Science capabilities were introduced within the New Zealand context following the revised "New Zealand Curriculum" (NZC). These capabilities are a small set of things that NZC intends students to be able to do in science, which weave the nature of science with content strands. Using pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to understand…

Data were gathered from 95 Year 10 students in a New Zealand secondary school to explore how the indicators of scientific literacy are expressed in student responses. These students completed an activity based around the two contexts of lighting and health. A matrix, which incorporated descriptive indicators, was developed to analyse the student…

Informed by an amalgam of notions drawn from constructivist, socio-cultural, metacognitive and self-regulation theory, the discourse created to describe assessment to enhance learning has gone through a number of iterations or discursive shifts. As a result, the current discourse is both ambitious and complex with the roles and responsibilities…

The prototype of a guided practice application was developed to instruct year 13 biology students in the process of DNA replication. The application uses a high degree of interaction to engage the student in a guided exploration and problem solving exercise. An evaluation revealed that the students showed considerable enthusiasm and significant…