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The purpose of this study was to understand how students utilized multiple representations to learn and explain science concepts, in this case the human breathing mechanism. The study was conducted with Grade 11 students in a human biology class. Semistructured interviews and a two‐tier diagnostic test were administered to evaluate students’ learning strategies of integrating multiple representations. The functions of multiple representations (complementary, constraining, and deeper understanding) suggested by Ainsworth () were adapted as the analytical framework to better describe the participating students’ learning strategies with multiple representations (access complementary information, apply one representation to interpret the other, and evaluate representations). The categorization of students’ learning strategies facilitated interpreting their diverse understanding in relation to the multiple representations. In addition to a summary of students’ learning strategies, three case examples are presented to show how the framework was applied in the analysis and to discuss how the learning strategies interacted with students’ understanding of the multiple representations and of the concept.

This research examined the effects of a problem-based learning (PBL) chemistry laboratory course for second-year college students (N ¼ 20) on students' scientific attitudes with an emphasis on their creative thinking abilities. The findings were contrasted with a traditional laboratory course (N ¼ 26) to elucidate any differences in the influence of the courses. Only female students participated in the study which was conducted in a private university for women in Korea. A 20-item Scientific Attitudes Questionnaire administered to both groups as a pretest and a posttest revealed that there were significant changes in criticism, cooperativeness, and creativity at the end of instruction only among students in the PBL course. The posttest scores of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking to gauge students' creative thinking ability were significantly higher for the students in the PBL course on all three dimensions. The research suggests that PBL laboratory courses in chemistry have great potential to positively change students' scientific attitudes towards learning chemistry and enhance their creative thinking abilities.

This study aims to investigate the effects of science writing activities on the students' science-related attitude, motivation for learning science, and academic achievement. One hundred and twenty seven second graders of a middle school located in Gyeonggi province participated in this study. The experimental group performed science writing activities, while the comparative group performed problem solving activities at the end of the regular science lessons over 30 class hours. For the students' science-related attitude and motivation for learning science, TOSRA, PALS, and MSLQ were used with some modification and supplementation. For the students' academic achievement, scores on science examinations were used. The results of this study are as follows: First, the test of the science-related attitude showed that science writing activities have positive effects on the cultivation of sciencerelated attitude, as for the sub-factors, 'attitude towards scientific inquiry,' 'pleasure of science lessons,' and 'active attitude towards science'(p<.05). Second, the test of motivation for learning science showed that the science writing activities had positive effect on the improvement in students' motivation, as for the sub-factors, 'difference in values on task' and 'self-efficacy'(p<.05). Third, science writing activities are effective on improvement in the students' academic achievement(p<.05), especially on the high-level achievement group.