolutionary biology with many misconceptions of how the processes of natural selection and speciation occur. How to relinquish these misconceptions with learners is a question that many educators face in introductory biology courses. Constructivism as a theoretical framework has become an accepted and…

The study explores the civic identities of Romanian youth. Children born after 1989 have no memory of the communism; yet, they are the children and students of those who were educated under communism. Data sources were small group interviews with 21 youth and results indicate that participants believe "civic engagement is possible and…

We report on responses to a series of four questions designed to identify pre-existing abilities related to debugging and troubleshooting experiences of novice students before they begin programming instruction. The focus of these questions include general troubleshooting, bug location, exploring unfamiliar environments, and describing students'…

A formative assessment pretest was administered to undergraduate students at the beginning of a science course in order to find out their prior knowledge, misconceptions and learning difficulties on the topic of the human respiratory system and energy issues. Those findings could provide their instructors with the valuable information required in…