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This study examined 10th-grade students' use of theory and evidence in evaluating a socio-scientific issue: the use of underground water, after students had received a Science, Technology and Society-oriented instruction. Forty-five male and 45 female students from two intact, single-sex, classes participated in this study. A flow-map method was used to assess the participants' conceptual knowledge. The reasoning mode was assessed using a questionnaire with open-ended questions. Results showed that, although some weak to moderate associations were found between conceptual organization in memory and reasoning modes, the students' ability to incorporate theory and evidence was in general inadequate. It was also found that students' reasoning modes were consistent with their epistemological perspectives. Moreover, male and female students appear to have different reasoning approaches.

In the discussion of the inclusion of generic skills in courses, the voices of employers, universities and government have been clearly heard. However, the undergraduate student voice has been largely missing. This paper outlines the results of a survey of staff and undergraduate students. Part A of the survey asked participants to rate a set of skills in terms of their importance. Part B of the survey asked participants to add other skills that they considered important. The student results demonstrate significant year effects. For example higher-order skills such as critical thinking are rated more important at third year than at first year. Comparisons of the staff data and student data show that student perceptions match staff perceptions more closely at third-year level than at first year. When all the results are considered in the broader context of our courses, there appears to be a strong link between students' perception of the importance of skills and the degree to which the skills are assessed.

Secondary school chemical education has a problem: namely, the seeming irrelevance to the pupils of chemistry. Chemical education prepares pupils for participation in society. Therefore, it must imply a model of society, of chemistry, and of the relation between them. In this article it is hypothesized that logical positivism currently offers this model. Logical positivism is a philosophy of science that creates a divide between science and society. It is therefore further hypothesized that the adoption of logical positivism causes chemistry's lack of relevance in chemical education. Both hypotheses could be confirmed by an analysis of a grade nine course.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an international study coordinated by governments of participating countries, through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In 2000, a total of 265,000 students from 32 countries took part in PISA. The main aim of PISA is to assess how well 15-year-old students are prepared to meet the challenges of today's and tomorrow's knowledge societies. The assessment is forward looking, focusing on young people's ability to use their knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges, rather than mastering a specific school curriculum. Assessing young people at the end of their compulsory education is regarded as providing valuable insights into the performance of basic education systems (OECD, 1999, 2001). In this Special Issue, the rich data collected in the OECD PISA 2000 study will be exploited in various secondary analyses. These analyses mainly focus on socio-economic and cultural factors related to or associated with learning outcomes in reading and science. Some articles compare educational systems and cultures in all the Nordic countries, while others focus on two or only one of the countries. The authors of the articles in this issue work as researchers in the national PISA teams of the Nordic countries, which all take part in the PISA programme.

Children from seven classes representing the year groups in a primary school were interviewed in groups of three or four to find out their understanding and views on issues related to the environment and science. The large majority showed considerable interest and concern about environmental issues related to their experience and understanding, drawn from school and influences outside of the school, though most showed limitations and contradictions in their understanding of the issues. The children's understanding of science was mainly limited to their experience of the subject at school and few showed any understanding of the impact of science on society or the environment. Examples of children's cognitive and moral development of environmental issues are presented, including features of phases in the development, as identified from the interviews. The implications for teaching science and environmental education are discussed.

This study investigates the various conceptions held by K-8th Korean grade students regarding the 'changes of state' and the 'conditions for changes of state'. The study used a sample of five kindergarteners, five secondgrade students, five fourth-grade students, five sixth-grade students, and five eighth-grade students. The 25 students attend schools in a rural district of South Korea. Some activities that involved a change in the state of water, including condensation, solidification, and melting, were chosen from K-8th grade science textbooks and attempted by the students. Subsequently, we conducted interviews with the students. While most kindergarteners and second-grade students were able to perceive the phenomena involving changes of state, they were unable to express conceptions related to the changes of state and the conditions under which the state the changes. The upper-grade students, on the other hand, had some conception of the invisible gas state. Most of these students held conceptions about the boiling water's change of state from liquid to gas, but few of them held conceptions about the changes of state involving condensation. Most students understood heat and temperature as conditions of the changes of state, but only applied the heat concept to situations involving rising temperatures. In situations involving cooling, students applied the temperature concept. The younger students understood the concept of heat without understanding the concept of temperature.

