There have been growing calls for inquiry, a practice-oriented way of engaging students in authentic scientific work, yet research has shown some challenges that might impede inquiry practices in educational settings. In this study, we proposed an approach that blends educational gaming with physical experiments. We developed an educational game,…

This study developed a physical computing game-design project that incorporates block-based programming, physical computing, and computer game design for Taiwan's high school technology education curriculum to strengthen students' computational thinking. The project asked students to develop a somatosensory computer game using a block-based…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of different ways to use visualizations on high school students' electrochemistry conceptual understanding and motivation towards chemistry learning. Expanding upon a model-based learning approach (Khan, 2007), we adopted a VGEM sequence (View, Generate, Evaluate, and Modify) to create three…

This study investigated the predictive effect of 11th grade Taiwanese students' (N = 878) self-assessed critical thinking, group participation self-efficacy, and active learning on their genuine learning interest (GLI) in socio-scientific issues (SSI). Results showed that active learning had a direct effect on GLI, while critical thinking and…

This study examined how students' position on social-scientific issues (SSIs) influenced their performance on attitude toward science, science conceptual and argumentation learning. It defined two positions adopted by students regarding SSIs: affirmative and oppositional. The interactions between student position and two learning environments --…

So far relatively little research in education has explored the pedagogical and learning potentials of applications (Apps) on tablet PCs (TPCs). Drawing upon research on learning technologies and taking an embodied perspective, this study first identified educational functionalities of TPCs and generated guidelines to design educational Apps for…

This study explores the relationship between students' clicking behaviors, discussion processes, learning outcomes, and a prominent feature of clicker systems--the whole class' response results aggregated by clickers in real time. The results indicate that, while teaching Newton's laws of motion, displaying the real-time responses of the whole…

The purpose of this study was to develop a mechanical critical thinking scale for high school students. A stratified random sampling method was used to establish the norms. After pre-tests and item analysis, the scale was determined to have five subtest sections (i.e., recognition of assumptions, induction, deduction, interpretation, and…

The educational reform movement since the 1990s has led the secondary earth science curriculum in Taiwan into a stage of reshaping. The present study investigated secondary earth science teachers' perceptions on the Goals of Earth Science Education (GESE). The GESE should express the statements of philosophy and purpose toward which educators…

This study was conducted in an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of an educational card game we developed for learning human immunology. Two semesters of evaluation were included to examine the impact of the game on students' understanding and perceptions of the game-based instruction. Ninety-nine senior high school students (11th graders)…

The objective of this article is to evaluate the effectiveness of a collaborative and online brainstorming game, Idea Storming Cube (ISC), which provides users with a competitive game-based environment and a peer-like intelligent agent. The program seeks to promote students' divergent thinking to aid in the process of problem solving. The…

The interrelationship between senior high school students' science achievement (SA) and their self-confidence and interest in science (SCIS) was explored with a representative sample of approximately 1,044 11th-grade students from 30 classes attending four high schools throughout Taiwan. Statistical analyses indicated that a statistically…