An important goal in school algebra is to help students notice the covariational nature of functional relationships, how the values of variables change in relation to each other. This study explored 102 Year 7 (12 to 13-year-old) students' covariational reasoning with their constructed graphs for figural growing patterns they had generalised. A…

Communication is best understood as occurring along three dimensions: interactional, conceptual, and linguistic. However, few studies have examined early parent-child communication along all three dimensions simultaneously. This study examines these three dimensions of communication in Norwegian parent-child interactions during play. Thirty-nine…

This paper reports from a case study which explores kindergarten children's mathematical abstraction in a teaching--learning activity about reflection symmetry. From a dialectical perspective, abstraction is here conceived as a process, as a genuine part of human activity, where the learner establishes "a point of view from which the concrete…

Research in Organic Chemistry education has revealed students' challenges in mechanistic reasoning. When solving mechanistic tasks, students tend to focus on explicit surface features, apply fragmented conceptual knowledge, rely on rote-memorization and, hence, often struggle to build well-grounded causal explanations. When taking a resource…

This paper describes the design of an instrument to assess secondary school students' proficiency in structure-property reasoning (SPR). Design criteria for the instrument required that it should be based on a comprehensive model for structure-property reasoning, assess both reproductive and productive use of structure-property reasoning, be…

Understanding ongoing chemical processes in the laboratory requires constant shifting between different representational levels--the macroscopic, submicroscopic, and symbolic levels--and analysis of the various mechanistic features of each of these levels. Thus, the ability to explain observations of chemical phenomena with regard to their…

The need for data literacy is an increasingly pressing priority in society, but most of the work in data-centred education has focused on developing skills at the middle school, secondary, and post-secondary levels, with little attention on the potential for engaging elementary-aged students in reasoning with and about data. This paper reports…

Mathematics education often grapples with the challenge of teaching abstract mathematical concepts, particularly those existing in 3D space. Visualizing, manipulating, and comprehending these abstract objects can be a formidable task for learners. While 3D printing technology has found applications in various fields, its utilization in mathematics…

Background: The term individual differences refers to the physical, behavioral, cognitive, social, and emotional attributes that make each human unique. Late adolescence to young adulthood represents a time of significant neurobiological and cognitive transformations that contribute further to human variability. Those transformations include an…

Hypothesis-based reasoning with conditionals is a skill that is required for engaging in integral activities of modern elementary school science-curricula. The teaching of this skill at this early stage of education, however, is demanding, particularly in whole school classes in which it is difficult to adapt teaching to children's individual…

Chemistry is considered a difficult subject by most students. Its difficulty lies in Chemistry's complex and abstract nature. This highly abstract nature requires constant interplay and coordination between the macroscopic, particulate, and symbolic representations. Experts can successfully navigate the various representations without overloading…

BrainPOP Science is a research-based program that has been shown to be effective in improving and quickly developing students' scientific reasoning skills. This white paper presents a comprehensive case study conducted in school districts in the Southeastern United States. BrainPOP Science is one of the leading supplemental middle school programs.…

Fluid intelligence and conscientiousness are important predictors of students' academic performance and competence gains. Although their individual contributions have been widely acknowledged, less is known about their potential interplay. Do students profit disproportionately from being both smart and conscientious? We addressed this question…

Classroom dialogues have special educational value because they allow students to engage critically but constructively with each other's ideas, solve scientific problems jointly and develop their scientific understanding. The present study focuses on how groups of twelfth-grade high school and university students communicate and co-operate through…

Adaptive reasoning is one of five components students use to develop mathematical expertise and become mathematically proficient. When students adapt their reasoning they are logically thinking about the mathematical relationships between concepts and adapting their thinking to solve problems. Three Act Math Tasks are popular math problems used in…