Evidence-based education has become a central concept in science education, with meta-analyses often regarded as the gold standard for informing practice. This emphasis raises critical questions concerning the applicability, generalizability and transferability of research findings into classroom practice. It remains unclear both what kind of evidence education should be based on and whether science education research can provide the type of evidence required to guide decisions at different levels. This paper argues that theories play a crucial role in building bridges between research and practice. Drawing on literature from science education and the philosophy of science, we contrast the explanatory scope of meta-analyses with the predictive and integrative potential of theories, understood in a structuralist sense as systems of models with defined domains of applicability. We propose that science education research requires both fundamental and applied research, each contributing to theory development at different levels, ranging from local and context-specific models to more fundamental theoretical frameworks. Importantly, we argue that theories in science education should not be viewed merely as applications of psychological or pedagogical theories, but as fundamental theories in their own right. We conclude that the future development of science education research may benefit more from the systematic refinement and integration of theories than from the continued accumulation of isolated local findings, and we propose ways to support the development of such theories. A theory-guided understanding of evidence-based education can strengthen the scientific foundations of the field while simultaneously enhancing its practical relevance, thereby helping to narrow the long-standing theory-practice gap.

Lesson planning is a core professional practice for pre-service teachers, yet opportunities for timely, individualized feedback are frequently constrained by educator workload. While generative AI has the potential to enhance planning processes and expand opportunities for individualized feedback, the provision of comprehensive lesson plans may lead to excessive reliance. This conceptual design paper details the development and theoretical underpinnings of an artificial intelligence-assisted feedback tool that provides self-efficacy-strengthening feedback on lesson plans for pre-service teachers. To promote constructive feedback, the AI-assisted feedback tool integrates principles from educational feedback research and structures feedback to foster teachers’ lesson-planning self-efficacy through mastery-oriented affirmations, vicarious examples, social persuasions, and emotional reassurance. Curriculum alignment is incorporated to support content validity and contextual appropriateness. While the initial implementation of the feedback tool focuses on Western Australian teacher education, an explicit transfer perspective is considered for the German vocational education context. The paper describes the iterative development process that follows a design-based research approach including platform evaluation, internal refinement, and expert review by teacher educators in Western Australia. The resulting system prompt architecture comprises 11 dimensions including general baselines, the interaction between the Lesson Planning Coach and PSTs and the theoretical foundations mentioned above. The tools’ environment, including examples for provided feedback on lesson plans, is presented and discussed. Finally, an outlook is given on the planned empirical research to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool.

Abstract Scientifically literate citizens need to know how to use scientific ideas and crosscutting concepts to determine what counts as evidence to support claims. Research is needed to develop an understanding of how to support students in the endeavor. This study investigates how to support students in developing usable knowledge that they can apply in new situations. Assisting students in developing this usable knowledge includes helping them to make claims and in supporting them to connect scientific ideas with data to show why the data counts as evidence to justify their claims, a critical aspect of scientific reasoning. In this study, learners constructed four iterations of a scientific explanation across time to explain a complex phenomenon, the water quality of a local stream. We examine learners’ emerging understanding of this complex phenomenon as they collect and analyze water quality data. Research reported here explores 1) the change in the level of sophistication of students’use of scientific ideas and crosscutting concepts to make sense of and explain why data counts as evidence, and 2) if and how students adjust their claims over time, as new and sometimes contradictory evidence is obtained. The research shows various trends of student knowledge development over the course of four iterations of the evolving explanation. Results indicate statistically significant differences in students’ understanding of using crosscutting concepts to connect scientific ideas with data to serve as evidence to explain the phenomenon. Results indicate no statistical significance for scientific ideas or connections to scientific ideas as predictive of claims that students made. The research indicates that using an evolving explanation within a 3-dimensional learning environment assists students in developing useable knowledge. Challenges arose when students needed to adjust claims when confronted with new, contradictory evidence.