Postgraduate student teachers' conceptions of sustainable development were elicited using a questionnaire completed by the entire cohort of geography (N = 21) and science (N = 40) students starting the University of Oxford Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) secondary course. Responses were analysed in three ways: (i) development of categories to capture features of sustainable development; (ii) scrutiny of individual responses for the presence or absence of key features (specifically environmental, economic and social factors); and (iii) in contrast to these grounded approaches, examination of the responses in light of a pre-specified framework. Notable findings were: (i) the large numbers recognizing the centrality of environmental (87%), economic (69%) and social (49%) factors--about a third highlighted all three factors (the geographers significantly more so than the scientists), while a further third mentioned two of them; (ii) when compared with the pre-specified framework, the aspects of sustainable development largely missing were to do with preservation of diversity, and with uncertainty and precaution in action; (iii) only one response contained an aesthetic element; and (iv) when comparing education for sustainable development with environmental education, the most frequent view identified the former as broader. The findings are related to contemporary literature in the field and some implications for PGCE learning are considered.

This research study investigated the attitudes toward science of 8th-grade students in Australia, Canada, Cyprus, and Korea, based on recent TIMSS data, and suggests a model of family and school influences on their attitudes. The structural equation model contained 3 exogenous constructs--familys educational background, aspiration, school climate--and 2 endogenous constructs--teaching and student attitudes toward science. Educational background, aspiration, and school climate were shown to have a direct effect on attitudes, while teaching was shown to directly affect attitudes and to be affected by aspiration and school climate.

Hartnell College is an accredited California Community College serving Salinas and the Salinas Valley, a vast 1,000 square mile agricultural region. The district is characterized by large numbers of migrant workers and their families, chronically high unemployment, high rates of poverty, and low educational attainment. Hartnell's 10,000 students are 67% minority, 52% Latino/a, and 82% first generation college students. Nearly 41% of the College's students are nonnative English speakers. Hartnell's Latino students face serious obstacles to postsecondary success, and far too few Latinos enroll and succeed in mathematics, science, and technology fields. Through Hartnell's MESA program, enrollment in many math and science courses have increased. More significantly, data suggests that students participating in MESA Academic Excellence Workshops have averaged a full grade increase as compared to similar students not participating in the workshops. Hartnell College's MESA program is on a static budget, and the college has expanded and leveraged program services by linking it to several on- and off-campus outreach and student support services programs. Hartnell College won the 2003 Bellwether Award in the Planning, Governance, and Finance category in recognition of this effort.

Applications in engineering, science and technology within undergraduate programmes can be difficult for students to understand. In this paper, new results are presented which go some way to demonstrate and explain the problems faced by students in linking mathematical models to real-world applications. The study is based on student responses to multiple-choice questionnaires on mathematical modelling problems, student reflective questionnaires and subsequent interviews. The processes used by students to solve such problems are classified and links between these process levels, credit and seven other behavioural descriptors are discussed.

The sixth-order wave equation governing the propagation of one-dimensional acoustic waves in a viscous, heat conducting gaseous medium subject to relaxation effects has been considered. It has been reduced to a system of lower order equations corresponding to the finite speeds occurring in the equation, following a method due to Whitham. The lower order equations are much simpler and easier to solve than the original equation. As an illustration, the problem of harmonic wave propagation due to oscillations of a planar wall has been considered, and analytical expressions for the damping coefficients and wave speeds have been obtained.

Biomechanics as a discipline is ideally placed to increase awareness and participation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. A nationwide Biomechanics and Research Innovation Challenge (BRInC) centered on mentoring and role modeling was developed to engage high school girls (mentees) and early-mid-career women (mentors) in the field of biomechanics through the completion of a 100-day research and/or innovation project. This manuscript describes the development, implementation, and uptake of the inaugural BRInC program and synthesizes the research and innovation projects undertaken, providing a framework for adoption of this program within the global biomechanics community. Eighty-seven high school girls in years 9 and 10 (age range: 14–16 y) were mentored in teams (n = 17) by women in biomechanics (n = 24). Using a design thinking approach, teams generated solutions to biomechanics-based problem(s)/research question(s). Eight key reflections on program strengths, as well as areas for improvement and planned changes for future iterations of the BRInC program, are outlined. These key reflections highlight the innovation, impact, and scalability of the program; the importance of a program framework and effective communication tools; and implementation of strategies to sustain the program as well as the importance of diversity and building a sense of community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mentorship has been widely recognized as an effective means to promote student learning and engagement in undergraduate research experiences. However, little work exists for understanding different mentors perceived approaches to mentorship, including mentorship of students from backgrounds and educational trajectories not well represented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Transfer students, in particular, face unique trajectories in their pursuit of research opportunities, yet few studies investigate how mentors describe their approaches to supporting these students. Using semistructured interviews, this study examines how mentors approach mentoring students from diverse backgrounds as research trainees, with an emphasis on transfer students. First, using phenomenography as an analytical approach, we identified four categories describing variations in how mentors reflected upon or accounted for the transfer student identity in their approaches. We find that research mentors vary in their understanding and exposure to the transfer student identity and may have preconceived notions of the transfer student experience. Second, we present vignettes to illustrate how mentors approaches to the transfer student identity may relate or diverge from their general approaches to mentoring students from different backgrounds and identities. The emerging findings have implications for developing effective mentorship strategies and training mentors to support transfer students.

