South Africa lags behind in terms of competing globally in science and technology. Thus, the purpose of the study was to investigate teacher factors that influenced learners' motivation to learn science in a secondary school. The study also aimed to determine whether significant differences in motivation regarding teacher influence existed among…

Past research has suggested that there may be benefits in learning from expository science text when students study with the expectation that they will need to teach another student. The present experiments were designed to extend prior work by testing whether an effect would be seen on both immediate tests (similar to those used in most prior…

Past research has suggested that there may be benefits in learning from expository science text when students study with the expectation that they will need to teach another student. The present experiments were designed to extend prior work by testing if an effect would be seen on both immediate tests (similar to those used in most prior studies)…

Background: Recent research investigating the conditions under which science teachers can successfully implement science education reforms suggests that focusing only on professional development to improve content knowledge and teaching skills--often referred to as human capital--may not be enough. Increasingly, possessing social capital, defined…

As global average temperatures rise, there has been an increase in the frequency and magnitude of meteorological natural hazards. To survive in the world and thrive in the work place, students need to utilize educational skills (such as creative thinking, non-routine problem solving, collaboration and systems thinking) and become independent…

We present a new system for automated scoring of graph construction items that address complex science concepts, feature qualitative prompts, and support a range of possible solutions. This system utilizes analysis of spatial features (e.g., slope of a line) to evaluate potential student ideas represented within graphs. Student ideas are then…

Thermal cameras offer real-time visual access to otherwise invisible thermal phenomena, which are conceptually demanding for learners during traditional teaching. We present three studies of students' conduction of laboratory activities that employ thermal cameras to teach challenging thermal concepts in grades 4, 7 and 10-12. Visualization of…

Making decisions about the production and use of chemical substances is of central importance in many fields. In this study, a research team comprising teachers and educational researchers collaborated in collecting and analyzing cognitive interviews with students from 8th grade through first-year university general chemistry in an effort to map…

Literacy skills are critical to students' academic achievement and setting them on a path to successful high school graduation and readiness for college and careers. "Passport Reading Journeys" [TM] is a supplemental literacy curriculum designed to help improve reading comprehension, vocabulary, word study, and writing skills of…

Literacy skills are critical to students' academic achievement and setting them on a path to successful high school graduation and readiness for college and careers. "Passport Reading Journeys" [TM] is a supplemental literacy curriculum designed to help improve reading comprehension, vocabulary, word study, and writing skills of…

Literacy skills are critical to students' academic achievement and setting them on a path to successful high school graduation and readiness for college and careers. "Passport Reading Journeys" [TM] is a supplemental literacy curriculum designed to help improve reading comprehension, vocabulary, word study, and writing skills of…

Student conceptions related with matter and the particulate nature of matter (PNM), are vital for advanced understanding in chemistry, and have been a research area of significant attention. Lacking in the literature are studies addressing chemical misconceptions from an ontological point of view. The purpose of the current study was to develop a…

The process of conceptual change can be described as a three phase process. The first phase involves students' possession of initial naive "conceptions/misconceptions," the second phase involves students undergoing a process of "assimilation," and the third phase involves students undergoing a radical process called…

This quasi-experimental and pre/posttest study was designed to examine whether fourth-grade students who engaged in collaboratively writing letters to 11th-grade students performed better on tests of conceptual understanding of a unit on force and motion than students who did not. The participants included 835 fourth-grade students and 416…

Using a unique dataset, this dissertation analyzes the relationship between observable teacher characteristics and teacher effectiveness. Effectiveness is measured as a teacher's ability to improve student achievement on a standardized test. This analysis focuses on teachers of math and science at the elementary and middle school levels, as well…