In the modern era, extreme numbers, both large and small, have become increasingly important to our lives as public discourse comes to include terms like terahertz, nanometres, gigawatts, billions of light years or trillions of dollars. This paper describes three classroom trials with the learning sequence ‘Powers of the Universe’. It aims to explore how children respond to early introduction of arithmetic with extreme numbers (large and small) using powers-of-ten (logarithmic) notation. Typically, students are introduced to extreme numbers through a linear number line, often during the later years of schooling. In the trials, we taught students with a logarithmic number line. Each trial had a six-hour series of lessons, based on activities and group learning. Altogether, 66 students aged 7–13. years took part. In the lessons, students were asked to solve realistic problems in which they had to estimate, compare and calculate extreme numbers. Students’ knowledge of the concepts Doubling, Exponentiation, Halving, Estimation, Notation and Multiplication with powers of ten was assessed before and after the trials. The concepts, Logarithmic thinking and Proportionality, were also assessed after the trials. The data revealed that in Trial 1 a majority of 70 percent of the students demonstrated mastery of the key concepts, in Trial 2 and 3 a majority of respectively 84 percent and 90 percent of the students mastered the concepts. Statistical analysis showed that in all three trials the percentage of students who reached mastery was not below the expected proportion of 75%. There was no difference in mastery between students in 7 to 9 age range compared to students in the 10 to 13 age range. The study seems to indicate that primary school students of different age ranges can learn to calculate with powers of ten. Further research involving control groups, randomised sampling, and long-term effect investigation is needed to determine whether teaching powers of ten using the logarithmic number line is more effective than using the linear number line.

A necessidade de modernizar o currículo de ciências e promover a alfabetização científica é amplamente reconhecida. No entanto, a ciência ensinada nas escolas muitas vezes não aborda o conhecimento desenvolvido nos séculos XX e XXI, especialmente no campo da física einsteiniana (FE), que engloba a física quântica e a relatividade. Essa discrepância entre a educação escolar e o entendimento científico moderno pode gerar equívocos e criar barreiras na aprendizagem científica. O programa Einstein-First, desenvolvido na Austrália, introduz conceitos de FE aos estudantes desde cedo, enfatizando o uso de aprendizado em grupo baseado em atividades, brinquedos, modelos e analogias. Este artigo explora o potencial de adaptação da abordagem Einstein-First para as escolas brasileiras, com base na experiência da primeira autora com o projeto na Austrália e considerando as semelhanças e diferenças entre os currículos dos dois países. Diversas atividades desenvolvidas pelo Einstein-First são apresentadas, juntamente com sugestões para sua implementação em diferentes níveis do ensino fundamental no Brasil, alinhando-se às habilidades e aos objetos de conhecimento delineados na Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC). Ao introduzir conceitos einsteinianos desde cedo, os estudantes podem desenvolver uma compreensão mais profunda das tecnologias e inovações presentes em suas vidas diárias, potencialmente melhorando suas atitudes em relação à ciência e promovendo a alfabetização científica.

Immersive Virtual Reality (iVR) can help students visualise and explore complex chemical concepts, such as protein enzyme structures and interactions. We designed a set of collaborative iVR-based learning tasks on the interaction between a protein enzyme and its substrate. We investigated how 18 pairs (36 students) in undergraduate chemistry courses changed their understanding of enzyme-substrate interactions through iVR learning tasks. Videos of pre- and post-interviews and student-generated diagrams were analysed. Before iVR, students had abstract models of the structure of a protein enzyme or its interaction with a substrate molecule. Over 90 per cent of the students (33/36) explained enzyme-substrate interactions using simplistic lock-and-key diagrams, exclusively focusing on the shape. Although many students employed key scientific terms like activation energy in their explanations, they were unsure how enzymes lowered activation energy or how catalytic reactions occurred. After iVR, all students discussed the inadequacy of 2D diagrams for representing complex enzyme-substrate interactions. About 90 per cent of students (32/36) used concrete ideas such as electron density and orientation of reactants in the active site to explain the probability of successful interactions between the enzyme and its substrate. Our findings provide evidence of how interactive iVR learning tasks can help students explore complex molecular structures, integrate ideas, and build a concrete understanding of challenging science concepts.