Machine learning (ML) methods are proliferating in scientific research. However, the adoption of these methods has been accompanied by failures of validity, reproducibility, and generalizability. These failures can hinder scientific progress, lead to false consensus around invalid claims, and undermine the credibility of ML-based science. ML methods are often applied and fail in similar ways across disciplines. Motivated by this observation, our goal is to provide clear recommendations for conducting and reporting ML-based science. Drawing from an extensive review of past literature, we present the REFORMS checklist (recommendations for machine-learning-based science). It consists of 32 questions and a paired set of guidelines. REFORMS was developed on the basis of a consensus of 19 researchers across computer science, data science, mathematics, social sciences, and biomedical sciences. REFORMS can serve as a resource for researchers when designing and implementing a study, for referees when reviewing papers, and for journals when enforcing standards for transparency and reproducibility.

Populists’ ideological opposition to global governance is well recognized, yet whether and how these actors systematically undermine international organizations (IOs) remains unclear. We argue that a keymeans by which populists warp global governance is by distorting scientific information, which is necessary for global responses to many public health and environmental issues. Populists are motivated to withhold or misreport scientific information due to their anti-elite, pro-state sovereignty views. Using new data on the source and quality of information provided to IOs, we find that populist leaders are significantly less likely to provide scientific information to these organizations than other types of leaders. When they do offer such data, it is less accurate than the information supplied by other sources. Our findings suggest that populism may stymie international institutions’ ability to govern in areas of pressing international concern.

