The purpose of this study is to test the relationship between seventh-grade students' personal epistemology for science, subjective task value, and science self-efficacy, with prior achievement serving as a moderator. The mediating role of subjective task value is proposed in the prediction of the relationship between personal epistemology for…

This study aims to develop and evaluate an augmented reality microscope, "MicrosAR", for a middle school Science course, which was aimed for use both in and out of school, and to understand the users' perceptions about it. The study adopted design-based research to iteratively develop and evaluate the MicrosAR. Learning activities and…

Groundwater is a critical component of the global water cycle and standards-based topic within science education. However, students articulate an array of ideas about groundwater systems, including their natural and human elements. One way to support students' learning about groundwater systems is through the use of data-driven, computer-based…

Reconceptualized Family Resemblance Approach to Nature of Science (RFN) explains science as a cognitive, epistemic, and social institutional system. The aim of this study is to examine the inclusion of Nature of Science (NOS) in the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Turkish middle school science textbooks. The "content," "activity,"…

This technology report presents the main features of a free digital educational tool which aims to introduce middle school level students to the comprehension of the particulate nature of matter in the three states (i.e., solid, liquid, and gas) and during phase transitions. This digital tool is available and is freely accessible online. Its…

This study aims to implement an exemplary instructional design-based ICT integration to allow students to acquire both course achievement and knowledge society skills. The research used the case study method. The participants consist of 30 students, who attend the course of Science and Technology at the 7th grade level in a state school, along…

While previous classroom studies of status hierarchies tell us who has low status and how to increase those learners' participation in small group contexts via teacher-led interventions, we know little about how one becomes low status, or the role peers play in legitimating or delegitimating inequitable relations. This study used the sociocultural…

Scientific literacy is an important skill for students' success, given the characteristics of today's society. However, not all students have a natural predisposition toward science, chemistry in particular. Considering the relevance of transdisciplinary learning, schools should foster the scientific abilities for which students may have less…

Research has shown that spatial ability plays a key role in understanding STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) content, including chemistry. Conservation of Matter (CoM) is an essential but challenging topic for chemistry students of all ages to grasp; it is often taught in a way where students memorize it but do not learn what…

Mechanisms are central in scientific explanations. However, developing mechanistic explanations is difficult for students especially in domains in which mechanisms involve abstract components and functions, such as genetics. One of the core components of genetic mechanisms are proteins and their functions. Students struggle to reason about the…

The active participation of citizens in scientific research, through citizen science, has been proven successful. However, knowledge on the potential of citizen science within formal chemistry learning, at the conceptual and procedural levels, remains insufficiently explored. We developed a citizen science project -- PVC: Perceiving the Value of…

Modern science standards emphasize knowledge-in-use, i.e., connecting scientific practices with content. For knowledge to become usable in knowledge-in-use performances, students need well organized knowledge networks that allow them to activate and connect sets of relevant ideas across contexts, i.e. students need integrated knowledge. We…

The goal of this research is to provide a rich set of connections between two fields: (i) Nanoscale science and technology (NST) and (ii) topics from a common middle school physics curriculum. NST is emerging as one of the most promising new fields of the 21st century, which is one of the many arguments for including NST topics in secondary…

In schools, design projects can be implemented at a variety of ways and with varying degrees of resources from teachers and schools. However, little work has been done on the differences between student learning outcomes and the type of design projects. This study compares two design projects implemented in 7th grade classrooms (n=677) at two…

This study investigates the effect of design-based science (DBS) instruction on students' learning of electrical energy and students' metacognitive strategy use in science. Two classes of seventh-grade students participated in the study. DBS instruction was used in the treatment group, while the comparison group was taught the unit with…