Analytical questions are the types of questions that can lead students to gain an understanding of a concept and explore reasoning. This research is a descriptive, qualitative study investigating the emergence of analytical questions and their interaction patterns in group discussions facilitated by a scientific approach to learning. The subjects…

We offer a new approach to emergent knowledge in processes of conceptual change in dyadic interaction by drawing on Pickering's ("The Mangle of Practice," The University of Chicago Press, London, 1995) Mangle of Practice theory, which theorizes the emergence of new scientific knowledge as occurring due to material resistance and human…

We present the results of a qualitative research study designed to explore differences in the types of reasoning triggered by information presented to chemistry students in two different formats. One group of students was asked to analyze a sequence of images designed to represent critical elements in the explanation of a target phenomenon.…

This study aimed to obtain the characteristics of students' mental models and the difficulties experienced by students while studying in schools in developing the ability of creative imagination. The number of samples involved in this study was 89 students of grade 11. The instrument used to achieve that goal were a test mental models in the form…

If an organic chemistry student explains that she represents a mechanistic step because ''it's a productive part of the mechanism,'' what meaning could the professor teaching the class attribute to this statement, what is actually communicated, and what does it mean for the student? The professor might think that the explanation is based on…

A dynamic assessment tool was developed and validated using Mokken scale analysis to assess the extent to which kindergartners are able to construct unconfounded experiments, an essential part of scientific reasoning. Scientific reasoning is one of the learning processes happening within science education. A commonly used, hands-on,…

This dissertation aims to explore how students think about atomic absorption and emission of light in the area of introductory quantum chemistry. In particular, the impact of classical ideas of electron position and energy on student understanding of spectra is studied. The analysis was undertaken to discover how student learning can be…

A model for processes of abstraction, based on epistemic actions, has been proposed elsewhere. Here we apply this model to processes in which groups of individual students construct shared knowledge and consolidate it. The data emphasizes the interactive flow of knowledge from one student to the others in the group, until they reach a shared…

In teaching a well-organized college physics course that is understandable to students, teachers should first understand students' conditions and circumstances and be clear on the goals of the course. The goals of physics teaching are commonly defined as understanding the nature of scientific reasoning and the concepts and methods of physics,…