This study explores the influence of external resources on students' construction of mental representations of curved spacetime and their understanding of General Relativity (GR). Using the Cognitive Mediation Networks Theory (CMNT) as the theoretical framework, a short extracurricular course with Year-12 students was developed. Through the course, we investigated how interactions with various external resources support the development of mental representations that facilitate reasoning about relativistic phenomena. Using a case study with qualitative analysis, data from pre/post-tests, interviews, gesture analysis, and student artifacts revealed distinct patterns between students with satisfactory and limited understanding of curved spacetime; students expressed their understanding using multiple representations that reflected their mental representations. Students with accurate conceptions exhibited similar imagistic mental representations associated with the rubber-sheet analogy within psychophysical and hypercultural tools, applying them to explain various situations. Conversely, students with limited curved spacetime conceptions attributed spatial phenomena to forces and associated time dilation with being in 'outer space'. The findings underscore the importance of carefully selecting external resources, considering students' prior knowledge, and addressing misconceptions in GR instruction.

Abstract Recent years have seen a growing interest in modernizing school science curricula to reflect the discoveries in physics since 1900, especially with the recent broad recognition of the importance of quantum physics in the modern world. Much effort has been expended in the development of appropriate teaching instruments for teaching Einsteinian physics in schools, but less effort on the crucial topic of teacher professional development. Successful curriculum innovation requires teacher professional development. This paper reports an analysis of teacher professional development for practising primary and secondary teachers who were upskilled as part of a process for implementing an 8-year Einsteinian curriculum across 38 primary and secondary schools in Australia. Most participants had little prior knowledge of Einsteinian physics. Using self-assessment through questionnaires and interviews, combined with classroom validation, we show that three different professional development programs led to high levels of content knowledge and confidence to teach Einsteinian physics in classes from Year 3 to Year 10. The analysis presented supports our conclusion that it is feasible to upskill teachers from diverse backgrounds in Einsteinian physics and break the cycle that has inhibited the modernisation of school curricula.

This research aimed to understand the features of the informal reasoning skills performed by students who debated the socio-scientific contentious issue of breastfeeding versus milk formula during an Indonesian biology lesson. A class of 30 students in grade 11 discussed this issue by participating in a role play represented by four organisations in Indonesia viewed to have important roles or authority in society in dealing with the issue being discussed. Data were collected from informal reasoning worksheets and by capturing students’ arguments, with the justifications and criteria that underpinned their arguments reflecting their reasoning. The students were able to generate justifications based on a distinct perspective towards the issue with either emotive or rationalistic thought. This finding showed that prior learning experience as well as knowledge plays an important role as a modality for students to perform their reasoning skills in responding to socially context-based problems in their biology learning. Furthermore, the SSI-based learning implemented in this study functioned well to engage students in fostering their reasoning as well as decision-making skills through a social-like learning environment through which students shared, as well as confronted, ideas with well-informed opinions and argumentation.

This study investigated how different learning tasks influence students’ collaborative interactions in immersive Virtual Reality (iVR). A set of chemistry learning activities was designed with iVR, and 35 pairs of undergraduate students went through the activities. Videos of students’ interactions were analysed to identify patterns in students’ physical, conceptual, and social interactions. When students were manipulating conceptually familiar virtual objects (several water molecules), they perceived the tasks as a simple extension of prior knowledge and did not attempt to explore the 3D visualisation much. They did not move around to take different perspectives, and conceptual discussions were brief. Their prior power relations (leader–follower) carried over in iVR environments. In contrast, when conceptually unfamiliar chemical structures (protein enzyme) were displayed, students perceived the tasks as complex, demanding a new mode of learning. They spontaneously moved around to explore and appreciate the 3D visualisation of iVR. Walking to different positions to observe the virtual objects from multiple angles, students engaged in more collaborative, exploratory conceptual discussions. As the perceived complexity of learning tasks or virtual objects triggers different collaborative interactions amongst students, careful considerations need to be placed on the design of iVR tasks to encourage productive collaborative learning.