A renewable energy scientist who resigned from his position during the Trump Administration contemplates the similarities—and differences—between his situation and what happened to Oppenheimer in the 1950s during the McCarthy era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When asked to draw a scientist, children typically draw a gender stereotypical male representation; however, research has not yet assessed these representations in terms of scientist stereotypical skin tone. The current study examined children's (N = 69, 66.7% female, Mage = 7.60, SD = 2.13) scientist perceptions by analyzing both the gender and skin tone of their scientist drawings as well as stereotypical features represented (lab coats, scientific instruments, etc.). This study also examined how these perceptions as reflected in the drawings were related to children's explicit gender stereotypes and their science growth mindset. Boys were less likely to draw a female scientist than were girls. Additionally, children with higher growth mindset were more likely to draw a female scientist. Lastly, with age, children were less likely to draw a female scientist, or a darker skin‐toned scientist as compared with a male or lighter skin‐toned scientist and were more likely to draw a scientist with stereotypical features. This study furthers our knowledge of children's perceptions about scientists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the development of physical theories, thought experiments play a crucial role. Research on this topic began in 1976 and has continued to the present. This study aims to provide a more complete picture of the progress of thought experiments over the past two decades. To achieve this, this study employs bibliometric mapping methods. A total of 679 published papers were analyzed, including articles (504), conference papers (92), and book chapters (83). This data was retrieved from the Scopus database. The study's findings reveal that research and publications on thought experiments are highly valued and have received significant attention over the past eight years. According to the findings, 90% of the top 20 source titles contributing to thought experiments are from journals in the first and second quartiles (Q1 and Q2). This quartile ranking shows the quality and significant influence of a journal. The geographical distribution indicates that the United States contributes the most to thought experiments research, with 213 documents, 2592 citations, and 47 links. We also identified several prospective keywords that could be the focus of future research, including artificial intelligence, physics education, fiction, God, theology, productive imagination, technology, speculative design, and critical design. Therefore, this study provides a thorough picture of thought experiment research trends and future directions of potential topics that can be the focus of future researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether providing realistic auditory or somatosensory cues to spatial location would affect measures of vestibulo-ocular reflex gain in a rotary chair testing (RCT) context. Method: This was a fully within-subject design. Thirty young adults age 18-30 years (16 men, 14 women by self-identification) completed sinusoidal harmonic acceleration testing in a rotary chair under five different conditions, each at three rotational frequencies (0.01, 0.08, and 0.32 Hz). We recorded gain as the ratio of the amplitude of eye movement to chair movement using standard clinical procedures. The five conditions consisted of two without spatial information (silence, tasking via headphones) and three with either auditory (refrigerator sound, tasking via speaker) or somatosensory (fan) information. Two of the conditions also included mental tasking (tasking via headphones, tasking via speaker) and differed only in terms of the spatial localizability of the verbal instructions. We used linear mixed-effects modeling to compare pairs of conditions, specifically examining the effects of the availability of spatial cues in the environment. This study was preregistered on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/2gqcf/). Results: Results showed significant effects of frequency in all conditions (p < .05), but the only pairs of conditions that were significantly different were those including tasking in one condition but not the other (e.g., tasking via headphones vs. silence). Post hoc equivalence testing showed that the lack of significance in the other comparisons could be confirmed as not meaningfully different. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the presence of externally localizable sensory information, whether auditory or somatosensory, does not affect measures of gain in RCT to any relevant degree. However, these findings also contribute to the increasing body of evidence suggesting that mental engagement ("tasking") does increase gain whether or not it is provided via localizable instructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of science as a stratified system is clearly manifested in the markedly uneven distribution of productivity, rewards, resources, and recognition. Although previous studies have shown that institutional environments for conducting research differ significantly between national science systems, disciplines, and subfields, it remains to be shown whether any systematic variations and patterns in inequalities exist among researchers in different national and domain specific settings. This study investigates the positioning of citation elites as opposed to 'ordinary' researchers by way of examining three dimensions of concentration (accumulation of publications and citations, specialisation, and institutional concentration) in biology, economics and physics in Denmark and the UK. Across all three dimensions, we put Richard Whitley's bipartite theory to the test, suggesting a nexus between the intellectual structure of a discipline and the configuration of its elite. The study draws on a dataset of researchers who published most of their publications in either physics, biology, or economics over the 1980–2018 period and with at least one publication in 2017–2018 while affiliated to either a British or a Danish university. We find higher degrees of concentration in the UK compared to Denmark, and that physics and biology respectively display the greatest and lowest degree of concentration. Similar patterns in disciplinary differences are observed in both countries, suggesting that concentration patterns are largely rooted in disciplinary cultures and merely amplified by the national context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Initial teacher education programs have been criticised for their failure to deliver classroom-ready graduates. Problems of concern for preservice teachers (PSTs) identified in the literature are insufficient time in the classroom, lack of confidence, inadequate pedagogical knowledge and a theory practice divide. This research examines a school–university partnership approach to science teacher education from the perspective of PSTs, school students, teachers and teacher educators where university tutorials were conducted in a school environment. This research is underpinned by practice architectures theory, it follows collaborative participatory action research methodology using mixed methods of data collection including surveys, interviews and focus groups. The research findings revealed how the program built on PSTs' pedagogical knowledge and confidence and connected theory with practice. Teachers observed high level student engagement and students building on their prior science knowledge in innovative science lessons. The research provides rich data that illuminate aspects in this school–university partnership approach from a range of perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even in academic fields dominated by women students (e.g., educational research), academic careers are characterized by vertical gender segregation in favor of men. This clashes with the public understanding of educational research as a women's domain that is more strongly associated with warmth (a stereotypically feminine trait) than