The scientific competencies advocated by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) focus on the abilities needed in students' adult lives. This study investigated how such scientific competencies could be improved by using online argumentation. One hundred and thirty-eight 8th grade high school students took part in the study, with…

Problem solving is a critical element of learning physics. However, traditional instruction often emphasizes the quantitative aspects of problem solving such as equations and mathematical procedures rather than qualitative analysis for selecting appropriate concepts and principles. This study describes the development and evaluation of an…

The Current study investigated the effect of the 5E learning cycle in which the simulations were integrated on pre-service science teachers' achievement in photoelectric subject. Four sophomore level classes with their 140 students participated in the research and a quasi-experimental design was used. The classes were randomly assigned into one of…

Perceiving (such as seeing) and representing (such as drawing and talking about what one perceives) is fundamental to chemical education. The purpose of this study was to gain further insights and understanding into selected students' representational competence in chemistry through student-generated representations (SGR). In the mixed model…

Studies on science education show that students have many misunderstandings and misconceptions related to chemistry concepts. Many techniques have been used to determine those misconceptions such as multiple choice tests, interviews, drawing, etc. Two-tier diagnostic test is one of these techniques for using to determine misconceptions and their…

These appendices accompany the report "Final Report of the i3 Impact Study of Making Sense of SCIENCE, 2016-17 through 2017-18." Science education has experienced a significant transition over the last decade, catalyzed by a re-envisioning of what students should know and be able to do in science. That re-envisioning culminated in the…

This study statistically investigates the characteristics of the intended curriculum for Japanese primary science, focusing on the learning content. The study used the TIMSS 2011 Grade 4 Curriculum Questionnaire data as a major source for the learning content prescribed at the national level. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine the…

The UK Government has set a goal that the "vast majority" of students in England will be studying mathematics to the age of 18 by the end of the decade. The policy levers for achieving this goal include new Core Maths qualifications, designed for over 200,000 students who have achieved good grades at the age of 16 but then opt out of…

Class size reduction has been viewed as one school mechanism that can improve student achievement. Nonetheless, the literature has reported mixed findings about class size effects. We used 4th- and 8th-grade data from TIMSS 2003 and 2007 to examine the association between class size and mathematics achievement in public schools in Cyprus. We…

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in pre-service Science teachers' astronomy achievement, attitudes towards astronomy and skills for spatial thinking in terms of their years of study. Another purpose of the study was to find out whether there was correlation between pre-service teachers' astronomy achievement, attitudes towards…

This study makes an important contribution to an expanding body of international comparative studies by exploring factors predicting differences in science and mathematics achievement by students in Turkey and the Republic of Korea on the 2011 TIMSS assessment. While these countries are similar with regards to population size, cultural beliefs…

The paper examined the effects of a Technological Instructional Package (TIP) on secondary school students' performance in biology. The study adopted a pre-test, post-test experimental control group design. The sample size of the study was 80 students from Minna metropolis, Niger state, Nigeria; the samples were randomly assigned into treatment…

In recent years, many countries have adopted a context-based approach for designing science curricula for education at all levels. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of a Context-Based Chemistry Course (CBCC) as compared with traditional/existing instruction, on 11th grade students' learning about chemical equilibrium,…

This study applied an unconventional use of past examination papers by converting questions into hands-on experiments for students. Students in an experimental group were engaged in use of those experiments while the remainder attended conventional lectures with written practice. The results reflect that the experimental group positively improved…

The current research is a descriptive study in which a survey model was used. The research involved chemistry (n = 26), physics (n = 27), and biology (n = 29) teachers working in Science High Schools and Anatolian High Schools in Turkey. An inventory that consisted of seven questions was designed to ascertain what teachers' think about the…