This paper reports on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for the characterization of models and modeling that can be useful in application to chemistry education. The underlying argument marks a departure from an emphasis on concepts that are the outcomes of chemical inquiry about how knowledge growth occurs through modeling in chemistry.…

A collaborative research study was designed to facilitate, at the local school level, a mathematics teacher's development of a "constructivist" pedagogy. This paper discusses the nature and influence of the teacher's professional beliefs on his attempts to create a classroom learning environment congruent with the principles of a constructivist…

Epistemological loneliness refers to the isolation adolescents may experience as the result of cognitive relativism, ushered in by the emergence of formal operational thought. To examine the relationship between cognitive relativity, epistemological loneliness, and depression in adolescence, 108 adolescents (29 seventh graders, 29 ninth graders,…

This paper addresses the question of how teachers can support and facilitate conceptual change in student thinking. It begins with a discussion of the multiple meanings of the term conceptual change. An argument is presented for the notion that recent developments in research in science learning have dramatic implications for what students are…

This conceptual framework is grounded in the data analysis of transcribed interviews with 50 Ontario teachers and the text of a 7-month online discussion group among 25 principals from England, Ireland, Canada, United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Both methods were employed with the stated purpose of understanding emotional experiences of…

A review of recent curricular research presents studies in the areas of: (1) psychological and epistemological foundations; (2) new developments (content of instruction, cognitive processing, and methodological re-direction); and (3) exemplary research programs on teacher behavior, pupils' prior conceptions in learning, and probelm solving. (CJ)

In everyday teaching, the mathematical meaning of new knowledge is frequently devalued during ritualized formats of communication and replaced by social conventions. Specific aspects of the problem of meaning development were investigated in two second-grade teaching cases. These were used to develop decisive requirements for maintenance of an…

Contributes to a reflection on the possibilities and the limits of a non-naive use of the history of mathematics for educational purposes. Discusses a problem related to the hypotheses that make it possible to confront past and modern conceptual developments. Contains 45 references. (DDR)

Reports results from a close study of five classes that are learning National Curriculum science with the help of special materials. Contains excerpts from interviews and test scores that illustrate some of the problems students have in understanding the nature of experiment and theory. (DDR)

Presents part of a project that introduces a sufficient, simple, and relevant teaching approach to quantum mechanics into in-/pre-service teacher education and provides teachers with the indispensable scientific knowledge and epistemological base needed for reform in science education. (Contains 54 references.) (Author/YDS)

Analysis of data on children's ideas about seeing and light is reported. Analysis is theoretically informed by Piagetian stage theory of genetic epistemology. Data produced by other researchers have been recoded to enable quantitative comparisons to be made with the survey data reported by Shayer and Adey (1981). Patterns in the data exposed by…

Ways in which scientists and science students respond to anomalous data are analyzed. There are seven distinct ways in which they respond, only one of which is to accept the data and change theories. Factors that influence theory change and implications for science instruction are reviewed. (SLD)

Discusses a new model of concept learning called prototype theory and describes an experiment with nursing education students in which the differential effects of prototype formation on classification were explored through an instructional program on the concept of shock. Hypotheses tested are discussed and results of pretests and posttests are…

Correlates the kinds of strategies associated with a deep approach to learning science. Analyzes the interactions of two groups of grade 8 students while they were engaged in hands-on science activities during instruction in a chemistry unit. Focuses on two students who showed a deep approach to learning. (Contains 47 references.) (Author/YDS)

Compares the worldview of Native American students of the traditional Kickapoo Band with the worldview encountered in the science classroom. Investigates by conducting periodic observation in two classrooms over an 18-month period of time. Contains 41 references. (DDR)