Students' understanding of forces in circular motion is often incomplete. The problems are not limited to confusions about centripetal acceleration and centrifugal forces. This paper considers possible effects of different interventions by a teacher who has discovered the many types of free-body diagrams drawn by students for circular motion in a…

One crucial characteristic of scientifically literate individuals is making informed decisions in socioscientific issues (SSI). Participants' reasoning patterns and their risk perceptions shape their decisions. Thus, determining participants' informal reasoning patterns along with their risk perceptions while making decisions in SSI becomes…

Abilities in scientific thinking and reasoning have been emphasized as core areas of initiatives, such as the Next Generation Science Standards or the College Board Standards for College Success in Science, which focus on the skills the future will demand of today's students. Although there is rich literature on studies of how these abilities…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] Research in physics education has contributed substantively to improvements in the learning and teaching of university physics by informing the development of research-based instructional materials for physics courses. Reports on the design of these…

The ability to evaluate options and make informed decisions about problems in relevant contexts is a core competency in science education that requires the use of both domain-general and discipline-specific knowledge and reasoning strategies. In this study we investigated the implicit assumptions and modes of reasoning applied by individuals with…

Today, more than at any other time in human history, biologists are or should be concerned about the morality of biological research and newly developed technologies. Two questions confront any scientist or science student concerned about morality and the life sciences. Is there some theoretical framework that might be used to assist in deciding…