The study examines the effects of different questioning strategies on elementary school students regarding scientific knowledge, views of scientific inquiry, and scientific inquiry skills during scientific inquiry video learning. A quasi-experimental design was adopted involving 78 sixth-grade Taiwanese students from three classes. The three…

The study determined the relative effectiveness of simulation games, blended learning, and interactive multimedia in enhancing learning outcomes in Basic Science of pupils with varying abilities, with a view to providing information on the most effective strategy for instructing Basic Science among pupils with varying abilities. Children should be…

Background: Since the turn of the 21st century, research on an inquiry-based approach in science education has increasingly been geared towards the integration of technology, primarily focused on secondary and tertiary education. Thus far, no study has reviewed research on a technology-integrated, inquiry-based approach in the specific context of…

The significance of environmental education has become more evident, driven by global concerns surrounding climate change. In Vietnam, a country facing significant environmental challenges, developing environmental knowledge of elementary school teachers is crucial. This study aimed to validate a questionnaire for assessing professional knowledge…

Although research has touted the value of making in educational settings, scant work has been done in formal school contexts utilizing quantitative methods. This could be attributed to the various challenges in integrating making in school settings. To fill in the gap, this study presents an approach to integrate making into science classes at the…

Current models of best practice in science education advocate for students to learn science by engaging in applied contexts that integrate the various science disciplines. Permaculture offers one such integrated context for elementary science. Although permaculture is relatively new in PK-12 education, the broader practice of school gardening has…

This study explores the importance of scientific observation in primary education, highlighting how the use of observation sheets can facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and the development of students' observation skills. In the research, 153 second-grade students were divided into three experimental groups, each group observing a woody plant…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have spurred renewed interest in the epistemologies that students adopt as they engage in science practices. One framework for characterizing students' epistemologies is the "epistemologies in practice" framework (Berland et al. (2016), "Journal of Research in Science Teaching,"…

Previous studies suggested that epistemically more sophisticated students learned better in a constructivist learning context than epistemically less sophisticated students did. This study further examined if students with "higher" prior epistemic beliefs (EB High) had better learning gains than students with "lower" prior…

Engineering's promise to build a better world has been realized differently across the United States, often with lines of social identity determining who becomes an engineer, who benefits from engineering innovations, and who suffers devastating consequences. Many educational scholars have argued that engineering inequities are in part due to deep…

Situated in an elementary afterschool Engineering Literacies Club framed around multiliteracies and the engineering design process, this article explores engineering habits of mind and disciplinary literacies. Disciplinary literacies encourage students to read, write, think, and act like historians, mathematicians, scientists, or engineers by…

With the 2015 change in science standards to align more closely with the Next Generation Science Standards, as the district STEM coach, I saw a need for professional development that addressed the lack of understanding and skill needed to teach the Science and Engineering Practices, specifically the practice of Scientific Augmentation. This…

Despite reform efforts and calls to accept science as a primary subject in elementary school curriculum and instruction (NRC 2007, 2012), science is still often neglected, deprioritized, minimally taught, or taught through traditional methods where teachers and textbooks are the gatekeepers of knowledge (Banilower, 2019; Banilower et al., 2018;…

The worrying decline in the status of primary school science in schools in England has been linked to low teacher confidence in teaching science and to schools being heavily focused on achievement in English and mathematics. This article reports on a novel professional learning strategy that was provided for 23 primary science leaders over five…

Multilingual learners (MLs) represent an increasing proportion of public school students. Although much attention has been given to their academic performance in English language arts and math, less research has addressed their academic performance in science, particularly in elementary school. This study leveraged nationally representative data…