Science education researchers and curriculum documents have advocated scientific inquiry for more than six decades; however, inconsistent findings concerning its effects on students' learning outcomes have been revealed in recent analyses of large-scale international assessment data (e.g., the Programme for International Student Assessment…

The objective of the present study was to investigate item-, examinee-, and country-level correlates of rapid guessing (RG) in the context of the 2018 PISA science assessment. Analyzing data from 267,148 examinees across 71 countries showed that over 50% of examinees engaged in RG on an average proportion of one in 10 items. Descriptive…

Preparing students for the real challenges in life is one of the most important goals in education. Constructivism is an approach that uses real-life experiences to construct knowledge. Problem-Based Learning (PBL), for almost five decades now, has been the most innovative constructivist pedagogy used worldwide. However, with the rising…

The number of science education research papers has been rapidly rising in recent years. This number has been particularly influenced by researchers from non-English speaking countries who contribute to the field. With this number of papers, literature reviews gain in importance as they help researchers more easily orient themselves in problem…

Recent research in the United States suggests that student performance differences between private and public schools disappear once student and school level characteristics are controlled for. This is an important result as it suggests that in the absence of such differences delivery of education through public means can be as efficient as that…

This paper uses data from the OECD's 2015 PISA and an endogenous treatment effects model to investigate the impact of different intensities of digital device use for academic purposes on science learning outcomes. When we do not differentiate the location of device use, we find that greater use can help students improve their science scores in…

To facilitate a more definitive understanding of the usefulness of formative assessment, this meta-analysis examined the impact of formative assessment on student academic achievement in the K-12 classroom. The study analyzed 258 effect sizes from 118 primary studies published around the world. By applying a broad lens for defining and…

We investigated effects of tracking students into higher, more academic, and lower, less academic, school types immediately after primary school (early tracking) instead of having a comprehensive secondary school system (late tracking) on school gender segregation and gender gaps in achievement outcomes. We assumed that, in early tracking…

Teacher-directed and inquiry-based science instructional practices have been shown to influence students' performance on science assessments. However, only a small body of research has examined the associations of teacher-directed and inquiry-based science instructional practices with science-related dispositions among adolescent students using…

With increased focus on sustainability and socioscientific issues, dealing with issues related to citizenship is now seen as an important element of science education. However, in order to make the world a better place, mere understanding about socioscientific issues is not enough. Action must also be taken. In this study, 35 international gifted…

In TIMSS 2015, while two-thirds of students in grade 4 reported feeling very safe at school, by grade 8, less than half of the students surveyed reported feeling a high level of safety. Overall, girls were more likely to report feeling safe than boys. For both genders, feeling safe at school seemed to be positively related to academic achievement…

Comparing group is one of the key uses of large-scale assessment results, which are used to gain insights to inform policy and practice and to examine the comparability of scores and score meaning. Such comparisons typically focus on examinees' final answers and responses to test questions, ignoring response process differences groups may engage…

Block-based visual programming tools, such as Scratch, Alice, and MIT App Inventor, provide an intuitive and easy-to-use editing interface through which to promote programming learning for novice students of various ages. However, very little attention has been paid to investigating these tools' overall effects on students' academic achievement…

After the summer nesting period, broad winged hawks are known for migrating nearly 10,000 kilometers, (6,200 miles) each fall from their breeding grounds in North America to tropical biomes in South America, where they spend the winter. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has labeled broad-winged hawks as a species of "least…

In this paper, we discuss the individuals' "roles", "responsibilities", and "routine activities", along with their "goals" and "intentions" in two different contexts--a school science context and a university research context--using sociological lenses. We highlight the distinct characteristics of…