Studies of both professional science practice and children's science learning show that care is not merely ancillary to disciplinary work but a core and generative constituent of science practice. In science education research, however, students' care is often overlooked. In this paper, we describe the expression of care across two STEM classrooms…

Epistemological beliefs and argumentation are two important themes in science education, but research on the relationship between them is scarce. We treated epistemological beliefs in our study considering the cognitivist view of personal epistemology and included the justification, source, certainty, and development dimensions. We examined…

This study examined the effect of design-based science instruction (DBSI) on sixth grade students' science achievement, as well as their development in relation to science process skills. 213 sixth grade students from three public schools participated in the study. A pilot was conducted in the unit of Systems of the Human Body and the main study…

Recent solar eclipses provide relevant real-world contexts for learning about the scientific phenomena of the lunar phases. News coverage of the phenomenon may have raised questions such as, "Why does the Moon look different at different times, and sometimes as if it is not there?," and "What patterns can be found in the lunar…

This study aims to investigate the relationship between levels of fluid intelligence and higher-order thinking skills according to Bloom's three levels classification (analysis, evaluation, creation) among sixth grade students in Jordan in the subject of work and energy as one of the science book topics for the first semester of the academic year…

Recently, Virtual reality (VR) technologies have started to be used increasingly in the field of education, as in many other fields. With the widespread use of virtual reality applications, there is a need to investigate the effects of virtual reality applications in the field of education. The results obtained from these researches can contribute…

This study analyzed the comprehension strategies and visuals in two science textbook series for grades 6, 7, and 8 as means of better understanding a core element of the ecological component of science literacy. The iScience [Biggs et al. in iScience (Grade 6), McGraw-Hill, 2015a, iScience (Grade 7), McGraw-Hill, 2015b, iScience (Grade 7),…

Student participation in the science practices is more than following directions to conduct pre-determined experiments and analyze data with expected solutions. This requires classroom shifts that increase the epistemic agency of students: increase student involvement and authority in developing science knowledge and practices, rather than the…

When learning about scientific phenomena, students are expected to "mechanistically" explain how underlying interactions produce the observable phenomenon and "conceptually" connect the observed phenomenon to canonical scientific knowledge. This paper investigates how the integration of the complementary processes of designing…

In an increasingly data-driven society, making decisions with data is a requirement not only for research scientists but also for navigating life more generally (Kjelvik & Schultheis, 2019). An informed citizenry must be prepared to discover patterns, predict outcomes, make decisions with data, and evaluate data-based claims for legitimacy and…

While the importance of explicit and reflective NOS instruction is clear in the literature, questions remain about how to enact such instruction. That is, literature is sometimes unclear in defining how to enact explicit and reflective NOS instruction. While some authors recommend using questions (e.g., Clough 2007) to enact effective NOS…

Instructional scaffolds may promote science learning, particularly for topics that are controversial. Scaffolding may also need to be autonomy supportive, particularly for adolescents, and designed to facilitate scientific discourse and agency. The purpose of the present study was to investigate differences in middle school students' discourse and…

Despite increased research interest in improving students' scientific inquiry abilities, how to conduct scientific inquiry using science textbooks that are easily accessible to primary school students remains understudied. This study developed and verified an inquiry activity model (IAM) to improve the performance of primary school students in…

Science education research has repeatedly revealed students' problems with understanding the energy concept, in particular, their understanding of potential energy. Newer research suggests that teaching students fields as a means to store potential energy may promote a more consistent understanding of the energy concept. Yet, it is presently…

STEM education is widely recognized as a powerful means of cultivating well-rounded future talent. However, challenges such as difficulties in observation, declining learning interests, and the lack of teaching resources present obstacles to the implementation of STEM education in China. Virtual Reality (VR), with its immersive, interactive, and…