Science classroom learning environment (CLE) and science teacher professional development (PD) are two important factors in students' science learning. However, the nature of the science CLE and school-level PD that promotes students' science achievement remains unclear. Using the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 data, this…

This study examined assessment item difficulty patterns in two energy aspects, energy source/form/transfer and energy degradation/conservation, across and within science disciplines. The participant students were taking at least one college-level introductory science course. Findings showed a common pattern of item difficulties for the two energy…

Using many-facets Rasch measurement, this study aimed to detect and measure disciplinary context effects on student hands-on performance in terms of scientific inquiry competence. In Shanghai, China, a total of 251 eighth graders, from five junior high schools, participated in this study. The partial credit Rasch model was applied to help…

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of teacher feedback on the associations among inquiry-based science teaching and learning practices and students' science-related attitudes and beliefs. The data set included 9, 841 15-year-old students from four Chinese provinces (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangdong) who took part in the…

This study aims to evaluate students' ability to process the context information embedded in chemistry problems. To achieve this goal, a diagnostic measurement instrument was developed, comprising 28 short-answer items embedded in seven context-based chemistry tasks. Four hundred and ninety-three ninth-graders took part in the testing in Jiangsu,…

The study that is the subject of this paper tested the effects of EDI (explanation-driven inquiry) on students' redox conceptual understanding and their misconceptions. Two classes of 119 10th grade high school students were involved. Two groups of students in the same school were chosen. One class that was taught by EDI teaching was set as the…

Situated in the context of an in-service professional development (PD) program focused on Interdisciplinary Science Inquiry, this quantitative study tests the validity of and further explores the theoretical model adapted from Desimone's (2009), "Educational Researcher," 38, 181-199 conceptual framework on effectiveness of PD. The…

To achieve the goal of cultivating students' scientific modeling competence, it is crucial to improve teachers' epistemic knowledge and skills with respect to modeling-based teaching. Taking into consideration existing studies on enhancing teaching competence and teachers' professional development on modeling, and the importance of classroom…

This study presents our attempt to elicit students' progression in understanding the matter concept. Past work has identified the big ideas about matter students need to understand, the many everyday understandings students hold about these ideas, and levels of understanding through which students progress in developing understanding of the big…

Assessing scientific argumentation is one of main challenges in science education. Constructed-response (CR) items can be used to measure the coherence of student ideas and inform science instruction on argumentation. Published research on automated scoring of CR items has been conducted mostly in English writing, rarely in other languages. The…

Students have various conceptions of electrolytes in learning chemistry. The aim of this study is to identify 10th grade students' understanding of the electrolyte concept by using a phenomenographic method. Eight students, whose abilities were at different levels, were selected and interviewed. The findings show that four distinctive categories…

Scientific inquiry activities are considered as productive science instruction to improve students' science learning and achievement. Supportive teacher-student relationships and positive disciplinary climate in the classroom are also two important factors that could facilitate student learning. This study investigates whether the association…

So far, not enough effort has been invested in developing reliable, valid, and engaging assessments in school science, especially assessment of interdisciplinary science based on the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Furthermore, previous tools rely mostly on multiple-choice items and evaluation of student outcome is linked only to…

This study investigates three aspects--university major, year, and institution type--in relation to student scientific reasoning. Students from three majors (science, engineering, and education), four year levels (years 1 through 4), and two tiers of Chinese universities (tiers 1 and 2) participated in the study. A large-scale written assessment…

This study intends to develop a standardized instrument for measuring classroom teaching and learning in secondary chemistry lessons. Based on previous studies and interviews with expert teachers, the progression of five quality levels was constructed hypothetically to represent the quality of chemistry lessons in Chinese secondary schools. The…