competence (a stereotypically masculine trait), as revealed in our first study. We thus conducted an experimental vignette study of 189 adults from the general public to explore how women versus men researchers working in educational research versus physics (as a contrasting domain clearly dominated by men) were perceived on several dimensions of competence and warmth. Whereas the female researcher in physics was rated as more competent than the female researcher in educational research, the woman in physics was penalized for her gender stereotype-incongruent domain choice by being perceived as less warm. However, the male researcher in educational research was perceived as both warmer and more competent than his man counterpart in physics, and as smarter than the female researcher in educational research. These findings suggest rewards instead of penalties for men pursuing academic careers in initially women-dominated domains, likely contributing to the increasing gender gap in academic careers in these domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper builds on the growing focus on learning about teaching science with digital technologies, and the relationship between different elements that constitute teacher knowledge and how these are captured and understood during teacher education program. Purpose: The aim of the paper is to capture and understand how student teachers integrate digital technologies into their science teaching. In the paper, research on Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is used to inform the discussion of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) the integration of technology into the teaching of a particular science content. Content Representation (CoRe) as a reflective tool is modified to a Technological Content Representation (T-CoRe) to stimulate 24 primary student teachers´ reflections on how to integrate digital technologies into science teaching. Design and methods: After completing the T-CoRes, the student teachers participated in group discussions that aimed to stimulate a deeper reflection on how and why they integrate digital technologies into their science teaching. The data consist of student teachers´ completed T-CoRes (n = 12) and audio recorded group discussions (n = 6) to provide examples where the student teachers reflected on knowledge components of TPACK, both separately and integrated. A qualitative content analysis was performed to identify examples of participants' understanding of how to use digital tools when teaching a specific science topic. Results: The results demonstrate that the T-CoRe helped student teachers to reflect on their teaching of science with the use of digital technologies and made explicit the ways in which technology, content and purpose are closely linked in teaching. Conclusion: The practices and processes highlighted in this paper will help to inform the involvement of student teachers in capturing and developing a knowledge base for using digital technologies in their science teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although science and technology are viewed as closely related subjects, they are rarely combined in preschools. Purpose: This article investigates preschool teachers' perspectives on integrating digital tools when teaching science, asking how and why they use digital tools, and examining the affordances they experience and obstacles they encounter when incorporating digital tools. Sample: Eighteen Swedish preschool teachers volunteered to participate in the study. Design and method: Data were collected through group interviews and analyzed using a thematic approach, together with the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, to obtain a more detailed picture of the teachers' experiences. Results: Most of the participants were positive about using digital tools when teaching children science, and they emphasized the need for training on how to use the tools themselves. The preschool teachers viewed digital tools as good complements to other tools when teaching science and to find information about science facts. Moreover, there were generic reasons for using digital tools, such as to stimulate critical reflections among the children, to document activities and to create stimulating learning environments. However, one group of preschool teachers struggled with integrating digital tools when teaching science. Discussion: Digitalization in preschools and the rest of society is developing. The preschool teachers found possibilities and challenges in using digital tools when teaching children science. Still, future studies are needed to investigate how this will develop. In addition to the results, we found that TPACK served as a useful framework for analyzing and discussing our results. Therefore, we recommend TPACK when analyzing and discussing the use of digital tools in future preschool studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to natural curiosity, science is characterized by a number of psychological processes and perceptions. Among the psychological features, scientific enquiry relates to uncovering—or discovering—aspects of a world perceived as hidden from humans. A speculative theoretical model is presented, suggesting the evolution of science reflects psychological repercussions of wearing clothes. Specifically, the natural world is perceived as hidden due to the presence of clothing. Three components of scientific enquiry may arise from clothing: detachment from sensual experience, a perception that the world is veiled in mystery, and an intellectual desire to uncover the hidden structure of nature. Rather than beginning with the emergence of Homo sapiens, the proposed connection with clothing implies that psychological foundations for science began to develop during the last ice age, with the invention of complex clothes that fully covered the human body. After the end of the last ice age, elements of scientific thinking began to emerge in societies where clothing was worn routinely for psychosocial reasons, including modesty. Notably, a scientific attitude was essentially absent in hunter-gatherer communities where nakedness remained the norm. This novel perspective aims to advance the history and philosophy of science, revealing the emergence of science as a situated phenomenon contingent on humans being covered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite religion's deep historical roots, adults in modern societies express greater confidence in the existence of unobservable scientific entities, like oxygen, as compared to unobservable religious entities, like God. Challenging conventional explanations, we argue that testimony-based input, rather than direct experience, is the primary determinant of individuals' ontological beliefs in both science and religion. Disparities in ontological beliefs between the domains of science and religion, within each domain, and across diverse cultures are poorly explained by variation in direct experience. From early childhood, humans rely heavily on testimony to form and calibrate their beliefs. The credibility of testimony emerges as a key factor in understanding the nuanced dynamics of ontological beliefs in both scientific and religious domains. Understanding why individuals are more confident of the existence of invisible scientific phenomena (e.g., oxygen) than invisible religious phenomena (e.g., God) remains a puzzle. Departing from conventional explanations linking ontological beliefs to direct experience, we introduce a model positing that testimony predominantly shapes beliefs in both scientific and religious domains. Distinguishing direct experience (personal observation) from cultural input (testimony-based evidence), we argue that even apparently direct experiences often stem from others' testimony. Our analysis indicates that variability in direct experience cannot explain belief disparities between science and religion, within each domain, or across cultures. Instead, variability in testimony is the primary driver of ontological beliefs. We present developmental evidence for testimony-based beliefs and elucidate the mechanisms underlying their impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]