Australian Education Review (AER) 51 elaborates on issues raised by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) Research Conference 2006: "Boosting Science Learning--What Will It Take?" It challenges current orthodoxies in science education and proposes a re-imagining that charts new directions for science teaching and…

The purpose of this paper was to explore the concept of interest, one of the critical positive emotions in learning contexts and to investigate the effects of different types of visual illustrations on learning interest, achievement, and motivation in multimedia learning. The concept of interest was explored in light of positive emotion; an…

This paper proposes the use of a key biological concept--broad classification--to teach the provisional and contested nature of science in school biology curricula. It also examines existing curriculum-related factors which might pose obstacles to implementing such a change. An investigation in South Africa highlights the problems regarding…

We describe research carried out with a prospective secondary biology teacher, whom we shall call Miguel. The teacher's conceptions of the nature of science and of learning and teaching science were analyzed and compared with his classroom practice when teaching science lessons. The data gathering procedures were interviews analyzed by means of…

Seven domains upon which public policy is said to have an impact are differentiated here. A major intention of the paper is to distinguish between science and trans-science and the validity of including non-objective phenomena as an input into public policy evaluation and formation. (Author/AM)

This paper explores features that are common to both modern Western scientific thought and traditional African thought. The differences between the two are enumerated. In the Western scheme of knowledge, there is a continuous quest for explanatory theory for every phenomenon investigated. The paper notes that atoms, molecules, gods, and spirits…

Acceptance of a paradigm in the scientific community depends upon persuasion, upon the supplying of "good reasons" for supporting one paradigm over another. When one paradigm gains long-term acceptance and becomes the standard for scientific thought, scientists defer to such an authority in their thinking, and such established paradigms…

Inquiry has been one of the most prominent reforms in science education. One of the goals of teaching through inquiry methods is to enable students to have experiences that are authentic to scientists' experiences. Too often, inquiry science is taught as either the "scientific method" or as "hands-on," disconnected activities…

This manuscript asks questions about what may be the naturalized, or taken for granted, ideologies in science education regarding religion. There have been times in history when religion has taken a dogmatic role in limiting the practices of science (e.g., the Roman Catholic Church and Galileo). This manuscript reflects on the dogmatic rule of…

Summarizes chemical principles underlying the operation of automobiles and the cause of air pollution, including concentrations of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, and oxides of nitrogen. Comments and opinions are made concerning present and future pollution control devices. (CC)

Summarizes current status of our knowledge about acid-base interactions, including Lewis considerations, experimental design, data about donor-acceptor systems, common misconceptions, and hard-soft acid-base model. Indicates that there is the possibility of developing unifying concepts for chemical reactions of inorganic compounds. (CC)

Discusses fundamentals of rainbow formation, including the reflection and dispersion theories underlying primary, secondary and high-order bows. Included is a series of further analytical problems. (CC)

This paper on alternatives in teacher education begins by analyzing the current emphasis on the scientific approach in education. The author finds the promise of the scientific approach to be illusory. He defines it as education that promotes behavior change in some desirable direction. However, this definition, which the author finds equally…

Although social scientists are often adjured to become more "scientific," they might well remember a phenomenon described by Arthur Lovejoy as "metaphysical pathos" or the set of sentiments with which every theory is associated and which are congruent with the mood or deep lying sentiment of its adherents. Examples from the past include the Social…

Using examples this article tries to dispel a common misconception that theories "mature" into laws by constant testing and confirmation. (GA)