An important educational goal is enabling students to learn scientific concepts. The scientific concepts learned in class are developed within students' cognitive structures. Despite the successful application of Semantic Network Analysis (SNA) to study these cognitive structures, there has been limited examination of students' concept networks…

Developing a deeper understanding of scientific concepts is one of the primary goals of science education. To improve students' conceptual understanding, it is necessary to explore the major characteristics of their learning process. Informed by previous work on conceptual understanding, this study focuses on the concept of evaporation, exploring…

The interactive mechanism between social and concept networks is a key question in connectivist learning, which explains the impact of interaction on cognitive development and knowledge generation. The successful practice of "Internet Change Education: Dialogue between Theory and Practice", the first cMOOC in China, provides data support…

Critical thinking is an important part of higher education in Canada, and many education systems worldwide, but not all cultural contexts. Critical thinking enables students to expand their perspectives and better navigate important personal and professional decisions. This narrative inquiry compares Canadian and Iranian international graduate…

Most educational literature on conceptual change concerns the process by which introductory students acquire scientific knowledge. However, with modern developments in science and technology, the social significance of learning successive theories is steadily increasing, thus opening new areas of interest to discipline-based education research,…

When teaching about complex phenomena (e.g. concepts related to the natural environment), good quality questioning could lead to a more profound conceptual change. However, asking questions that help students to construct new knowledge is a challenge for many educators. To help promote better questioning, we analyzed the kind of questions (N =…

Students' ability to operate with increasingly more complex units has been shown to be a key factor in their conceptual development. These abilities have been characterized as "stages of units coordination." This article focuses on the domain of composing and decomposing composite units. Using data from a teaching experiment with a…

Prompting learners to generate examples has been proposed as an effective way of developing understanding of a new concept. However, empirical support for this approach is lacking. This article presents two empirical studies on the use of example-generation tasks in an online course in introductory university mathematics. The first study compares…

The purpose of this article is to conduct a mathematical and phenomenological comparison of three concepts: (1) the finite limit of a function at a point, (2) the finite limit of a sequence, and (3) the infinite limit of a sequence. Additionally, we aim to analyse the presence of these concepts in Spanish textbooks. The methodology employed is…

Geological skills such as interpreting outcrops are often taught during fieldwork. However, recent advancements in digital technologies and the demand for more inclusive and accessible learning has provided an opportunity to teach these skills in virtual field trips (VFT). The Iceland VFT was developed to teach students about volcanic features and…

Here's a fresh way to help your students learn life science by determining how you can help them learn best. "Uncovering Student Ideas in Life Science, Volume 2," offers 30 new formative assessment probes--engaging questions that can reveal what students already know (or think they know) about a core science topic. Armed with that…

A collection of four activities for science outreach events was developed to teach middle school students about the temperature dependence of scientific phenomena. Procedures are described for four interactive demonstrations on phase changes, fluorescence, viscosity effects on diffusion, and conductivity. Each hands-on activity helps students…

Argumentation plays a central role in the development and justification of scientific knowledge. Learners could attain a more scientifically acceptable conceptual understanding by attending argumentation-based discussions. During argumentation-based discussions, students need to activate some metacognitive processes related to concept learning,…

Belief in psychological misconceptions, especially those regarding brain function and learning (i.e., neuromyths), hinders students' decision-making and learning. This necessitates conceptual change. Using an experimental design, this dissertation examined whether a utility value instructional induction (UVII) facilitated conceptual change.…

The field of geometrical optics features a broad knowledge base concerning conceptual learning difficulties and student conceptions. However, in contrast to other areas of physics, no widely used standard test instrument exists to assess middle school students' conceptual knowledge of geometrical optics. This is even more true for other areas of…