This study examines Saudi Arabian middle school science textbooks' coverage of the essential features of scientific inquiry. All activities in the middle school science textbooks and workbooks were analyzed by using the scientific inquiry "essential features" rubric. The results indicated that the essential features are included in about…

Creative and critical thinking (C&CT) capabilities are essential qualities of future ready scientific literate citizens. As teacher educators, developing C&CT in science pre-service teachers (PSTs) requires supporting PSTs' development of C&CT, in addition to supporting their understanding and capacity to teach for development of…

Thoughtful decision-making to resolve socioscientific issues is central to science, technology, society, and environment (STSE) education. One approach for attaining this goal involves fostering students' decision-making processes. Thus, the present study explores whether the application of decision-making strategies, combined with reflections on…

This article closely examines (a) the "representational" connotation which is often implicit in many analyses of the scientific knowledge which children have (or have not) acquired when they are asked to say or show what they know and (b) the still common-place presumption that recollections are akin to the extraction of ideas from a…

A number of studies on single instructional quality features have been reported for mathematics and science instruction. For summarizing single instructional quality features, researchers have created a model of three basic dimensions ("classroom management," "supportive climate," and "cognitive activation") of…

Assessment is one of the key elements in the development of the curriculum since it forms a cycle of interdependence with the other curricular areas (content, methods, etc.). This work presents the changes detected in the conceptions about assessment in science that a sample of 311 prospective primary teachers had before and after a training…

The purpose of this study was to examine eighth-grade students' science performance in terms of two test design components, item format, and cognitive domain. The portion of Taiwanese data came from the 2011 administration of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), one of the major international large-scale assessments…

We report a longitudinal study carried out along 3 years in an early childhood education (ECE) classroom in which we examined children's (aged 3-6) engagement with science representations. The research questions are as follows: (1) How do children's science representations develop from ECE1 to ECE3? (2) What are the features and affordances of the…

Representational competence in science is the ability to generate external representations (e.g. equations, graphs) of real-world phenomena, transform between these representations, and use them in an integrated fashion. Difficulties in achieving representational competence are often considered central to difficulties in learning science.…

The lack of students interested in pursuing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related careers calls for studies that identify variables affecting their career decisions. By drawing on recent conceptualizations of the cost domain first introduced in the expectancy-value theory of achievement motivations, this study…

One main obstacle for instructors in inviting students to design knowledge construction is the tension between prioritizing students' ideas and maintaining the scientific validity of the activity. In this study, as a way of supporting students in shaping their own knowledge construction, the establishment of an audience for knowledge was enacted…

The Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection (CINS) is an example of a research-based instrument that assesses conceptual understanding in an area that contains well-documented alternative conceptions. Much of the CINS's use and original validation has been relegated to undergraduate settings, but the information learned from student responses on…

With the transition to distance-learning at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, several countries required parents and their children to remain at home, under lockdown. Many parents found themselves taking on additional responsibilities regarding their children's education. However, children do not always interpret their parents' intentions as…

This study aims to examine the influence of inquiry-based instruction on eighth-grade male and female students' motivation and engagement in science learning in two public junior high schools in central Taiwan. Mixed-methods methodology was adopted with 60 students (32 males and 28 females) in the experimental group and 56 students (28 males and…

This paper describes a professional development model for developing science teacher leaders that has evolved and been refined through working with 16 high school chemistry and physics teachers in high-needs schools over the past 3 years. The theoretical framework draws upon Goodwin's notion of professional vision and Dempsey's four metaphors to…