The central focus of my dissertation concerns the issue of representation. The issue of representation is important for science education research for two reasons: (1) the use of external representation in science teaching and learning, particularly in chemistry education, is ubiquitous as microscopic entities are not directly visible, and (2) the…

The central focus of my dissertation concerns the issue of representation. The issue of representation is important for science education research for two reasons: (1) the use of external representation in science teaching and learning, particularly in chemistry education, is ubiquitous as microscopic entities are not directly visible, and (2) the…

We humans are cultural and ecological beings. This is a study about children's drawing as a device for expressing intertwined cultural and ecological relations. Countless studies have examined children's drawing from psychological, anthropological, linguistic, and aesthetic perspectives, while recently posthuman perspectives have put forward…

Immersive 3D worlds can be designed to effectively engage students in peer-to-peer collaborative learning activities, supported by scientific visualization, to help with understanding complex concepts associated with learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Previous research studies have shown STEM learning benefits…

This dissertation explored beliefs about learning from multiple related visual representations in science, and compared beliefs to learning outcomes. Three research questions were explored: 1) What beliefs do pre-service teachers, non-educators and children have about learning from visual representations? 2) What format of presenting those…

Data visualizations designed for academic scientists are not immediately meaningful to everyday scientists. Communicating between a specialized, expert audience and a general, novice public is non-trivial; it requires careful translation. However, more widely available visualization technologies and platforms, including new three-dimensional…

This dissertation incorporates three studies that examine how the design of inquiry based science instruction, dynamic visualizations, and guidance for experimentation contribute to physics students' understanding of science. I designed a week-long, technology-enhanced inquiry module on car collisions that logs students' interactions with a…

Professionally developed and freely accessible through the Internet, scientific data maps have great potential for teaching and learning with data in the science classroom. Solving problems or developing ideas while using data maps of Earth phenomena in the science classroom may help students to understand the nature and process of science. Little…