The manuscripts in this collection expand the current research on the experience of undergraduate science students with virtual reality laboratories. A systematic literature review and synthesis involving 21 peer-reviewed empirical articles (2009-2018) revealed a dearth of theoretical and methodological approaches exploring VR Labs, which centered…

Context is the background or the settings of an event or idea. It is only when events or ideas are considered within the context in which they occur that they can be fully understood. In education, the application of knowledge communicated in one context to a different one is a central feature of learning. However, knowledge transfer can be…

Equally as important as growing the body of human knowledge through scientific discoveries and analysis is relaying this information to the general public in a digestible manner to establish a scientifically literate society. This dissertation approaches the multifaceted issue by combining an in-depth study of brown dwarf binary atmospheres with…

Teachers' values, beliefs, and self-confidence are critical components of decisions educators make every day. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between secondary science teachers' epistemology and self-efficacy on science instructional practices and conceptualization of student research experiences rooted in the Next…

The purpose of this study is to implement an intervention designed to develop background knowledge and investigate its effects on science proficiency for students who are at risk for failure. Pretest scores for 130 students were analyzed to identify students with prior knowledge deficits that may put them at risk for failure. Of the 44 students…

The purpose of this study was to create a culturally relevant, inquiry-based science lesson plan and examine how I can become a more culturally relevant educator. This was done first through the use of seminal frameworks in both pedagogies to examine similarities and differences. Secondly, eight experts in the fields were interviewed to gather…

Integrating reading instruction and content area curriculum has been suggested as a method of improving students' reading comprehension and access to content knowledge. Less clear are the specific practices that should be used across the curriculum to improve comprehension and build knowledge simultaneously. The two studies in this dissertation…

While it is well established that pedagogies purposefully linking subject matter to students' cultural contexts and prior knowledge can help students learn subject matter, little is known about practices for so doing in undergraduate biology courses enrolling substantial numbers of racially, culturally, and otherwise diverse students. This study…

A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which previous science achievement affected student performance in traditional hands-on and virtual laboratory environments. A sample of 70 first-year college students was employed in a counterbalanced A-B-A-B experimental design. The study spanned four instructional weeks of laboratory…

This dissertation examines the thesis that implicit learning plays a role in learning about scientific phenomena, and subsequently, in conceptual change. Decades of research in learning science demonstrate that a primary challenge of science education is overcoming prior, naive knowledge of natural phenomena in order to gain scientific…

Students attending schools in poor and historically marginalized communities lack access to curricula that combines both relevant science content and investigative practices--components the National Research Council (2012) has identified as necessary for effective learning. This lack of curricular access is also problematic in that it: (1)…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs held by teacher candidates (TCs) regarding the integration of fictional literature into elementary science instruction. Data were collected in the forms of a Q sort completed by two sections of TCs as an in-class activity, demographics and background information…

Many Christian students graduate from secondary schools and enter Christian colleges with worldviews that are unbiblical or contain unbiblical components, many of which stem from their beliefs regarding origins. Little research has been done to study the effect of gender on the role of a young-earth creationist (YEC) origins course in shaping…

The purpose of this study was to explain middle school teachers' decisions for planning a science unit of instruction (reflection on action) and their decisions when enacting this planned unit (reflection in action) using the new teacher professional knowledge and skill (TPK&S) model as a guiding framework. In addition, this study specifically…

This is a descriptive, exploratory, qualitative, collective case study that explores the pedagogical practices of science teachers who do not hold natural science degrees. The intent of this study is to support the creation of alternative pathways for recruiting and retaining high-quality secondary science teachers in K-12 education. The…