The purpose of this study is to determine the distribution of Science achievements in Life Studies Course Curricula of 2009, 2015 and 2018 regarding the knowledge and cognitive process dimensions of the Revised Bloom Taxonomy and to comparatively examine the resulting distributions. This study adopted document analysis. While conducting the…

Science excellence is associated not only with a student's inherent aptitude but also a range of contextual factors. The objective of this paper was to identify the most important contextual characteristics of top performers in scientific literacy, by simultaneously considering factors at the PISA questionnaire-based student, family, and school…

This research aimed to explore the upper-secondary school chemistry teachers' and students' conceptual structures of atomic structure by using multidimensional scaling. Atomic structure is considered to be one of the most difficult concepts in upper-secondary school chemistry course so that the conceptual structure regarding atomic structure held…

The aim of this research was to assess the classification of science test items of TIMSS grade 8 based on higher order thinking skills (HOTS) and determine whether those classified-science test items can be an assessment tool in science class. Sixteen sample test items of HOTS were chosen from 37 reasoning items of TIMSS 1999, 2003, and 2011;…

In this paper, we propose a computational approach to model the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) using predicted probabilities of correctness and engaging students in reflective dialogue. To that end, we employ a predictive model that uses a linear function of a variety of parameters, including difficulty and student knowledge and we analyze the…

In this paper, we propose a computational approach to modeling the Zone of Proximal Development of students who learn using a natural language tutoring system for physics. We employ a student model that predicts students' performance based on their prior knowledge and their activity when using a dialogue tutor to practice with conceptual,…

The concept of classification of organisms in Biology seems to pose a problem to Secondary School students in Kenya. Though, the topic is important for understanding of the basic elements of the subject. The Examinations Council in Kenya has identified teacher centred pedagogical techniques as one of the main causes for this. Project based…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences among schools using student responses in the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study-1999 (TIMSS-99) data. Schools were classified into two groups based on eighth grade students' overall achievement in science. Two different discriminant function analyses were performed to distinguish…

Species identification tasks are a prerequisite for an understanding of biodiversity. Here, we focused on different educational materials to foster the identification of six European reptile species. Our educational training unit was based on natural plastic models of six species and pupils either used an illustrated identification book or a…