In response to calls to improve the quantitative training of undergraduate biology students, there have been increased efforts to better integrate math into biology curricula. One challenge of such efforts is negative student attitudes toward math, which are thought to be particularly prevalent among biology students. According to theory,…

Employability is a key issue for students and Higher Education Institutions and a key component of employability is possessing the skills a role requires. In the environmental sciences, fieldwork provides an opportunity for students to develop employability-enhancing technical and transferable skills. However, students can have difficulty…

This study aims to investigate the comprehension levels of classroom teacher candidates about the key concepts of Life Science Curriculum. The study was carried out within the qualitative research approach and descriptive survey model was adopted. The sample of study consists of final year 114 classroom teacher candidates who are studying Primary…

In this study, we aim to deepen our understanding of how biology and medicine undergraduate students experience the relationship between teaching and research. Employing a phenomenographic approach, 34 final-year students of a Bachelor in Biological Sciences and a Bachelor of Medicine, from one research-oriented Chilean university, were…

Imagine saving just one of the 23,000 species threatened with extinction. Students studying endangered species in a general life science course faced the decision of which species to save as a summative assignment in a unit on scientific explanation and argumentation. They used the claim, evidence, and reasoning (CER) framework in which students…

Application of mathematical and statistical thinking and reasoning, typically referred to as quantitative skills, is essential for university bioscience students. First, this study developed an assessment task intended to gauge graduating students' quantitative skills. The Quantitative Skills Assessment of Science Students (QSASS) was the result,…

This paper, presented at the 2016 [National Association for Research in Science Teaching] NARST Annual International Conference, summarizes the work to date of the Knowledge Assets to Support the Science Instruction of Elementary Teachers (ASSET) project. ASSET is exploring a method for collecting and synthesizing pedagogical content knowledge…

The concepts of randomness and variation are pervasive in science. The purpose of this study was to document how post-secondary life science students explain randomness and variation, infer relationships between their explanations, and ability to describe and identify appropriate and inappropriate variation, and determine if students can identify…

Many active learning pedagogies depend on students' preparing for class in advance. One common method for holding students accountable for this preparation is the use of reading quizzes. When used thoughtfully, reading quizzes can also actually promote student learning through the testing effect. In this article we describe why and how we use…

Background: This investigation was designed to uncover the relations between students' cognitive and metacognitive strategies used during a complex climate simulation. While cognitive strategy use during science inquiry has been studied, the factors related to this strategy use, such as concurrent metacognition, prior knowledge, and prior…

This curriculum inquiry explores scholarly influence by examining how Joseph J. Schwab's ideas travelled over time and how his research was disseminated. The study begins with Schwab's biography and a literature review, followed by descriptions of the research method and sources of evidence. Data analysis centre on (1) The influence of Schwab's…

This research is conducted to find out whether the attitudes of preservice classroom teachers towards mother tongue, life science, mathematics and science teachings predict their attitudes towards teaching profession or not. Research is conducted in pursuant of relational screening model, which a nonempirical design is belonging to the…

The aim of this study is to identify cell-related misconceptions among fifth graders attending middle schools in Turkey and examine the impact of microscopy on the elimination of these misconceptions. The study was conducted with the participation of 87 fifth grade students (schoolchildren are nearly 11 years old) attending a middle school in Agri…

Every year millions of people contract cancer in the world, and according to prediction of the World Health Organization by the year 2030 there will be about 27 million new cases. Because of these figures and the resulting social and economic implications of this disease, radiotherapy, which is one form of treatment that uses ionizing radiation,…

This essay describes Rasch analysis psychometric techniques and how such techniques can be used by life sciences education researchers to guide the development and use of surveys and tests. Specifically, Rasch techniques can be used to document and evaluate the measurement functioning of such instruments. Rasch techniques also allow researchers to…