Students often have misconceptions about natural selection as they misuse a direct causal schema to explain the process. Natural selection is in fact an emergent process where random interactions lead to changes in a population. The misconceptions stem from students' lack of emergent schema for natural selection. In order to help students…

The purpose of this study was to investigate preservice science teachers' conceptual understanding of astronomy concepts. Qualitative research methods were used. The sample consists of 118 preservice science teachers (40 freshmen, 31 sophomores, and 47 juniors). The data were collected with Astronomy Conceptual Questionnaire (ACQ) that includes 13…

Background: Incorporating environmental sustainability (ES) into engineering education is vital to both individual engineering students' success and to the profession as a whole. This study explores attitudes, conceptions, and misconceptions about ES that students bring to the classroom. A promising framework of design-based research is applied to…

Screening brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) is a clinical intervention empirically linked to reductions in substance usage. However, less is known on how to effectively train social work students on SBIRT. This study examines the impact of a SBIRT training administered to BSW and MSW students (N=228) at the University of…

Sexually transmitted infections spread through skin-to-skin contact represent unique prevention challenges. This study examines how college students perceive safer sex practices with respect to human papillomavirus (HPV) and herpes. Qualitative and quantitative data (n = 275) were collected using an online questionnaire. College students'…

The article, "Using Animations in Identifying General Chemistry Students' Misconceptions and Evaluating Their Knowledge Transfer Relating to Particle Position in Physical Changes" (Smith and Villarreal, 2015), reports that a substantial proportion of undergraduate students expressed misconceived ideas regarding the motion of particles in…

During the last reform, Slovakia has reduced geometry in curriculum in primary mathematics education. Pre-school education schools devote more time to geometry in curriculum, but this is not mandatory for all the children. In the primary schools, teachers devote very little lessons time to this problem. These lessons are mainly focused on…

Reflection has recently been emphasized as a constructive pedagogical activity. However, little attention has been given to the quality of reflections that students write. In this study, we explored the reflections that students make about their knowledge organization as part of a formative learning activity. More specifically, we assessed the…

In this essay, Jill Zarestky shares what she learned about creating student-centered adult education programs with those who wish to teach adults internationally or in similar contexts. Prior to traveling, Zarestky repeatedly heard from other Westerners (NGO employees and volunteers) how little the women knew and how desperately they needed her…

Many studies have shown that students at different age levels come into classrooms with a variety of alternative conceptions. Commonly held alternative conceptions are the main source of the difficulties that students and teachers face in learning and teaching. The aim of this study was to compare the conceptual understanding of students who were…

The recommendation to study statistical variation has become prevalent in recent curriculum documents. At the same time, research on teachers' knowledge of variation is in its beginning stages. This study investigated prospective teachers' knowledge in regard to a specific measure of statistical variation that is new to many curriculum documents:…

For biologists, a proper understanding of evolutionary processes is fundamentally important. However, undergraduate biology students often struggle to understand evolutionary processes, replacing factual knowledge with misconceptions on the subject. Classroom discussions can be effective active learning tools used to address these misconceptions…

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cooperative learning based on conceptual change approach instruction on ninth-grade students' understanding in chemical bonding concepts compared to traditional instruction. Seventy-two ninth-grade students from two intact chemistry classes taught by the same teacher in a public high…

Student-generated annotated concept sketches provide an alternative approach for instructors to formatively assess students' understanding of environmental topics, such as photochemical smog and ozone layer depletion. The sketches are external representations of students' cognitive models. Results obtained from a group of 150 female students using…

University students' understanding of photosynthesis was examined in a large introductory biosciences class. The focus of this study was to first examine the conceptions of photosynthesis among students in class and then to investigate how a certain type of text could enhance students' understanding of photosynthesis. The study was based on pre-…