This study involved the evaluation of the efficacy of a planned instructional program to facilitate understanding of the macroscopic, submicroscopic and symbolic representational systems when describing and explaining chemical reactions by sixty-five Grade 9 students in a Singapore secondary school. A two-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument…

Researchers are skeptical about the role of authoritative sources of information in a constructivist learning environment for fear of usurping students' critical thinking. Taking a social semiotics perspective in this study, authoritative sources are regarded as inscriptions of cultural artifacts, and science learning involves meaning-making of…

This paper presents case studies of two teachers at Crescent Girl's School (an all-girls high school in Singapore) who implemented strategies learned through a teacher professional development program called 21st Century Learning Design (21CLD). Policymakers often state requirements for teachers to focus on 21st century (21C) competencies without…

An alternative program of instruction was implemented with 33 high-achieving Grade 9 students (15-16 years old) in Singapore that overtly focused on the use of macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic representations to describe and explain the changes that occurred during the burning of metals, reactions of dilute acids, ionic precipitations,…

Student motivation may have significant influences on essential academic outcomes. However, students' motivation may decline as they grow older. This study examined six motivation constructs (self-efficacy, interest, mastery goal orientation, engagement, avoidance coping, and effort withdrawal) of students from 78 schools in Singapore (N = 4214)…

This paper proposes the identification and use of principle-based pedagogical patterns to help teachers to translate design principles into actionable teaching activities, and to scaffold student learning with sufficient flexibility and creativity. A set of pedagogical patterns for networked Second language (L2) learning, categorized and…

This study examined how classroom management practices--care and behavioral control--were differentially associated with students' engagement, misbehavior, and satisfaction with school, using a large representative sample of 3196 Grade 9 students from 117 classes in Singapore. Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed differential relations.…

Background: The expectancy-value and achievement goal theories are arguably the two most dominant theories of achievement motivation in the contemporary literature. However, very few studies have examined how the constructs derived from both theories are related to deep learning. Moreover, although there is evidence demonstrating the links between…

Students are generally known to memorise and regurgitate chemical equations without sufficient understanding of the changes that occur at the particulate level. In addition, they often fail to recognise the significance of the symbols and formulas that are used to represent chemical reactions. This article describes an evaluation of the ability of…

This is an empirical examination of the quality of teacher assignments and student work in Singapore schools. Using a theoretical framework based on principles of authentic assessment and intellectual quality, two sets of criteria and scoring rubrics were developed for the training of expert teachers to judge the quality of assignments and student…

This article reports on year-long critical ethnographic study conducted in a Singapore school and examines how the standard English language educational policy is interpreted by a Secondary 3 (Grade 9) female student from China. She is a member of an exclusive group of academically able students who has been carefully recruited by the local…

This paper describes how a new classroom environment instrument, the "Chinese Language Classroom Environment Inventory (CLCEI)", was developed to investigate the nature of Chinese language classroom learning environments in Singapore secondary schools. The CLCEI is a bilingual instrument (English and Chinese Language) with 48 items…

A thorough understanding of chemical bonding requires familiarity with the particulate nature of matter. In this study, a two-tier multiple-choice diagnostic instrument consisting of ten items (five items involving each of the two concepts) was developed to assess students' understanding of the particulate nature of matter and chemical bonding so…

Associations between the nature of Chinese Language Classroom Environments and Singapore secondary school students' motivation to learn the Chinese Language were investigated. A sample of 1,460 secondary three (grade 9) students from 50 express stream (above average academic ability) classes in Singapore government secondary schools was involved…

One way of implementing project-based science (PBS) is to use problem-based learning (PBL), in which students formulate their own problems. These problems are often ill-structured, mirroring complex real-life problems where data are often messy and inclusive. In this article, the authors describe how they used PBL in a ninth-grade biology class in…