Research on conceptual change indicates that not only children, but also teachers have incomplete understanding or misconceptions on science concepts. This mixed methods study was concerned with in-service teachers' understanding of four earth and space science concepts taught in elementary school: reason for seasons, phases of the moon, rock…

Within the field of education, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of formative assessment and of structural knowledge. In an effort to fill needs in each of these areas, this article describes an innovative feedback strategy intended to improve students' structural knowledge. Twenty-four high school physics students were…

The purpose of this study was to investigate students' understanding about scientifically acceptable content knowledge by exploring the relationship between knowledge of diffusion and osmosis and the students' certainty in their content knowledge. Data was collected from a high school biology class with the Diffusion and Osmosis Diagnostic Test…

This is a brief response to some of the issues raised by Gorard and Fitz in their paper, "What counts as evidence in the school choice debate?" published in the "British Educational Research Journal" v32, n6, 2006. Gorard and Fitz claim a "basic arithmetic error" (p. 807) in giving equal weighting to all LEAs (Noden,…

The purpose of this paper is to define and evaluate the categories of cognitive models underlying at least three types of educational tests. We argue that while all educational tests may be based--explicitly or implicitly--on a cognitive model, the categories of cognitive models underlying tests often range in their development and in the…

The Ancient Greeks saw the world as earth, air, fire and water. This article presents some children's ideas about what makes up the Earth. Children were asked to share what they thought the Earth was made of, how old it is, how long it took to create, and what is inside it. The answers indicate that they often have emerging though vague ideas…

Despite the ascendancy of constructivism, it seems that many, if not most, educationists in higher education and elsewhere still assume there is some transference of information to the learner from the social or physical environment, and that any process of interpretation and construction takes place after this basic information has been passively…

This article reviews the concepts and methods of Bayesian statistical analysis, which can offer innovative and powerful solutions to some challenging analytical problems that characterize developmental research. In this article, we demonstrate the utility of Bayesian analysis, explain its unique adeptness in some circumstances, address some…

An exciting element of science fairs is that they give students the opportunity to explore various interests through scientific investigation. Many students, however, mistakenly think that all investigations are experiments. This lesson can help broaden students' conceptions of science. (Contains 1 resource.)

This article reports on the results of a groundbreaking brain-imaging study suggesting that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder stems from delayed brain maturation. Implicit in some of the news coverage was the hopeful idea that many--even most--children eventually grow out of the disorder. But that's not exactly true, according to a…

How does the brain generate our experience of being in control over our actions and their effects? Here, we argue that the perception of events as self-caused emerges from a comparison between anticipated and actual action-effects: if the representation of an event that follows an action is activated before the action, the event is experienced as…

Particulate questions were used to investigate the strength of the mental association between the concept of compound and microscopic representations of molecules in students with different levels of chemistry preparation. The results have suggested that the mental association between the concepts of compound and particulate representations of…

In this accessible and honest look at homeschooling, the author explores the diverse faces of homeschooled students and the ways in which it can help children with special learning needs. She corrects misconceptions through profiles of diverse families and addresses the changing and complex needs of children today. This book addresses the major…

One of the greatest misconceptions still found in public schools is the erroneous belief that parents of immigrant students do not care about their children's education. However, the fact is, these parents care and are able to demonstrate it when they are respectfully embraced by a school community that recognizes how much they can contribute to…

Information literacy (IL) has been described as a core literacy. However emerging empirical research indicates that the phenomenon will have different characteristics in different contexts and will be played out in culturally different ways. This paper reviews the nature and growth of IL to ascertain how researchers understand the phenomenon in…