This study tested and integrated the effects of an inquiry-based didactic method for preschool science in a real practical classroom setting. Four preschool classrooms participated in the experiment (N = 57) and the children were 4–6 years old. In order to assess children’s attention for causal events and their understanding at the level of scientific reasoning skills, we designed a simple task in which a need for information gain was created. Compared to controls, children in the post-test showed significant learning gains in the development of the so-called control of variables strategy. Indeed, they executed more informative and less uninformative explorations during their spontaneous play. Furthermore, the importance of such programmes was discussed in the field of STEM education.

* Note: This paper was published as an inadvertent duplicate publication with an another journal.

This article reports the results of a meta-analysis of the effectiveness of 7E learning cycle in science teaching. Totally 35 different effect sizes from 24 experimental studies, comprising 2918 students were included in the meta-analysis. The results confirmed that 7E learning cycle have a positive effect on students’ achievement. The overall effect size (Hedges’s g) value obtained from independent studies was calculated as 1.245 (% 95 CI, SE = .148) between confidence intervals 956 and 1.534 according to the random effects model. Among all effect sizes 32 had a positive effect whereas 3 of them had negative effect. A number of sub-group analyses (school level, type of publication, subject matter and duration) were conducted. The effect of 7E was not significant for school level, type of publication and duration. However, regarding the subject matter a significant difference was observed. The high effect size calculated in this meta-analysis implies that the 7E learning cycle is a useful strategy that should be included in science curriculums.

Personal connections to agriculture have decreased considerably in Finland during the last few decades due to struc-tural changes in agriculture. In this study, we will elucidate the understanding and conception of agriculture amongst urban pupils who have grown up during the 21st century. The research strategy consists of intervention in form of a farm visit, with pre- and post-assessment. The methods for collecting data were drawings for gaining a diversified un-derstanding of how pupils understand, experience and conceptualise agriculture. The drawings were analysed by visual content analysis. In addition, interviews, analysed by inductive content analysis method, were used to clarify the re-sults. Qualities of farms as authentic learning environments are defined and studied The study revealed that many pupils had irrational conceptions of agriculture before the farm visit (38 %), but decreased significantly after the visit. One of the explaining factors for these irrational conceptions was considered to be the influence of media sources. Farms as educational learning environments were able to correct pupils’ false conceptions. A realistic image of agriculture is of significant value for becoming an aware and responsible consumer as well as choosing a career in agriculture.

This paper reports on research into the practice of learning rounds in Scotland. Learning rounds are a form of collaborative professional development for teachers based on the instructional rounds practice developed in the USA. In recent years learning rounds have gained high profile official support within education in Scotland. The research finds that what teachers in Scotland do when they say they are do-ing learning rounds varies widely from school to school and deviates significantly from the practice of instructional rounds. The implications of this for who is learning what in the practice of learning rounds is considered. The wider implications of the Scottish experience for the development of in-structional rounds practice in other countries is also considered as are the implications for promoting collaborative professional development practice more generally.

A university course project was developed and implemented in a biology course, focusing on environmental problems, to assess community awareness of childhood lead poisoning. A set of 385 questionnaires was generated and distributed in an urban community in North Carolina, USA. The study revealed that university education levels among the participants in the study significantly enhanced awareness of the body systems affected by lead poisoning, whereas age significantly enhanced awareness of the treatment of lead poisoning, its prevalence, causes, and the body systems affected. A majority of the participants showed interest in learning about lead poisoning (67%), but perhaps not only through a university seminar (42%). The project showed that involvement of students in innovative communication avenues between universities and communities, aimed at enhancing public awareness of a major environmental health risk, is possible through a biology course project in which students are part of the project’s development, implementation and analysis. Also, such an educational research project can, despite some limitations, offer educational opportunities that can intensify the students’ interest in the course and knowledge of the research topic.

Motivation to learn foreign languages is a significant determinant of successful language acquisition. The subject has been widely researched in the past, and since the early 1990s a great deal of empirical research related to the classroom environment has been proposed to expand theory into everyday classroom practice. I present an empirical, longitudinal (3-year) study to explore the relationship between and changes in foreign language learning motivation, learning motivation and self-concept in the 5th, 6th and 8th forms of elementary school. The same tests (Kozéki-Entwistle’s Learning Motivation Questionnaire, the Tenessee SelfConcept Scale, and Clément, Dörnyei and Noels’ Foreign Language Learning Motivation questionnaire) were administered three times, so I was able to compare the results and draw conclusions about developmental tendencies. A strong correlation was found between motivational and self-esteem scores, and between learning and foreign language learning motivation subscales. It is necessary to highlight the importance of the Moral, Family and Social Self, which draws our attention to the family values and beliefs students are equipped with, when they enter the school. The significant decrease in motivation and self-esteem in the period under investigation focuses our attention on problems of adolescence, and challanges language teachers to establish a highly motivating classroom practice.

