This study aimed to investigate the following questions: Does the use of thinking maps and semantic mapping during explicit vocabulary instruction affect content specific science vocabulary knowledge and comprehension in fourth grade students? and What are student perceptions of using thinking maps and semantic maps to learn new vocabulary? To…

Teacher-centered lecture-style classes predominate in the Republic of Korea. Typically, classes follow a three-stage structure: introduction, development, and wrap-up. This study aims to analyze concepts teachers present in each stage of photosynthesis classes from a conceptual perspective and how these concepts are connected across each stage. To…

A complex terminology developed around the evolutionary concept of adaptation. One definition of adaptation is synonymous with adaptive evolution and denotes a process of population change driven by natural selection resulting in individuals better able to survive and reproduce in a particular environment (compared to the population before the…

This study examined the impact of spatial ability on science achievement by distinguishing between domain-general and domain-specific spatial abilities, focusing on their relationship with the conceptual understanding of the apparent path of the sun. Additionally, the mediating effects of domain-specific spatial knowledge on the relationships…

We conducted two experiments to assess the alignment between Generative AI (GenAI) text personalization and hypothetical readers' profiles. In Experiment 1, four LLMs (i.e., Claude 3.5 Sonnet; Llama; Gemini Pro 1.5; ChatGPT 4) were prompted to tailor 10 science texts (i.e., biology, chemistry, physics) to accommodate four different profiles…

Within the scope of this investigation, educational instruments grounded on materialist ontology were employed to undertake a semantic analysis of the concepts of cell and the mechanisms of living organisms as they appear in biology and natural science textbooks. Drawing upon the ontological categories applied to distinct biological system levels,…

Collaborative learning has numerous benefits such as enhancing learners' critical thinking, developing social skills, and improving learning gains. While engaging in this interactive process, learners' satisfaction toward their partners plays a crucial role in defining the success of the collaboration. However, detecting learners' satisfaction…

This research draws on Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) to understand the epistemic dimension of the higher education classroom discourse of a professor who is well evaluated by his students. In expository science classroom discourse, concepts are loaded with different meanings, a process that is called "condensation of meanings" in LCT,…

Textbooks can have a fundamental and positive effect on both learning and teaching. As such, in order to understand how students structure concepts in their minds, it is necessary to analyze the structure in which those concepts presented in textbooks are described. This study examined a network of concepts used in the domain of biotechnology in…

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which teachers use language to promote vocabulary development (i.e., vocabulary talk moves) during science instruction in early-elementary classrooms. Twenty-four total science lessons were recorded by eight teachers, providing 894.27 min of observational data across three timepoints. Discourse…

Contemporary science education themes are marked by the inevitable uncertainty of consequences emerging from human actions. They encompass disasters, pandemics and other events that have been marking our present times. Understanding new risks as the ones resulting from human action, even when proposing a solution for an issue, is one of the…

The aim of this study was investigated of prospective science teachers' understandings on ergastic substances with the semantic mappings. This study was phenomenological research method. 38 prospective science teachers in the science teaching department of a public university participated in the research. The prospective science teachers were…

The increased demand for bilingual education has resulted in a growing need for professionally and linguistically qualified teachers whose shortage is evident in most Slovak schools. As science subjects form a major part of bilingual school curricula, the aim of our research is to determine the current situation from the combined opinions of…

The development of learning practices that enable students to transfer knowledge across contexts, is a dominant topic in Physics Education Research. Assessment is a key activity in the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the value of analysing introductory physics assessments using the Semantics dimension of Legitimation…

Debates on the philosophical interpretations of quantum physics have motivated a renewed interest in how secondary and lower undergraduate students interpret quantum phenomena. In an attempt to contribute to this effort, this paper examines the dynamics of perspective in quantum physics in the context of teacher education. The goal of the study is…