This study explored the effects of an organiser-supported learning game on ninth graders' science concept learning, perceptions of learning, enjoyment, and willingness to learn. A learning game (Force Hero) was modified from a commercial game, and a pre-test, a post-test, and a questionnaire were employed. In the game, students used their avatars'…

The purpose of this study is to investigate students' mental models of the marine environment and to further examine how these models are related to their perceptions of marine problems. One hundred twenty-eight ninth grade students from a large harbor city in southern Taiwan completed a survey including a drawing activity and a set of two-tier…

Purpose: This paper aims to propose a critical multimodal framework to understanding pedagogical materials that focuses on not only the verbal or the visual components but also the interaction between the two semiotic resources that constructs power relations as a result of intermodal interaction, and it further provides an example of an in-depth…

Students of middling achievement who achieve intermediate results on the Basic Competence Test, a national high-stakes entrance examination in Taiwan, experience the highest test anxiety. The present study explored why such students experienced greater test anxiety and the source of that anxiety. A questionnaire survey was administered to 5,220…

This study examined the association between adolescents' obesity and sociometric status among their peers across 1 year. The participants were 2,528 junior high school students from Taiwan (mean age = 13.31 years). The negative associations discovered between obesity and sociometric status were both concurrent and cumulative. Moreover, the…

Given the increasing emphasis of communicative competence in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts and the lack of validation research on speaking assessments for adolescent EFL learners, in the current study we examined the validity of the TOEFL Junior® speaking test, a relatively new speaking assessment developed by Educational Testing…

As Taiwanese students progress from elementary to junior high school, there is a remarkable increase in the inequality of achievement in mathematics. This increase is of a magnitude not seen in other countries. Findings show that the widening-gap phenomenon is accompanied by an exceptional increase in the percentage of students reaching the…

The current study explores students' collaboration and problem solving (CPS) abilities using a human-to-agent (H-A) computer-based collaborative problem solving assessment. Five CPS assessment units with 76 conversation-based items were constructed using the PISA 2015 CPS framework. In the experiment, 53,855 ninth and tenth graders in Taiwan were…

This research aimed to develop a computer detective game for science education to provide students in experiencing real-world problem-solving after learning electricity-related knowledge, and to explore the effects of designing the guidance of process constraints and prompts into this game. To explore the effects of guidance, two different game…

In this study, we have synthesized the research on visualization and representation to propose a model consisting of 4 major components of visualization competence in learning science: constructing, interpreting, transforming, and critiquing visualizations. We have developed and validated an assessment that measures students' visualization…

The purpose of this study was, first, to understand the item hierarchy regarding students' understanding of scientific models and modeling (USM). Secondly, this study investigated Taiwanese students' USM progression from 7th to 12th grade, and after participating in a model-based curriculum. The questionnaire items were developed based on 6…

The purpose of this study was to investigate students' understanding of groundwater as a system, and to further examine whether and how their understanding is related to attitudes towards groundwater use and conservation. A total of 676 junior high school students completed a groundwater survey including a drawing activity and a questionnaire. An…

The current scales for self-blame are not suitable for school bullying scenarios and most lack validity. This study used a self-developed scale to measure bullied victims' tendency to self-blame and further examined whether victims and bully/victims exhibited different tendencies toward self-blame under both bullied and generalized scenarios. The…

Augmented reality (AR) deepens learning interactions by imposing digital information on top of physical settings. This study implemented an AR-enhanced theme-based contextualized learning and aimed to examine the effects of captions (non-caption, English caption and Chinese caption) and English proficiency (less proficient and proficient) on…

This study aimed to explore the gender differences of participants' learning results, perceptions and gaming behaviors related to an energy quiz game with both single-player and multiplayer game modes simultaneously provided for participants. Seventy-four ninth-grade students played the game in six classes over three weeks. The pretest-posttest on…