For a university service learning educational research project addressing Legionnaires’ disease (LD), a Yes/No questionnaire on community awareness of LD was developed and distributed in an urban community in North Carolina, USA. The study showed that the age of the participant was a major factor in enhancing awareness of LD, whereas education was a minor factor at best. Differences in responses among the age groups were strongly significant for general LD awareness, knowledge of its causes and prevalence, as well as body systems affected, prevention and treatment. Interest among the participants in learning more about LD (68%) was higher than in attending a university seminar on the topic (54%). This study provided many educational opportunities to the students to enhance and apply their data analysis skills and to intensify several aspects of their knowledge acquisition and communication skills. Fostering the active involvement of students in an educational activity that can set the stage for an innovative university-community partnership on enhancing awareness of the preventable environmental disease LD is of benefit to all stakeholders.

Emerging evidence indicates that culture influences pupils learning of science. However, the influence of culture on science learning is usually not considered when developing science curricular for both primary and secondary schools. This study investigated the extent to which primary and secondary school pupils believe in cultural interpretations of the physical phenomenon of ‘heat’ associated with anger and the influence of education level, ethnic communities and gender on cultural beliefs. Cross-sectional survey research design was used. The target population was Standard Seven, Form one and Form Three pupils in ten districts selected from Nyanza, Rift Valley, Central, Eastern and Coast Provinces in Kenya. The ten districts were selected purposively to represent 10 different ethnic communities from the five provinces. A total of 2837 secondary and 625 primary school pupils participated. The pupils were drawn from 15 primary and 31 secondary schools .A questionnaire was used to gather information from pupils. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in analyzing data. Hypotheses were tested using the chi square ( X 2) statistic at α = 0.05 level of significance. Some of the results obtained give statistically significant relationship between pupils’ beliefs in cultural interpretations of scientific phenomenon of heat associated with anger and the communities where they come from. This implies that such beliefs are confined to specific communities studied. There appears to be no significant association between pupils’ beliefs in cultural interpretations of the scientific phenomenon of heat and level of education in some of the communities. The implication is that education reduces beliefs in cultural interpretations in such communities but does not eradicate such beliefs. There was also no statistically significant association between pupils’ beliefs in cultural interpretations of the scientific phenomenon of heat and gender, implying that both boys and girls equally believe in cultural interpretations. The findings from this study inform curriculum developers of some of the cultural beliefs that are likely to influence the learning of science. It is recommended that teachers discuss cultural interpretations of scientific concepts before introducing them in their lessons.

This paper explores the challenges faced by teachers and educators in the online classroom, especially in light of existing learner differences among students stemming from intelligence, socioeconomic status (SES), culture, gender, among other factors. The author examines the characteristics of the online classroom and looks at learner differences as significant factors impacting teacher responsibilities in the online setting. Several challenges common to facilitated online learning (FOL) and independent online learning (IOL) in the online classroom are examined and brought into perspective as the author applies social science theories such as self-efficacy, multiple intelligences theory, social distance theory and comparative homogeneity, pedagogy and classroom management theories in analyzing and addressing these challenges. The author makes several recommendations for online teachers and educators to address the problems and challenges that are present in the online classroom and then explores the implications for teaching and learning. Finally, the author espouses a need for research into the major issue under discussion.

Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is a model that explains how teachers use technology more effectively in the context of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. Teachers' TPACK competencies play great importance in this regard. Lesson study has also been playing significant roles in the development of teachers' professional trainings. When the researches on TPACK and lesson study have been analyzed, the research is expected to provide significant contributions to the literature. This study aims to present reflections from a lesson study practice that carried out to urge techno-pedagogical competencies of the secondary school mathematics teachers and to reveal the development of teachers’ progress. The study used case study method, and it was conducted with three in-service teachers. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews, voice recorder, and observation notes. To analyze the collected data, descriptive analysis method was used. The results have revealed that teachers have made much more progress in designing, implementing, and problem solving in terms of TPACK competencies. It has also been determined that teachers’ development of openness to the innovations was limited. This limitation appeared to emerge as a result of teachers’ time anxiety and insufficient knowledge regarding the use of technology.

