This article presents an international study that documented the conceptions of atomic models held by 1062 in-service high school science teachers from 58 countries. First, a previous study on pre-service science teachers’ conceptions of atomic models was successfully replicated as a pilot study with an international sample of in-service science teachers. Teachers’ conceptions were investigated by analysing their drawings of atomic models. Based on these results, a multiple-choice questionnaire was developed for the main study. This questionnaire collected data on teachers’ conceptions of atomic models, teachers’ knowledge about their students’ conceptions of atomic models, and teachers’ use of atomic models in the classroom. The results show that the teachers’ conceptions of atomic models are almost evenly distributed over six different atomic models. These models are the Bohr model, the Rutherford model, the probability model, the orbital model, the probability orbit model, and the wave model. The vast majority of teachers assume that their students’ conceptions are centred on two historical atomic models, namely the Bohr model and the Rutherford model. Furthermore, the majority of teachers prefer to use historical atomic models over modern atomic models in the classroom. However, the findings also highlight that the use of modern atomic models in the classroom is positively correlated with growing teaching experience, and that teachers’ conceptions of atomic models and their knowledge of students’ conceptions of atomic models significantly influence teachers’ classroom practice.

The diversity of definitions of science literacy has resulted in a diversity of measurement tools. However, adult science literacy is mainly assessed on short standardized and non-contextualized questions, thus making the study of adult science literacy more qualitative than quantitative. Here we describe the rationale, development, and validation of a questionnaire that associates the use of science in the specific science-related setting of parents of hard of hearing children with general and topic-specific science knowledge. The questionnaire went through four developmental steps: (1) gathering input from hearing rehabilitation experts and parents, (2) testing the close-ended questionnaire (n=10), (3) open-ended questionnaire (n=24), (4) online close-ended questionnaire (n=91). These all assessed general science knowledge, contextual science knowledge in the field of hearing and parents' advocacy knowledge and attitudes. These steps and the resulting assessment tool can thus inform the further development of measures of adult science literacy in context. The findings suggest that although general science knowledge enables the application of science to everyday science-related problems it only explained a small proportion of the variance in contextual science knowledge. Thus, the results strongly point to the importance of measuring adults' science literacy in a context that is relevant to the responders. The findings also underscored the disappointing outcomes of secondary science education, in that formal scientific background predicted general science knowledge but did not account for contextual science knowledge at all. This should elicit concern as to the ability of students to use science knowledge in future personally important science related contexts.

The ability of students to build problem-solving models using procedural knowledge can be viewed from several aspects, including Mastery of Mathematical Problem Solving (MPS), understanding concepts and application of concepts, the relationship between learning outcomes of mathematics and interest in learning, and examine the contribution of the ability to understand concept problems, the application of concepts to the ability of MPS, as well as student difficulties and some of the advantages of students in solving problems. This experimental study aims to explain the effect of the MPS model using procedural knowledge on solving mathematical problems for Junior High School Students (JHSS). The findings showed that 1) The MPS method using procedural knowledge significantly improved learning outcomes, but the mastery of MPS for JHSS was still unsatisfactory. 2) MPS teaching could still not improve meaningful learning outcomes. However, when JHSS applied the concepts, calculations, and problem-solving aspects, MPS teaching improved meaningful learning outcomes. 3) Students' interest in learning mathematics in the two sample classes was classified as positive. Shortly, MPS teaching accustoms students to think systematically and creatively and not just give up on the problems they face.

Research shows that learning enjoyment in specific socio-scientific issues (SSI) plays an important role in predicting grade 10 students’ learning interest and learning enjoyment (i.e., genuine interest) in SSI subjects generally. However, it remains unexplored whether learning enjoyment also mediates a predictive effect of learning interest in a Big Science SSI of pressing contemporary global concern—COVID-19—on grade 12 high school students’ learning interest in SSI generally. The purpose of this study is to investigate how learning enjoyment may mediate the predictive effect of learning interest in the specific Big Science SSI of COVID-19 specifically on students’ learning interest in SSI subjects generally. Latent variable modeling using data collected from grade 12 students (N = 691) showed personal perceptions of learning enjoyment in SSI partially mediated the predictive effect of learning interest in the SSI of COVID-19 on learning interest in other Big Science SSI subjects. Implications for promoting among science educators and policy specialists the active development of students’ individual interests and involvement in other 21st century Big Science SSI challenges are forwarded.