Given the high probability of national and federal research laboratories continuing to sponsor science education partnerships between their staff and classroom science teachers and the dearth of research in this area, this study set out to delineate best practices associated with such partnerships for the purpose of increasing the effectiveness...
The purpose of this study was to identify the management demands that may
be unique to science classrooms. The sample consisted of three biology teachers and
three language arts teachers from two high schools located within the same school
district. To establish a basic framework, two quantitative questions were addressed:...
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the current status of the
implementation of Benin's new elementary science curriculum. The study
used the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), a model designed to
evaluate the implementation of educational innovations. Specifically the
study attempted to ascertain teachers' concerns about the science curriculum,...
Current reforms in science education advocate instruction which capitalizes on broad,
integrative understandings of a few underlying concepts. Such recommendations imply
that science teachers already hold integrated conceptualizations and will use such
understandings to guide practice. However, little research exists which delineates the
global content understandings of biology teachers (herein...
The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine scientific arguments constructed by secondary science teachers during instruction. The analysis focused on how arguments constructed by teachers differed based on the mode of inquiry underlying the topic. Specifically, how did the structure and content of arguments differ between experimentally and...
Scientific inquiry in K-12 classrooms tends to be procedural, lacking opportunities for students to gain understanding of how scientific knowledge is constructed through reflection, debate, and argument. Limited opportunity to develop scientific argumentation skills prevents students from practicing the scientific thinking needed to understand the nature of scientific knowledge and...
The purpose of this study was to understand how instruction in an introductory nonmajor astronomy course at Oregon State University affects how non-science majors view science and the scientific process. The study used research-based methods to design a reform-based lecture/lab course and implement it for students. Two top-level questions were...
Recent science education reforms have placed a large emphasis on inquiry-based teaching strategies as an effective way of improving conceptual understanding of science principles, comprehension of the nature of scientific inquiry, and development of the abilities for inquiry (NRC, 1996). To better understand the relationship between inquiry-based instruction and student...
This dissertation consists of two articles to be submitted for publication. The first,
a literature review, makes visible common influences on science teaching self-efficacy
beliefs and also points to potentially invisible validation concerns regarding the
instrument used. The second investigates the participants' invisible science teaching self-efficacy
beliefs and, through the...
Problem-based learning (PBL) is one type of inquiry-based learning. Many community college instructors use inquiry-based learning as an instructional strategy. There is much literature on the use of problem-based learning in undergraduate, graduate and medical school education, with a multitude of examples of specific techniques and problems to be addressed,...
The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe how novice students solved computer programming problems in a beginning college level computer science (CS) course with an introduction to object-oriented programming (OOP) and what knowledge they obtained about OOP and computer problem solving (CPS) as a result of their experiences....
This multiple case study explores issues of equity in science education through an examination of how teachers' reasoning patterns compare with students' reasoning patterns during inquiry-based lessons. It also examines the ways in which teachers utilize students' cultural and linguistic resources, or funds of knowledge, during inquiry-based lessons and the...
This study investigated how a minority population of Latino/a immigrant children attending a middle school in the Pacific Northwest made sense of engaging with school and school mathematics. A cross disciplinary theoretical framework was used to examine how individual student motivation is impacted by the social context in which the...
Although many science educators and researchers believe that emotion is an important part of the learning process, few researchers have dealt with the topic in a systematic fashion. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of emotion in the learning process, particularly in the learning of science...