In order to reflect the integration of the teachers’ content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and technology usage skills to the class context and to provide the expected outputs for the program's purposes, it is needed to be revealed the different dimensions of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). In this study, it was aimed to investigate the teacher training programmes related to pre-service science teachers’ TPACK. This study was designed as a cross-sectional study. In the 2015-2016 academic year, a total of 269 pre-service teachers (73 of them from 1st grade, 73 of them from 2nd grade, 87 of them from 3rd and 36 of them from 4th grade students) attending Science Education Department participated in this study. As a data collection tool, 7 subscales of “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Scale of Pre-Service Teachers”; namely, technology knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, content knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge, technological content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and technological pedagogical content knowledge were used. According to the results, as the class level of pre-service teacher increases, their level of technological pedagogical content knowledge increases as well. Moreover, there is a significant difference on behalf of pre-service teachers at the 1st grade in all dimensions of technological pedagogical content knowledge scale.

The purpose of the study is to develop a valid and reliable scale to measure the teachers’ levels of student-centered education practices. The Exploratory Factor Analysis sample included a total of 426 teachers and the Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the scale was conducted on a total of 160 teachers working in the province of Duzce during the spring term of 2014-2015 education year. Exploratory Factor Analysis was performed to test the construct validity of the scale and the model was tested through the Confirmatory Factor Analysis. For the reliability, Cronbach’s Alpha internal coefficient was calculated and item analysis was performed based on the corrected item total correlation. The final form of the scale included 32 items and one dimension. These 32 items explained 40.04% of the total variance. The results of the item total correlation analysis indicated that none of the item was below 0.30 and the lowest item correlation coefficient was 0.51. Cronbach’s Alpha was found to be 0.95 for the internal consistency of the scale. The reliability and validity results for the Student-Centered Education Scale suggest that this scale is a reliable and valid tool to measure the levels of student-centered educational practices among teachers.

In the rapidly developing age of technology, the contribution of using multimedia-supported instructional materials in the field of teaching technologies to science education has been increasing steadily. The purpose of this research is to compare the multimedia learning instructional materials prepared according to the 7E learning model and the students' academic success and the effect on the reminiscence of the learned knowledge in the science course described using traditional methods and models. In this research, a quadruple pattern of solomon was used as a semi-experimental design. As a data collection tool, the Matter's Change Unit Success Test was used. The research was conducted in fall semester of 2014-2015 academic year and on 92 fifth grade students. Experimental groups were given instructional materials prepared according to 7E model with multimedia support and control groups were taught with traditional method. There was no statistically significant difference in the pre-test scores of the experimental-1 and control-1 groups according to the independent t-test results in the applied success test but there was a statistically significant difference in favor of the experimental groups according to the post-test and retention test scores. According to the analyzed results; There is a statistically significant difference between the post-test and retention test scores of the experimental groups. There is also a statistically significant difference between the post-test and retention test scores of the control groups. But this difference is in favor of experimental groups. According to the results of the study, it can be said that the learning material prepared according to the multimedia supported 7E model influences the academic achievement positively and the learned information is more memorable.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of lessons conducted in out-of-school learning settings on 5th graders science achievement within the scope of a guidance material that was prepared to be used in out-of-school learning settings in accordance with the “Let’s Solve the Riddle of Our Body” chapter objectives. The pretest / posttest equalized control group design, which is one of the quasi-experimental designs, was used in this study. The sample of this study was composed of a total of 31 5th grade students (15 were in experimental group, 16 were in control group) that were selected from secondary schools in the first semester of the 2015-2016 academic year in Tokat Province. Let’s Solve the Riddle of Our Body Chapter Achievement Test (LeSROBAT) was administered before and after the implementation of the guidance material to measure the students’ achievements and retention. The lessons were conducted as suggested by the current curriculum in the control group. The data were analyzed using independent samples t-test and covariance analysis (ANCOVA). As a result of the analyses, it was found that the LeSROBAT post-test scores of experimental group were significantly higher than the control group. Within this context, it was concluded that the out-of-school learning settings positively contributed to academic achievement and the guidance material that was developed within the scope of this study was effective. The results of retention test analyses didn’t reveal any significant difference between the posttest and retention test scores of experimental and control groups. When the LeSROBAT retention test scores were examined, it was observed that the scores of experimental group was higher than the control group.

The aim of this research is to evaluate the constructivist learning environments of physical education and sport teacher candidates. For this purpose, 928 students (523 male, 405 female) selected by the appropriate sampling method from the Physical Education and Sport Teaching Department of 17 universities consisted the sample of the research. In the study; "Constructivist Learning Environments Evaluation Scale" developed by Arkun and Askar (2010) was used in order to reveal the opinions of the students about the constructivist learning environment. The scale consists of 7 Likert type, 6 sub dimensions and 28 items. The Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient for this study was found to be .93. The lowest score that can be taken from the scale is 28 and the highest score is 196. Kruskal Wallis Variance Analysis and Mann Whitney U test were used because the obtained data did not show normal distribution (Kolmogorov-Smirnov), and the significance level was taken as 0.05. As a result of the research, the constructivist learning environments of 17th universities 3rd and 4th grade teacher candidates were evaluated in terms of age, gender and grade variables. According to this, there was no significant difference when the average scores of constructivist learning environments were compared in terms of age and class levels of physical education and sports teacher candidates. In comparison with gender, female teacher candidates were found to have a more constructive learning environment.

