Over the last decade or so, the rate of growth of academic publications involving discussion of 'citizen science' and 'community science', and similar variants, has risen exponentially. These fluid terms, with no fixed definition, cover a continuum of public participation within a range of scientific activities. It is, therefore, apposite and…

Concept mapping is widely used as a tool for assessing students' understanding of science. To fully realize the diagnostic potential of concept mapping, a scoring method that not only provides an objective and accurate assessment of students' drawn concept maps but also provides a detailed understanding of students' proficiency and deficiencies in…

New resources have recently been emerging for educators to implement systems thinking (ST) in chemistry education, including a proposed set of ST skills. While these efforts aim to make ST implementation easier, little is known about how to assess these skills in a chemistry context. In this study, we investigated ST skills employed by students…

Many science students struggle with using scientific language and making sense of scientific phenomena. Thus, there is an increased interest in science education research and public policy with regard to understanding and promoting scientific language use and sensemaking in science classrooms. However, there is a lack of comparative studies on how…

Citizen science, a growing domain that allows public participation in scientific research, plays an increasingly significant role in formal education. Its potential to foster scientific literacy, address environmental issues, and promote sustainability is widely acknowledged. Drawing on the concept mapping approach, this study aims to investigate…

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of concept maps on science achievement among elementary and secondary education students, including low-achieving students. A systematic search located 55 studies about concept mapping in science achievement published in peer-reviewed journals and dissertations between 1980 and 2020. We extracted 58…

Chemical bonding is central to explaining many phenomena. Research in chemical education and the Framework for K-12 Science Education (the "Framework") argue for new approaches to learning chemical bonding grounded in (1) using ideas of the balance of electric forces and energy minimization to explain bond formation, (2) using learning…

The interaction between student language use and sensemaking is an area in science learning that needs further elucidation in order to meet government standards in science education. In this study, concept mapping was used to explore the relationship between scientific language use and sensemaking defined as the interaction between the scientific…

Teleological reasoning is viewed as a major hurdle to evolution education, and yet, eliciting, interpreting, and reflecting upon teleological language presents an arguably greater challenge to the evolution educator and researcher. This article argues that making explicit the role of behavior as a causal factor in the evolution of particular…

This study was aimed at eliminating the difficulties in teaching the concepts and the students' conceptual understanding in the "Force and Energy" unit through semantic mapping. The study was conducted using the action research method. This study was conducted in the control group using the existing learning method in the science…

Researchers and educators have been exploring systems thinking (ST) in chemistry education to better equip citizens for 21st century challenges; however, little is known about students' perspectives and experiences. In this study, we investigated students' perspectives of ST and their experiences with ST activities. We designed and implemented a…

Scientific practices describe behaviors scientists engage in while investigating the natural world. Educators should be aware of different science practice frameworks to better understand their students' progression for learning science practices across the K-20 spectrum. For example, a high school AP instructor would benefit from understanding…

Interdisciplinary science learning can play a central role in promoting students' 21st century skills. However, students tend to have low perceived self-efficacy towards 21st century skills, thus limiting the application of their actual scientific competence. This study seeks, based on a 1.5-year intervention study, to promote students' perceived…

The properties and functions of complex systems apply across a variety of domains of science and are at the heart of the solutions to many global crises facing the world today. As such, understanding of complex systems has been increasingly recognized as a core goal of science education. Learning about complexity-related concepts and phenomena is…

This research employs the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method to investigate the configurations of multiple factors influencing scientific concept learning, including augmented reality (AR) technology, the concept map (CM) strategy and individual differences (eg, prior knowledge, experience and attitudes). A quasi-experiment…