This study investigates alternative conceptions of chemistry concepts among Faculty of Science students at Palestine Technical University-Kadoorie. Students are found to have incorrect views about fundamental chemistry concepts. The study aims to identify these misconceptions, understand their origins, and their impact on students' comprehension.…

The ability to relate physical concepts and phenomena to multiple mathematical representations--and to move fluidly between these representations--is a critical outcome expected of physics instruction. In upper-division quantum mechanics, students must work with multiple symbolic notations, including some that they have not previously encountered.…

No matter if they are in high school or college, Turkish students have particular challenges when trying to understand chemistry lectures delivered in English. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the difficulties Turkish students have when studying chemistry in English. A survey was administered to Turkish students at a Turkish University,…

Quantitative reasoning, although included in most science courses, can be challenging to teach. In this article, we explore whether cooperative learning may help instructors teach quantitative reasoning and enhance students' understanding and learning experience. Our lesson was taught in a large introductory geoscience course. The lesson required…

This study sought to investigate the link between preferred learning styles, performance, and cognitive load. After determining learning styles (visual or auditory), undergraduate students were assigned to three instructional formats, namely: Listen Only, Read Only, and Read + Listen. A pretest was administered to assess students' prior knowledge…

In this study, we used eye-tracking methodology for deeper understanding of the refutation text effect on online text comprehension. A refutation text acknowledges the reader's alternative conceptions about a phenomenon, refutes them and presents the correct conceptions. We tested two hypotheses about its facilitation effect: the coherence…

In this paper, the level of conceptual understanding of Newtonian mechanics among Afghan school and university students in Kabul, Afghanistan was investigated. This study employed a quantitative descriptive survey method where the Pashto version of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) was given to a random sample of 216 students from two schools and…

Context-based learning (CBL) is advocated as beneficial to learners, but more needs to be understood about how different contexts used in courses influence student outcomes. Gilbert defined several models of context that appear to be used in chemistry. In one model that achieves many criteria of student meaning-making, the context is provided by…

Student misconceptions are an obstacle in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses and unless remediated may continue causing difficulties in learning as students advance in their studies. Writing-to-learn assignments (WTL) are characterized by their ability to promote in-depth conceptual learning by allowing students to explore…

When engaging with a textbook, students are inclined to highlight key content. Although students believe that highlighting and subsequent review of the highlights will further their educational goals, the psychological literature provides no evidence of benefits. Nonetheless, a student's choice of text for highlighting may serve as a window into…

Recent studies have shown that songs may enhance learning as they function as mnemonic devices to increase memorability. In this research, songs based on the more difficult subtopics in Chemistry were composed, encompassing many formulas, equations and facts to be remembered. This technique of song composition can be used in any subject, any point…

We have developed a metabolic pathways visualization skill test (MPVST) to gain greater insight into our students' abilities to comprehend the visual information presented in metabolic pathways diagrams. The test is able to discriminate students' visualization ability with respect to six specific visualization skills that we identified as key to…

Introductory biology courses typically present topics on related biological systems across separate chapters and lectures. A complete foundational understanding requires that students understand how these biological systems are related. Unfortunately, spontaneous generation of these connections is rare for novice learners. These experiments focus…

This dissertation explores science literacy for English learners (ELs) in secondary and university contexts. The two studies conducted for this dissertation demonstrate the reading comprehension abilities of secondary school ELs, and the writing of ELs for a university introductory biology course. The first study reveals some inequity in public…

Learners often insufficiently monitor their comprehension, which results in overconfident judgments of learning and underachievement. In the 3 present experiments, we investigated whether insufficient comprehension monitoring is due in part to the fact that learners are not sufficiently aware of the benefit of comprehension monitoring and thus…