This article discusses a study carried out to investigate scientific reasoning skills among 82 science pre-service teachers at the Faculty of Education, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), one of the public universities in Malaysia. Undeniably, the development of general scientific abilities is critical to enable students of science, technology,…

In the present study we used the technique of word association tests to assess students' cognitive structures during the learning period. In particular, we tried to investigate what students living near a protected area in Greece (Dadia forest) knew about the phenomenon of decomposition. Decomposition was chosen as a stimulus word because it…

Clarifies the difference between the Piagetian Conservation of Liquid Quantity task and the Conservation of Volume task and provides an alternative test for the presence of formal operational thought. (JR)

Twenty-three high school biology students using the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) Blue Textbook were administered a weight conservation and two volume conservation tasks. A majority performed below formal-operational level, indicating that these students would be likely to encounter difficuluty with BSCS Blue Version materials. (MLH)

Presented in both English and French, Science 10 is an integrated academic course that helps students in Alberta, Canada better understand and apply fundamental concepts and skills common to biology, chemistry, physics, and the Earth sciences. The major goals of the program are: (1) to develop in students an understanding of the interconnecting…

Presented in English and French, Biology 20-30 is an academic program that helps students in Alberta, Canada, better understand and apply fundamental concepts and skills. The major goals of the program are: (1) to develop in students an understanding of the interconnecting ideas and principles that transcend and unify the natural science…

This report describes the results of an attempt to identify a learning hierarchy for each of a number of science concepts mainly encountered first in the high school grades. The concepts studied relate to stoichiometric calculations and molarity, both from chemistry; to food web relationships and problems involving Mendel's laws from biology; to…

Twenty-three high school biology students were individually administered three conservation tasks (weight, volume, volume displacement). During one semester, they were examined over the course material using published Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) Blue Version examination questions which were previously classified as requiring either…