BackgroundModern and Contemporary Physics (MCP) play crucial roles in today's world, but most classrooms' practice focuses on Classical Physics, neglecting MCP even when it is present in the curriculum. Special Relativity Theory (SRT) is of particular interest to students but presents challenges due to its abstract concepts.PurposeBased on Cognitive Mediation Networks Theory, our initial hypothesis was that by interacting with external resources students can develop internal mechanisms, such as mental representations in the form of mental simulations, that aid in SRT comprehension. Thus, this study aimed to analyse high-school students' conceptions about SRT, focusing on their mental representations, and investigating the relationship between these representations and their conceptual understanding.SampleThe study was conducted with 14 third-year high-school students at a public school in Montenegro/RS-Brazil.Design and methodsA teaching intervention using a multi-representational approach was designed, incorporating different external resources (slides, simulations, and exercises) to aid students in visualizing SRT concepts. Interviews were conducted using the Report Aloud protocol and analysed for indicators of mental simulations, such as depictive gestures and imagery reports.ResultsStudents were grouped into satisfactory and unsatisfactory comprehension categories based on their comprehension of space contraction and time dilation. The satisfactory group demonstrated clear mental simulations for space contraction, developed through interaction with hypercultural resources (e.g. animated GIFs). However, they did not show indicators of mental imagery for time dilation, instead using propositional representations, such as logical sentences, developed through social mediation (e.g. discussions and exercises). The unsatisfactory group showed unclear mental imagery for space contraction and no evidence of mental representations for time dilation.ConclusionThe development of mental representations can significantly contribute to students' understanding of SRT. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, these representations are not limited to mental simulations but also include propositional representations. The interaction with external processing mechanisms through different mediations aided the development of student's mental representations.

There has been a growing realisation that school science curricula do not adequately reflect the revolutionary changes in our scientific understanding of the 20th century. This discrepancy between current school education and our modern scientific understanding has led to calls for the modernisation of the science curriculum. Although there have been attempts to introduce topics of Einsteinian physics (i.e., quantum physics and relativity) to school education, often at the secondary level, we still lack a seamless curriculum in which modern science concepts are gradually introduced in primary and middle schools. Guided by the Model of Educational Reconstruction and following a mixed-methods research design, the Einstein-First project aims to address this gap. Einstein-First has developed and implemented an Einsteinian curriculum from Years 3 to 10 (students aged 7- 16) that resolves the disconnect between science in schools and the modern world. This paper presents the concepts, rationale, and learning outcomes of the curriculum implementation in six Australian schools with 315 students across Years 3 to 10. Our findings lay the foundation for informed curriculum development towards a school education that can enhance students' understanding and appreciation of the fundamental concepts of modern science and its impact on our society.

Quantum science is in the news daily and engages student interest and curiosity. A fundamental quantum science concept that underpins medical imaging, quantum computing and many future technologies is quantum spin. Quantum spin can explain many physical phenomena that are in the lower secondary school curriculum, such as magnetism and light, making its inclusion a great motivator for students. Here we present an activity sequence for teaching quantum spin in the classroom using spinning tops and gyroscopes to highlight the common properties of classical angular momentum and quantum spin. These toys can provide an easily understood window to the quantum world for lower secondary school students. Students who have engaged in these activities reported enjoying the content and appreciating its relevance.

