The flipped classroom approach has grown in various disciplines; however, only few research studies are conducted in social sciences at K-12 settings. This action research investigated the impact of implementing a flipped classroom approach on students' motivation and learning the content knowledge in a suburban high school introductory psychology…

The vision for science proficiency presented in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" calls for significant shifts in both teaching and assessment. In this paper, we describe an effort to develop and validate a set of "proximal transfer tasks" for high school biology classrooms where teachers were implementing a…

The purpose of this Mixed Methods study is to conduct a full quantitative and qualitative research methods on a hypothetical K-12 Alternative Education program, wherein ten students have had poor grades and are at-risk of withdrawing. Within a six-part action plan on the quantitative side, students were tested twice, before and after a two-paired…

In the United States (US) and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) students are still attaining poorly in high school mathematics despite efforts from educational leaders to improve the math curricula both in middle and high schools. Results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) revealed that 31 countries out of 65 had better…

The massive open online course (MOOC) is a relatively new concept in K-12 teaching and learning environments. Although significant work has been done with MOOCs since 2008, it has only been recently that MOOCs have been studied with K-12 populations. The purpose of this study was to further examine the motivation of K-12 students enrolled in a…

In recent years, the regression discontinuity design (RDD) has gained widespread recognition as a quasi-experimental method that when used correctly, can produce internally valid estimates of causal effects of a treatment, a program or an intervention (hereafter referred to as treatment effects). In an RDD study, subjects or groups of subjects…

The number of students in the United States choosing science, technology, engineering or mathematics careers is declining at a time when demand for these occupations is rapidly increasing. Numerous efforts have been undertaken to reverse this trend, yet results are uncertain. One's attitude is key to many choices one makes, and this includes, for…

How can researchers in K-12 contexts stay true to the principles of rigorous evaluation designs within the constraints of classroom settings and limited funding? This paper explores this question by presenting a small-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to test the efficacy of curricular supplemental materials on epigenetics. The…

Empirical analysis of secondary biology classrooms revealed that, on average, 68% of teaching time in Germany revolved around processing tasks. Quality of instruction can thus be assessed by analyzing the quality of tasks used in classroom discourse. This quasi-experimental study analyzed how teachers used tasks in 38 videotaped biology lessons…

Computer-based multimedia presentations employing animated agents (avatars) can positively impact perceptions about engineering; the current research advances our understanding of this effect to pre-college populations, the main target for engineering outreach. The study examines the effectiveness of a brief computer-based intervention with…

With the aim to promote students' mathematics learning, we extended the Cognitive Tutor Algebra (CTA), a computer-based tutoring system for high school mathematics, to a collaborative setting. Furthermore we developed a collaboration script to support students' interactions. In an experimental classroom study, we compared three conditions:…

Technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) proposes a theoretical framework that incorporates four central components: an overarching conception of what it means to teach with technology, knowledge of students' thinking and understandings of specific topics with technologies, knowledge of curricular materials that incorporate…

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the combined and partial effects of the Integrated Reading/Study Strategy and Conceptual Physics Approach on ninth grade private high school students' achievement in and attitudes toward optics. The Integrated Reading/Study Strategy is a new strategy which was developed by integrating previously…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two learning contexts for explicit-reflective nature of science (NOS) instruction, socioscientific issues (SSI) driven and content driven, on student NOS conceptions. Four classes of 11th and 12th grade anatomy and physiology students participated. Two classes experienced a curricular…

In schools, learning spatial geometry is usually dependent upon a student's ability to visualize three dimensional geometric configurations from two dimensional drawings. Such a process, however, often creates visual obstacles which are unique to spatial geometry. Useful software programs which realistically depict three dimensional geometric…