Science educators increasingly seek to support students' participation in scientific practices, particularly epistemic practices, that is, those that ground authority for knowing in the discipline. Argumentation is one practice that has received significant attention in the research literature. However, scholars who take a sociocultural stance…

After the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of heredity in 1900, the biologists who began studying heredity, variation, and evolution using the new Mendelian methodology--performing controlled hybrid crosses and statistically analyzing progeny to note the factorial basis of characters--made great progress. By 1910, the validity of Mendelism was…

Charles Wheatstone was a British scientist who is most often remembered for his association with the Wheatstone bridge for measuring electrical resistance. A painfully shy man in public, Wheatstone, in reality, possessed a vibrant personality and a wide array of personal interests from acoustics to electricity to optics and parlour tricks. In this…

In recent decades, changes in society have deeply affected the internal organization and the main goals of schools. These changes are particularly important in science education because science is one of the major sources of change in peoples' lives. This research provided the opportunity to investigate how these changes affect the way teachers…

This paper examines how the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute (SLARI) used training and development to build capacity for innovation in agricultural research following the country's civil war which ended in 2002. The Institute's training for innovation addressed different agricultural product value chains (APVCs) within the framework of…

Although the scientific disciplines conduct practical work in different ways, all consider practical work as the essential way of connecting objects and phenomena with ideas and the abstract. Accordingly, practical work is regarded as central to science "education" as well. We investigate a practical, object-based palaeontology programme…

The purpose of this study is to investigate gifted middle school students' images about scientists in terms of cultural similarity. Sample of the study is 64 gifted middle school students taking courses from a formal school for gifted students. The data were collected by using Draw-a-scientist (DAST) instrument and was analysed by two researchers…

Physics textbooks often present items of disciplinary knowledge in a sequential order of topics of the theory under instruction. Such presentation is usually univocal, that is, isolated from alternative claims and contributions regarding the subject matter in the pertinent scientific discourse. We argue that comparing and contrasting the…

This study sought to investigate the arguments that ecologists engage in as part of their work and to compare their arguments with the way in which ecological arguments have been presented in school argumentation tasks. Ten ecologists, in subfields ranging from individual/behavioral ecology to global ecology, participated in semistructured…

Instability and unpredictability of the present stage of social development make the study of social and psychological adjustment of personality to the social environment a highly topical issue. The article presents the results of an empirical research on social personality adaptation. Evident is the close relations between social and…

The preparation of scientifically literate citizens able to use science in their daily life is becoming a major goal in science education. In light of this, Boujaoude (2002) developed a framework to investigate the balance of scientific literacy themes within the Lebanese school science curriculum. He reported the neglect of "science as a way…

We report consultation about hydrogen energy at the Hydrogen Centre in South Wales with members of the public in the region. The Centre's research staff guided tours and outside sociologists made the independent assessment presented here. Hydrogen energy is a technology under development. The question is as follows: Does any risk to its future in…

Stereotypes people hold about computer scientists contribute to underrepresentation in computer science. Perceptions of computer scientists have historically been linked to males and a "nerd" culture, which can lead to lack of interest, particularly for girls. This article presents two studies conducted with two groups of middle…

Over the past decade, the author and their colleagues have been carrying out research to try to better understand the factors that shape students' engagement with science, as well as their science and career aspirations. The ASPIRES/ASPIRES 2 studies have tracked a cohort of students in England from the age of 10 to 18, combining large-scale…

Research on understanding the full extent that an authentic science research experience engages students in how scientists think and act is sparse. 'Learning-science-by-doing-science' (LSDS) is an emerging self-guided process-learning model in postsecondary science education. It offers authentic science research opportunities that drive students…