Energy is a central concept across the sciences and an important goal of science education is to support all students so that they develop a full understanding of the energy concept. However, given the abstract and complex nature of the energy concept, only a few students develop an understanding so that they can use energy ideas to make sense of…

The goal of this study is to investigate the effect of self-generation in inquiry-based learning and to identify the role of feedback. While open-ended inquiry-based learning with a high degree of self-generation requirements has long been considered optimal for facilitating effective learning, its long-run effects have been critically challenged.…

Science standards of different countries introduced disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts--such as energy--to help students develop a more interconnected science understanding. As previous research has mostly addressed energy learning in specific disciplinary contexts, this study targets students' cross-disciplinary understanding of…

The aim of this study was to design and evaluate an inquiry- and activity-based learning unit for the classroom that uses biological collections to teach key evolutionary concepts and to support the understanding and appreciation of the work of a museum. The unit consisted of three parts that focused on the most important tasks of museums:…

Background: Education Standards highlight the importance of conceptual knowledge. Instructional tasks play a key role in biology instruction and offer learning opportunities for students. Tasks contain of a content and a demands part. Therefore, complexity and cognitive level are adequate variables to describe tasks and are assumed effective for…

This paper describes the second in a series of studies exploring the acceptance of the subatomic structure of matter by 12-year-olds. The studies focus on a novel learning unit introducing an atomic model from electrons down to quarks, which is aimed to be used at an early stage in the physics curriculum. Three features are fundamental to the…

This article presents an empirical study on an initial learning progression of energy, a concept of central importance to the understanding of science. Learning progressions have been suggested as one vehicle to support the systematic and successful teaching of core science concepts. Ideally, a learning progression will provide teachers with a…