This article contributes to the critical policy studies of educational governance and its crisis, through canvassing Basil Bernstein's concept of the 'totally pedagogised society' (TPS). The TPS witnesses not only the growth of transnational private actors, but also the disjuncture between global and national agendas of reform, on the governance…

Undergraduate genetics courses have historically focused on simple genetic models, rather than taking a more multifactorial approach where students explore how traits are influenced by a combination of genes, the environment, and gene-by-environment interactions. While a focus on simple genetic models can provide straightforward examples to…

Students come into the classroom with a variety of background knowledge. Therefore, it is imperative that educators are able to help all students, regardless of their familiarity with the content. Since it can be challenging for some large enrollment classes to schedule recitation classes after lectures due to logistical constraints, this study…

Spreadsheets are a core computational tool for practicing engineers and engineering students. While Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, and other spreadsheet tools have some differences, numerous formulas, functions, and other tasks are common across versions and platforms. Building upon learning science frameworks showing that interactive activities…

Though several conceptual inventories have been developed for thermal physics, none target upper-division material and all focus specifically on thermodynamics without including statistical mechanics content. In this paper, we outline the development process of an upper-division thermal physics assessment that captures both thermodynamics and…

The Mineralogy Concept Inventory (MCI) is a statistically validated 18-question assessment that can be used to measure learning gains in introductory mineralogy courses. Development of the MCI was an iterative process involving expert consultation, student interviews, assessment deployment, and statistical analysis. Experts at the two universities…

This article aims to give a comprehensive guide to planning and designing vocabulary tests which include Identifying the skills to be covered by the test; outlining the course content covered; preparing a table of specifications that shows the skill, content topics and number of questions allocated to each; and preparing the test instructions. The…

ACS Examinations provide a lens through which to examine historical changes in topic coverage via analyses of course-specific examinations. This study is an extension of work completed previously by the ACS Exams Research Staff and collaborators in general chemistry, organic chemistry, and physical chemistry to explore content changes in the…

General chemistry courses are often the foundation for the study of other science disciplines and upper-level chemistry concepts. Students who take introductory chemistry courses are more often from health and science-related fields than chemistry. As such, the content taught and assessed in general chemistry courses is envisioned as building…

We describe the construction, validation, and testing of a concept inventory for an "Introduction to Physics of Semiconductors" course offered by the department of physics to undergraduate engineering students. By design, this inventory addresses both content knowledge and the ability to interpret content via different cognitive…

The exponential increase in the number of cases and number of affected countries of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) brought significant change in the mode of instruction from face-to-face to distance learning among the different levels of education around the world. This descriptive-developmental method of study adopted the ADDIE…

Data produced by psychometric instruments are often used to inform understanding about a certain population's knowledge of ideas or perspectives about specific topics. Concept inventories are an example of psychometric instruments used to probe students' content knowledge within a defined framework. Concept inventories have been used as…

A critical aspect of teacher education is gaining pedagogical content knowledge of how to teach science for conceptual understanding. Given the time limitations of college methods courses, it is difficult to touch on more than a fraction of the science topics potentially taught across grades K-8, particularly in the context of relevant pedagogies.…

The suitability of 52 items for measuring Blackboard course management system success was investigated with the aim of validating the Blackboard CMS success scale in an educational context. Through a survey, the Blackboard course management system (BCMS) success scale was administered to 503 students at the University of Botswana. Data collected…

This study aims to determine prospective science student teachers' alternative conceptions of the chemical equilibrium concept. A 13-item pencil and paper, two-tier multiple choice diagnostic instrument, the Test to Identify Students' Alternative Conceptions (TISAC), was developed and administered to 90 second-semester science student teachers…