High school students learn the basic voltaic and electrolytic cell concepts during their last year prior to entering an undergraduate teacher-education science degree. During the 4 years of university, students complete a sequence of topics designed to build on conceptual understanding presented in previous years. At the end of their degrees,…

This paper is twofold. First, it examines the misconceptions held by students about atoms. Second, it determines the suggestions of the instructors (academics and teachers) to overcome these misconceptions. The study adopted a case study research method. A questionnaire was administered to 288 students and a semi-structured interview was conducted…

Students commonly find the field of physics difficult. Therefore, they generally have learning problems. One of the subjects with which they have difficulties is optics within a physics discipline. This study aims to determine students' conceptual understanding levels at different education levels relating to lenses in geometric optics. A…

The scarcity of trained man power in the field of science and technology has become a growing phenomenon today. Thus, we are still facing the same challenge country wide. With the multidimensional increase in the field of science and technology, there is a huge shortage of expert workforce in the field of STEM. The numbers of students who qualify…

This exploratory study applied a proposed force and motion learning progression (LP) to high-school and university students and to content involving both one- and two-dimensional force and motion situations. The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) was adapted, based on a previous content analysis and coding of the questions in the FCI in terms of the…

Nowadays, outreach labs are important informal learning environments in science education. After summarizing research to goals outreach labs focus on, we describe our evidence-based gene technology lab as a model of a research-driven outreach program. Evaluation-based optimizations of hands-on teaching based on cognitive load theory (additional…

This paper discusses a K-12/university collaboration in which students participated in a four-day scenario-based summer STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) camp aimed at making difficult scientific concepts salient. This scenario, Jumpstart STEM-CSI: Chocolate Science Investigation (JSCSI), used open- and guided-inquiry…