The development of rich, reliable, and robust measures of the composition, structure, and stability of student thinking about core scientific ideas (such as natural selection) remains a complex challenge facing science educators. In their recent article (Nehm & Schonfeld 2008), the authors explored the strengths, weaknesses, and insights provided…

Concept mapping is discussed as a tool for the visualisation of knowledge structures that can be exploited within biological education. Application of this tool makes it possible to relate the structure of the curriculum to the structure of the discipline, in order to support the development of robust student knowledge structures in ways that…

Over the past three decades, science educators have accumulated a vast amount of information on conceptions--variously defined as beliefs, ontologies, cognitive structures, mental models, or frameworks--that generally (at least initially) have been derived from interviews about certain topics. During the same time period, cultural studies has…

The impulse to investigate the natural world is deeply rooted in our earliest childhood experiences. This notion has long guided researchers to uncover the cognitive mechanisms underlying the development of scientific reasoning in children. Until recently, however, research in cognitive development and education followed largely independent…

In this study we explore the strategies that undergraduate and graduate chemistry students use when engaged in classification tasks involving symbolic and microscopic (particulate) representations of different chemical reactions. We were specifically interested in characterizing the basic features to which students pay attention when classifying…

There is no agreement about the robustness of intuitive representations of the circulatory system and their susceptibility to change by instruction. In this paper, we analyse to what extent students with varying degrees of biology instruction and different ages (High School Health Science and Social Science students and first and final year…

Theoretical and empirical research on argument and argumentation in science education has intensified over the last two decades. The term argument in this review refers to the artifacts that a student or a group of students create when asked to articulate and justify claims or explanations whereas the term argumentation refers to the process of…

The main purpose of the study was to compare the effectiveness of 5E learning cycle model based instruction and traditionally designed chemistry instruction on 10th grade students' understanding of state of matter and solubility concepts. In this study, 119 tenth grade students from chemistry courses instructed by same teacher from an Anatolian…

The purpose of this study was to create a conceptual awareness in science education for accurate observation of what is happening around us. To correctly understand the conceptual framework of the curriculum currently being implemented and to make us aware of our need to know how to put this framework into practice will serve as a guide for…

Explores two differing perspectives of the nature of students' biological knowledge structures, conceptual frameworks, and phenomenological primitives (p-prims). Indicates that although a more prevalent description of student conceptions could not be discounted, p-prim of need as rationale for change was found to offer useful description of…

Discusses the relationships between physical, mathematical, and mental models in the process of constructing and understanding physical theories. Attempts to interpret research findings with college students regarding mental models and physics education under the framework of Johnson-Laird's mental model theory. (Author/MM)

Examines an argument about density among a middle school class of 10 students focussing on the argument as an example of a chaotic and complex system, the emerging development of understandings, and the underlying cognitive structures affecting students' understandings. (MM)

Employs latent partition analysis (a multivariate technique) to reveal pre/postcognitive structure of freshman engineering students (N=70) taking general chemistry. Similarities and dissimilarities among high and low scorers are discussed. Arguments for use of this statistical techniques are presented. (DH)

The effect of a relevant analogy and of subject visualization on the amount of cognitive capacity needed to process unfamiliar information about science was investigated. The dependent measure was reaction time on a secondary task while listening to six tape recorded passages about chemistry and physics in a 2 x 2 x 6 mixed design. The analogy…

Considered are two commonly used techniques, the interview and word association techniques. Highlighted is a third technique called the repertory grid. This third technique can be used to interpret students' knowledge based on an explicit, psychological theory of human behavior. (Author/CW)