The author reports on an exploratory study to establish a semantic base for the concept of competence in the French-speaking literature on education. Doing so will make it possible to identify neighbouring concepts or notions that researchers can use to determine definitions and applications for the concept. The research team found only one…

In this paper, we describe a tool coined as artificial intelligence-based student learning evaluation tool (AISLE). The main purpose of this tool is to improve the use of artificial intelligence techniques in evaluating a student's understanding of a particular topic of study using concept maps. Here, we calculate the probability distribution of…

The role of teacher education is to initiate purposeful conversation regarding specific content, to provide the scaffold for which preservice teachers can begin to understand the subject matter for the purpose of teaching, and to acknowledge gaps in their conceptual knowledge (Grossman and Shoenfeld with Lee 2005). Teacher candidates may enter…

In physics teacher education, one of the recurrent themes is the importance of fostering the formation of organised and coherent knowledge structures, but a simple shared understanding of what coherence actually means and how it can be recognised, is not easily found. This study suggests an approach in which the coherence of students' views about…

University research education in many disciplines is frequently confronted by problems with students' weak level of understanding of research concepts. A mind map technique was used to investigate how students understand central methodological concepts of empirical, theoretical, qualitative and quantitative. The main hypothesis was that some…

Some curricular elements are threshold concepts that involve "troublesome knowledge," not because they are difficult for students to comprehend per se, but because they are challenging for students to fully appreciate. In this article, we suggest that entrepreneurial failure is a threshold concept in entrepreneurship courses because…

The framework for the study of concept formation embraced by the articles in this special issue makes it possible to observe and catalog the mechanisms by which conceptual structures in the wild achieve and maintain organization. I propose a provisional inventory of such mechanisms that includes the primitive mechanisms of dimensionality…

We evaluate a new approach to teaching the basic biochemistry mechanisms that regulate the biology of Triatominae, major vectors of "Trypanosoma cruzi," the causative agent of Chagas disease. We have designed and used a comic book, "Carlos Chagas: 100 years after a hero's discovery" containing scientific information obtained by…

An important aspect of PBL problems is the affordances that they hold for engaging students in discussion of important content knowledge. In this paper, I argue that one can analyze a problem in terms of a deep problem space and a broader learning space to identify the conceptual ideas for potential engagement. The problem space refers to the…

This study expands contemporary theorising about students' conceptions of equality. A nationally representative sample of New Zealand students' were asked to provide a spoken numerical response and an explanation as they solved an arithmetic additive missing number problem. Students' responses were conceptualised as acts of communication and…

When entering the classroom, adolescents already hold various conceptions on science topics. Concept maps may function as useful tools to reveal such conceptions although labor-intensive analysis often prevents application in typical classroom situations. The authors aimed to provide teachers with an appropriate approach to analyze students'…

The paper details an exploratory qualitative study that investigated 61 prospective teachers' conceptual understanding of dissolving salt and sugar in water respectively. The study was set within a 15-week elementary science methods course that included a 5E learning cycle lesson on dissolving, the instructional context. Oversby's…

This study reports on the development of second-year student teachers' knowledge of research, and the changes in their beliefs and attitude regarding research during an introductory course at an institute for primary teacher education. Questionnaires and concept maps were administered before and after the course. The results showed that student…

In secondary science education, the learning and teaching of coherent conceptual understanding are often problematic. Context-based education has been proposed as a partial solution to this problem. This study aims to gain insight into the development of conceptual coherence and how context-embedded learning-teaching activities (LT) can promote…

Background and purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify the nature and the interrelatedness of pre-service teachers' misconceptions and scientific concepts for explaining dissolving before, during, and after a 5E learning cycle lesson on dissolving, the intervention. Sample, design, and methods: Guided by Vygotsky's…