One expected outcome of physics instruction is for students to be capable of relating physical concepts to multiple mathematical representations. In quantum mechanics (QM), students are asked to work across multiple symbolic notations, including some they have not previously encountered. To investigate student understanding of the relationships…

Evolution is foundational to understanding biology, yet learners at all stages have incomplete and incorrect ideas that persist beyond graduation. Contextual features of prompts (e.g., taxon of organism, acquisition vs. loss of traits, etc.) have been shown to influence both the learning process and the ideas students express in explanations of…

A deep understanding of organic chemistry requires a learner to understand many concepts and have fluency with multiple skills. This understanding is particularly necessary for constructing and using mechanisms to explain chemical reactions. Electrophilicity and nucleophilicity are two fundamental concepts to learning and understanding reaction…

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.…

For the past decade, the College of Chemistry at UC Berkeley has iteratively redesigned general chemistry laboratory courses to introduce students to green chemistry concepts, while simultaneously using green chemistry as a relevant context to learn chemistry. To investigate the effectiveness of this curriculum we developed approaches to…

Previous research has shown that in prehigher education stages, inquiry-based teaching is not sufficient for forming a mature understanding of the nature of science (NOS). However, there is relatively little research conducted on colleges. Inquiry-based teaching should not overlook cognitive frameworks, as students' limited scientific reasoning…

The use of multiple-choice (MC) instruments to assess pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has advantages in terms of test economy and objectivity, but it also poses challenges, for example, in terms of adequately capturing the intended construct. To help address these challenges, we developed and evaluated a new instrument to assess science…

The learning of scientific concepts is one of the main research subjects in science education. Although little used, the theory of conceptual profiles allows the study of this knowledge, taking into account the presence of different ways of thinking about a certain concept in the same individual. This study aimed to build a conceptual profile for…

Introductory courses are often designed to cover a range of topics with the intent to offer students exposure to the given discipline as preparation to further their study in the same or related disciplines. Unfortunately, students in these courses are often presented with an overwhelming amount of information that may not support their formation…

Analogies are used to make abstract topics meaningful and more easily comprehensible to learners. Incorporating simple analogies into STEM classrooms is a fairly common practice, but the analogies are typically generated and explained by the instructor for the learners. We hypothesize that challenging learners to create complex, extended analogies…

Academic misconduct is a serious issue among college students, and integrating academic ethics into major courses is expected to help prevent, dissuade, and respond to this issue. With the widespread adoption of flipped classrooms in higher education, it is necessary to explore effective ways to integrate academic ethics into flipped major…

While many university health science programs include physics courses to raise knowledge and understanding of physical science concepts, they are still far from addressing the needs of that science health profession. This study aimed to investigate the effect of an introductory physics course on first-year physiotherapy and rehabilitation (PR)…

Despite standardized engineering and administrative controls, accidents persist in chemistry laboratories owing to the inherent complexity of the experiments. As a result, there is an increasing need to strengthen safety culture, which is built on a safety mindset and refers to an institution's knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of laboratory…

The American Chemical Society holds supporting diverse student populations engaging in chemistry as a core value. We analyzed chemical concept inventory scores from 4,612 students across 12 institutions to determine what inequities in content knowledge existed before and after introductory college chemistry courses. We interpreted our findings…

The limited capabilities of teaching laboratories, combined with an increasing number of students enrolled in university, require constant augmentation of instructional approaches. By enhancing laboratory demonstrations with digital technology, these structural issues can be addressed while at the same time enhancing student understanding and…