In this study, the relations between learning styles and academic success of pre-service history teachers were examined. The study group of this research was comprised of 142 pre-service history teachers, who attended Bayburt University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of History in spring quarter of 2017-2018 academic year. "Grasha-Reichmann Learning Style Scale" was used in collection of data for the research. As per the academic success of the pre-service history teachers, averages of their four major area course grades were recorded. In the analysis of the research data, descriptive statistics, t-test for the independent groups, and multiple regression analysis were used. It was understood that the dominant learning styles of pre-service history teachers were, respectively, dependent, independent, participant, collaborator, avoidant, and competitive learning styles. Also, it was found that gender variable has not significant effect on pre-service history teachers’ learning style. In the regression analysis, it was discovered that the learning styles of pre-service history teachers are predictive for their academic success. Moreover, it was understood that only participant and competitive learning styles significantly predicted the academic success. In other words, learning styles of pre-service history teachers accounted for 28 % of academic success of the pre-service history teachers.

The inorganic chemistry is one of the essential courses in the education of pre-service chemistry teachers. This study investigates the differences between the adopted learning approaches and achievements of Turkish pre-service chemistry teachers' who received the inorganic chemistry course from the same lecturer. The purposes of this study are to explore the relationship between the inorganic chemistry achievements and the adopted learning approaches of pre-service chemistry teachers and to examine the effect of their learning approaches on their inorganic chemistry achievements. This study was conducted with 127 pre-service chemistry teachers from the Department of Chemistry Education at one of the public university in Turkey. “The Study Process Questionnaire” and “The Inorganic Chemistry Achievement Exams” were used as the data collection tools. The descriptive statistics and chi-square test were used for the data analysis. The results of the study displayed that (1) there is a significant relationship between the pre-service chemistry teachers’ inorganic chemistry achievement and their learning approach; (2) their learning approach has 34 % effect on their inorganic chemistry achievements according to Somers'd value.

The study investigates the views of social studies teachers (SSTs) about the advantages and challenges of interactive whiteboard application in social studies lessons. Data was gathered using a questionnaire consisting of 58 items. The sample comprised 483 male and female SSTs from different governorates of Oman who were provided with three training programs about using Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). Data were analyzed by using: Means, T-test and One Way ANOVA.  The results indicated that they considered its effect to be significant in supporting students’ learning process by enhancing the quality of learning environment, excitement of use and importance of use in social studies lessons. It also showed that they used it widely in their lessons but they experienced moderate challenges, including related to technical support and the availability of IWB in all classes. The results also indicated that teachers’ gender and experience influenced their views. The study recommends the provision of more technical support to teachers.

The aim of this paper is to determine the influence of blended learning environments on self-regulated and self-directed learning skills of undergraduate students. The explanatory sequential mixed method was used. In total 167 students participated in the study. While sixty students taking “Programming Languages” course at Computer Education and Instructional Technologies Department constituted the experimental group, 102 undergraduates-65 of them from the same department (Control 1) and 42 from Electronic Engineering Department (Control 2) formed the control groups. Self-directed Learning Readiness Scale, Self-regulated Learning Scale and semi-structured interviews were used as data collection instruments. While the experimental group received blended instruction, control groups received traditional instruction for weeks. The findings of the study revealed that self-regulated and self-directed scores of experimental group differed significantly from the control groups` indicating that the use of blended instruction is more effective than traditional instruction in terms of developing self-regulated and self-directed learning skills. Students in the experimental group pointed out that the blended learning environment presented rich content, easy accessibility, effective guidance and motivation.

The researcher investigated the mathematics learning styles of vocational college students during fall 2017 and spring 2018. 94 students enrolled in the vocational college of a public university completed the questionnaire "How Do I Actually Learn?" developed by Forster. Scale has four learning styles: reflective, inquisitive, diligent and user. The results of the research revealed that the most preferred learning model was user learning style in mathematics learning. Most of the students preferred to learn mathematics by writing the solutions, and reading through their notes or work. There were also statistically significant differences in mathematics learning styles among students according to their academic achievement. According to the results, students with high level of success were more inquisitive than students with low levels.