Abstract This study investigates how students utilized artificial intelligence (AI)-generated images to represent their understanding of general relativity concepts. Ten high school students participated in an extracurricular course on relativity theory. Using AI chatbot, these students created visual representations of ‘relativity’ before and after the course. The produced images, the accompanying prompts, student interviews, and their test scores were analysed to examine students’ conceptual understanding and interactions with AI. Students with a clearer understanding of relativity tended to focus their prompts on more central concepts like spacetime deformation. In contrast, those with a weaker understanding leaned towards more tangential ideas. The clarity of their prompts was directly linked to more effective AI interactions, leading to more meaningful image generation. Despite this, some students faced challenges in crafting coherent prompts, resulting in less relevant images, indicating that understanding the concept does not always translate into successful AI engagement. The study underscores the potential of AI-generated images as a tool to illuminate student conceptualisation and interaction skills with AI in the context of complex physics concepts, offering a novel approach to evaluating understanding in advanced scientific topics.

BackgroundTo support collaborative drawing, it is essential to investigate how students make collaborative drawings and how these contribute to elaborating their ideas. This study examines how 5th and 6th grade students' group drawings contributed to increased levels of explanations of their drawings about sound transmission.MethodsWe analyzed two cases of group drawing processes, that showed a large difference in the explanatory levels in their drawings, to find discourse patterns and visualized these patterns through discourse maps in relation to the progressions of drawing.FindingsIn the first case, the students successfully co-constructed sound transmission drawings following Demand-Give-Acknowledge patterns. The students continuously questioned how to visualize particles' vibration, used multimodal resources to generate alternative drawings, and determined most scientific drawings. In the second case, the students did not reach consensus on how to visualize particles' vibrations, following repetitive patterns of Give-Refute. While the teacher intervened and mediated student's conflicting ideas, the students did not generate any alternative ideas.ContributionThis study illustrates in close detail how the process of multimodal transactive discussion contributed to conceptual understanding during collaborative drawings. The discourse map may be instrumental to analyze students' collaboration systematically and devise pedagogical approaches.

Developing students’ creativity is an important educational goal in many countries. The Australian Curriculum Authority has mandated that all teachers teach creative thinking across all subjects and grades. However, after more than 10 years working within this mandate, how do science teachers see their role in promoting creativity in the classroom? This study reports interviews with 13 Australian science teachers, from three jurisdictions, about how they understand creativity, the activities that they use and barriers to supporting creative thinking in classrooms. The findings showed that, although teachers were able to identify many of the elements of creativity and creative thinking described in the literature, many still felt unsure of what creative thinking entails. For class activities that foster creative thinking most teachers focused on project-based or inquiry learning which require long periods of class time to complete. Less emphasis was given to the importance of developing creative thinking skills in making hypotheses by supporting construction of meaning, providing personal insights and explanations through the use of possibility thinking, mental images, analogies when teaching curriculum content. The Australian Curriculum documents themselves give guidance suggesting that creative thinking in science is mainly developed through inquiry-based activities. It is imperative that schools give more support to teachers to understand and develop creative thinking tasks, including time, resources, professional learning, and accountability systems.

This study focuses on examining senior high-school students' conceptual understanding and difficulties concerning electrochemistry and comparing patterns of thinking across Turkish and Indonesian contexts. The Electrochemistry Concept Questionnaire (ECQ) was applied to 516 Indonesian and 516 Turkish high school students right after the teaching of the electrochemistry topics. The ECQ contains 18 multiple-choice questions and these questions belong to five different categories: reactions occurring during electrolysis, differences between electrolytic and voltaic cells, movement of ions in voltaic cells, poles in voltaic cells, and voltaic cell reactions. At the end of the study, it was determined that both Indonesian and Turkish senior high-school students' understanding of electrochemistry concepts was relatively weak and they shared common difficulties concerning electrochemical concepts. While there was no significant difference between the average scores of the students from both countries on the test, it was determined that there were some significant differences on the basis of questions. It has been concluded that students from both countries have alternative conceptions similar to those determined in previous studies such as "during electrolysis, the electric current produces ions" and "electrons migrate through the solution from one electrode to the other". At the end of the study, the reasons for the similar results and the significantly different results for the students of the two countries to comprehend electro-concepts were discussed.