This study investigates the impact of constructivist teaching methods on achievement and misconceptions in mechanics, with a focus on gender differences. The research involved 88 first-year physics students enrolled in the physics teacher training program. Using a quasi-experimental design, students were divided into experimental (constructivist…

Analogies can be powerful teaching tools because they can make new material intelligible to students by comparing it to material that is already familiar. In assisting students to understand chemistry concepts, teachers occasionally use analogies. These analogies are believed to help the students to structure the new knowledge and they are…

The aim of this study was to compare the 5E learning model with traditional learning methods in terms of their effect on students' conceptual understanding of water subtopics. The participants of the study were grade 8 students of 2021 academic year. While 27 of them were randomly assigned to the experimental group, the other 27 were assigned to…

Whilst Productive Failure (Kapur, "Cognition and Instruction," 26:379-424, 2008, "Instructional Science," 38:523-550, 2010; Kapur & Bielaczyc, "Journal of the Learning Sciences" 21:45-83, 2012) has been shown to be efficacious in deepening students' learning of mathematics in Singapore classrooms, an action…

Research Findings: This study explores how Chinese preschool teachers' enactment of Concept Development (CD) strategies, as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), might effectively elicit children's higher-order thinking during whole-group science teaching. Participants included 25 Chinese preschool teachers and 800 young…

The purpose of this action research study was to explore the impact of problem-based learning on science instruction in my eighth-grade college preparatory classroom. Constructivism was the framework for this study. Problem-based learning is based on constructivist principles, and it served as the instructional model for this study. PBL can foster…

Our research with Grade 9 learners at a school in Soweto was conducted to explore learners' understanding of fundamental fraction concepts used in applications required at that level of schooling. The study was based on the theory of constructivism in a bid to understand whether learners' transition from whole numbers to rational numbers enabled…

The 21st-century mathematics classrooms should equip learners with well-grounded knowledge and thinking skills pertaining to geometry. However, Euclidean geometry remains one of the challenging, if not the most difficult topic for many learners. As a result, the purpose of this article is to interpret Grade 12 learners' learning difficulties in…

Several instructional approaches have been advanced for learning programming. However, effective ways of engaging beginners in programming in K-12 are still unclear, especially among low socioeconomic status learners in technology-deprived learning environments. Understanding the learning path of novice programmers will bridge this gap and explain…

The constructivist paradigm opens abundant opportunities for effective knowledge construction in which student build knowledge and continually evaluated and improved their knowledge. The teaching mode under constructivist pedagogy redefines the role of students and the teachers and their interrelationships by creating a nurturing environment. By…

Over half a century has passed since Bruner suggested his three-stage enactive-iconic-symbolic model of instruction. In more recent research, predominantly in educational psychology, Bruner's model has been reformulated into the theory of instruction known as concreteness fading (CF). In a recent constructivist teaching experiment investigating…

Certain aspects of theoretical frameworks in mathematics education can remain unexplained in the literature, hence unnoticed by the readers. It is thus interesting to participate in a dialogue where they can be discussed and compared in terms of the aims, objects studied, results and their relation to teaching. This study is focused on how APOS…

This study seeks to examine the effect of the 5E learning model, as one of the constructivist learning approach models, supported by conceptual change texts and enriched with relevant guidance materials on eliminating the fifth-grade students' (n=42) misconceptions about "Heat and Temperature". A quantitative research approach was…

The derivative is a central concept in calculus and has applications in many disciplines. This study explored students' understanding of derivatives with a particular focus on the graphical (geometric) representation. The participants were four Mathematics Honours students from a university in Lesotho. Data were generated from the written…

Simulation educational technologies provide a convenient way to augment classroom learning in higher education. The University of Colorado Boulder has created many Physics Education Technology (PhET) computer simulations relevant to concepts in Sciences and Mathematics. There is a notable gap in the literature of simulation-based technologies,…