Research in undergraduate physics and in K-12 science education has demonstrated challenges and successes in facilitating student engagement with reasoning practices associated with professional physicists. Here we focus on one important dimension of physics reasoning, using evidence to revise models. While this topic has been explored at the…

This study describes how culturally relevant pedagogy in a project-based science class improved student engagement and comprehension. We focus on bicultural students exploring cultural objects and household inventions with family members and connecting scientific concepts to their families' funds of knowledge. We use a multiple-case study design…

States of matter are structures that we may easily encounter in the universe as well as our close environment. The plasma state is the fourth state of matter, and it has much different properties in comparison to the solid, liquid and gas states of matter. In order to understand the universe and the environment we live in better, one needs to have…

This research was a cross-age study that sought to determine and compare students' ideas about the causes of the seasons. Toward this aim, the research was carried out with 974 students at different educational levels and across the various age groups. First, the data obtained from the responses to the open-ended question was categorized according…

Pre-service science teachers' conceptual understanding of astronomical concepts and their misconceptions in these concepts is crucial to study since they will teach these subjects in middle schools after becoming teachers. This study aimed to explore both seventh-grade students' and the science teachers' understanding of astronomical concepts and…

The study examined the knowledge of the functional relations between potential difference, magnitude of current, and resistance among seventh graders, ninth graders, 11th graders (in technical schools), and college students. It also tested the efficiency of a learning device named "functional learning" derived from cognitive psychology on the…