In undergraduate research settings, students are likely to encounter anomalous data, that is, data that do not meet their expectations. Most of the research that directly or indirectly captures the role of anomalous data in research settings uses post-hoc reflective interviews or surveys. These data collection approaches focus on recall of past…

Authentic, "messy data" contain variability that comes from many sources, such as natural variation in nature, chance occurrences during research, and human error. It is this messiness that both deters potential users of authentic data and gives data the power to create unique learning opportunities that reveal the nature of science…

This study aims to examine the effectiveness of metacognitive scaffolding in different inquiry tasks related to optics. Two high school classes participated in this study. One class, the treatment group (n = 33), which integrated metacognitive prompts into the simulation-based inquiry, was compared to the other class, the control group (n = 34),…

Efforts have been devoted to introduce in science curricula direct instruction for evaluating scientific reports on socioscientific issues. In this study, students' opinions on the SSI of mobile telephones effects have been investigated before and after a classroom activity designed to enable students to assess scientific data. Aspects of the…