If a smooth ball is dropped vertically without spin on a smooth horizontal surface then one might expect the ball to bounce vertically without spin. If it does not then the centre of mass of the ball does not coincide with its geometric centre. An experiment is described where a billiard ball and a superball are deliberately biassed by adding a…

The question of whether Faraday's flux law is universal or whether there are exceptions has long been controversial. This discussion seemed to have recently concluded in favor of the generality of Faraday's Flux Law. The present article raises this question again with the aid of some rather simple measurements carried out on a Faraday generator.…

Researchers of science education, historians, and philosophers of science agree that the teaching of nature of science (NOS) is important to be integrated into K-12 classes. Our previous research showed that NOS is not embedded into science teaching in Greece. To study the possibility of its integration, a PD-program for in-service science…

In this article we analyze the classic Hodgkin and Keynes 1955 paper describing investigations of the independence principle, with the expectation that there is much students and educators can learn from such exercises, most notably how the authors applied their diverse skill set to tackling the numerous obstacles that the study presented. The…

Energy is one important concept in physics, but science education research has repeatedly shown that students struggle to develop a full understanding of energy. Especially challenging for students is the notion of potential energy. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential energy forms, students struggle to make connections between them.…

This study investigates the process of students' metacognitive learning about homeostasis, a fundamental biological principle. The research aimed to determine how the metacognitive awareness learning approach (MCLA) affects student perceptions of homeostasis. The research participants were 146 Israeli 10th-grade students (ages 15-16) who were…

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration--European Space Agency collaborative mission to test the feasibility of defending Earth from a catastrophic asteroid impact by using a spacecraft to deflect the asteroid away from the planet. Launched on Nov. 23, 2021, the DART spacecraft will intercept…

Background: The views of the nature of science (VNOS) is one of the important goals of science education. According to information processing constructivism, learners' psychological factors that may influence VNOS include scientific argumentation (SA), metacognition (MC) and epistemic beliefs (EB). Purpose: This mixed-methods study aims to analyse…

Despite decades of research, NOS is still rarely explicitly and accurately taught in K-12 schools (Abd-El-Khalick & Lederman, 2023). Teachers often address NOS ineffectively as a result of inadequate knowledge of NOS and science content (Wahbeh & Abd-El-Khalick, 2014) as well as NOS pedagogy (Hanuscin et al., 2011). A variety of contextual…

The philosophy of science (POS) has gained recognition for its contributions to science education, particularly in integrating the history and philosophy of science (HPS). However, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive review that systematically investigates the implications and limitations of POS in science education research. This study…

Purpose -- This study is part of a comprehensive investigation conducted in Malaysia, examining science teachers' understanding of the Nature of Science (NOS) and their ability to translate this knowledge into Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) for NOS. This paper specifically examines how teachers apply their NOS knowledge to develop NOS PCK in…

Graduates in biology or genetics learn Mendel's laws and Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium as students, and they know, use, and sometimes teach these concepts. However, it is unusual to learn about stochastic processes during the graduate studies of these topics, although the applications of Markov chains in the fields of genetics or biology are…

Explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction has demonstrated a positive impact on student learning. Although explicit-reflective NOS instruction often consists of questions that draw students' attention to NOS ideas, there are few recommendations in the science education literature about how the form of these questions might inform NOS…

The principle of relativity is of fundamental importance in practice when we are solving problems in physics since the axiom states that the result of any physical experiment is the same when performed with identical initial conditions relative to any inertial coordinate system. Hence, conceptual knowledge of coordinate systems is central in any…

This article reports on the effect of textbook analysis as a tool of teacher professional development on nature of science (NOS) understanding of 10 science teachers in South Africa. The teacher professional development program (TPDP) was based on an explicit reflective methodology of textbook analysis and conducted online due to the Covid-induced…