The laboratory instruction sheet (sometimes called a laboratory manual), together with the equipment used by students, is an essential resource for laboratory work. It has a direct influence over all the interactions that can occur in the laboratory activity, of which student-equipment is the only common synchronous interaction in both…

Humans are born with the natural ability to gain skills through play. Children learn about social norms, roles and responsibilities, and language through curiosity-driven, playful interactions and activities. Learning through play harnesses the power of children's imagination and inspires active engagement with the material. The Center for…

The development of students' reasoning and argumentation skills in school science is currently attracting strong research interest. In this paper we report on findings where we aimed to investigate student learning on the topic of motion when students, guided by their teacher, responded to a sequence of representational challenges in which their…

Practical skills and competencies are critical to student engagement and effective learning in laboratory courses. This article describes the design of a yearlong, stand-alone laboratory course--the Biotechniques Laboratory--a common core course in the second year of all our degree programs in the biological sciences. It is an enabling,…

Describes research that documents the falsification of laboratory results by chemistry and physics students. Discusses some factors that encourage students to fabricate results and why some students do not feel the need to falsify data. Contains 16 references. (DDR)

Investigated the efficacy of an instructional program designed to induce students to construct a mental scheme in which experimental design and natural experiments are understood as facets of the same problems and which incorporates a general solution procedure applicable to both. Results show a highly significant posttest achievement by the…