Science & Education最新文献

Eye-tracking technology has emerged as a powerful tool in science education research, providing unparalleled insights into learners’ visual attention, cognitive processing, and engagement with complex visual stimuli. This systematic review synthesises findings from 170 studies published in Web of Science-indexed journals, selected from an initial pool of 525 articles. The analysis reveals that most studies were conducted in Europe (with physics education dominating at 34%) and primarily targeted university students (55%), while only 22% focused on younger learners, including preschool and lower-secondary students. The median sample size across studies was 36 participants, highlighting a methodological constraint that merits attention. The results identify key research themes: the processing of scientific representations (29%), reading behaviours in learning materials (28%), problem-solving tasks (19%), experiments and simulations (18%), and video-based learning environments (6%). Eye-tracking metrics such as fixation duration, dwell time, and transition patterns were predominantly used to measure learners’ attention and cognitive load. Findings underscore the critical influence of learner expertise, prior knowledge, and spatial abilities on visual processing patterns. Novice learners exhibited surface-level engagement, frequent switching between representations, and difficulty integrating visual and textual information, whereas experts demonstrated focused, deeper processing. Instructional interventions were shown to enhance learners’ comprehension and performance significantly. However, challenges persist, including methodological inconsistencies, small sample sizes, and underexplored factors like emotional responses and self-regulation. The review highlights the pressing need for further research that utilises meta-analytical approaches, addresses diverse learner populations, and explores complex learning environments with eye-tracking technology. By offering actionable insights for instructional design and visual learning strategies, this review advances our understanding of how visual stimuli shape learning in science education and paves the way for evidence-based pedagogical innovations.

Natural history museums with their huge collections and exhibits seem to be particularly well suited to create an understanding and awareness of biodiversity. Mounted specimens are typical learning objects in natural history museums. The visual sense obviously plays a role here, but the haptic exploration of certain elements can also be conducive to learning. By combining an observational study and a mixed-method study using a questionnaire and a semistructured interview, we analyzed how visitors use, evaluate, and benefit from the haptic exploration of mounted specimens. We also investigated whether a combination of a fur piece and a photo would be a less conservation-sensitive alternative for mounted specimens. Although both studies indicate that visitors only spent a relatively short time at the exhibit, the possibility of haptic exploration led them to engage with more objects and to spend more time with them. This was independent of whether the mounted specimens or the combination of a photo and a piece of fur was presented. In addition, positive evaluations tended to occur more frequently in the conditions in which touching was permitted, whereas negative evaluations were more frequent in the conditions without haptic experience and the lack of opportunity for interaction was often criticized in these conditions.

Prior research demonstrates the integral nature of affective work in STEM/STEAM, including multiple works in this issue. In our contribution to this special issue on Centering Affect and Emotion Toward Justice and Dignity in Science Education, we seek to better understand the role of joy, an emotion that moves beyond the temporary shallows of happiness into the depths of complexity that connects fear and joy, constraint and transformation, and human connection. Attending to joy means attending to dignity, wholeness of people, and diversity of experiences. Leaning into joy affirms dignity, which in turn makes possible deeper disciplinary sensemaking. We conceptualize Pedagogies of Joy (POY, rhymes with joy) as design and instructional (in-the-moment) decisions an educator uses as they follow pathways leading to joy. We draw on cross-case analysis of three empirical examples to illustrate four POY: attending to affective-entanglements, switching roles, cultivating third space, and (co)dreaming to enact. We illustrate how these POY-shaped design and instructional-decisions in empirical exemplars to make visible the importance of leaning into moments of joy as seeds of possibility dignity-affirming learning that can deepen sensemaking about STEM phenomena by foregrounding a full affective range of sensemaking repertoires. We offer POY as tools for educators, researchers, and designers (beyond binary categories of teacher, student, adult, child, youth). We find joy in knowing that these empirical examples are but drops in a wide sea of stories from countless educators who are already committed to seeking joy in solidarity with learners.

Research in the philosophy of science has primarily emphasized how philosophical reflection can aid students in understanding the history of science, rather than directly introducing them to the ideas of philosophers. This study, positioned as a pilot study, examines the performance of high school students in China on socioscientific issues (SSIs), such as the COVID-19 vaccine and local nuclear power plants taught according to the Toulmin argumentation pattern (TAP), Karl Popper’s “falsificationism,” and the game of Eleusis. The research method includes a deductive thematic analysis of students’ dialogues in the classroom and interviews with some students after class. Compared with the performance of the comparison group, which was taught only the TAP, the performance of the students in the treatment group with the TAP and “falsificationism” on socioscientific issues improved significantly in terms of both the structure and content of argumentation. Surveys of the students who had participated in the course revealed that the concept of “falsificationism” and corresponding practices played in the course improved the participants’ argumentation ability. In addition, the discussion of local SSI prompted students to participate better in the argumentation process. While the small number of groups necessitates caution in generalizing the findings, the study provides preliminary evidence for the role of philosophy in SSI-based argumentation instruction.

Energy literacy is described as the public understanding of energy from both the affective and behavioural aspects. The idea of energy literacy gained momentum in the 1970s but thereafter dwindled continuously. Thus, efforts to appropriately identify and measure energy literacy characteristics have increased worldwide over the last two decades. This study administered a questionnaire to a sample of Mexicans who participated in several energy-related massive open online courses (MOOCs) to measure the extent of their energy literacy. Results revealed that participants expressed elevated concern about acting for energy conservation, but differences were noted based on variables such as gender, participant profiles, and climatic regions. The correlations between the instrument subscales (affective, behavioural, and cognitive) differed in various degrees across regions from the findings of other studies. This study offers fresh insights into energy education by observing new variables (i.e. participant profiles) in a Mexican sample of adults. Thus, it reinforces scholarly efforts to consolidate a theory of energy literacy.

In pre-service teacher training it is not enough to simply inform the degree candidates about teaching methods. It is necessary for the pre-service teachers to engage with selected methods in real contexts, which we comprehend as the starting point for the construction of epistemic practices. We present the constructive process of epistemic practices through the analysis of discursive interactions of a group of pre-service teachers and how the texts as material objects supported the group’s intellectual work to create the practice. Interactional, intertextual, contextual, and consequential actions influenced the construction of the epistemic practice of argumentation based on prior knowledge and text interpretation, and produced consequences for the knowledge legitimized by the group. The appropriation of contents and discussion of evidence-based knowledge elucidated the role of informative texts, which allowed pre-service teachers to propose and legitimize knowledge. This study exposes the need to more carefully consider materials in teaching and learning processes, and to examine the relations that pre-service teachers establish with the class materials provided. This unique methodological choice of analyzing epistemic practices, with a focus on the process of justifying knowledge and its relation to socio-scientific texts, contributes to new research perspectives in the field of Science Education.