Dr. YAN Xiaomei and CHEN Yizhe presented at the 15th conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA)

Dr. YAN Xiaomei and her master student CHEN Yizhe attended the 15thconference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) from 28th of Aug to 1stof Sep, 2023. ESERA 2023 was held in Cappadocia, Turkey, a place with rich cultural heritage and unique geographical features, which echoes the theme of “Connecting Science Education with Cultural Heritage”.

YAN and CHEN presented the topic of “Assessing the elementary students’ understandings of scientific core concepts with concept maps”, based on multiple case studies with students learning a new scientific concept online. The finding shows that elementary students had difficulties of completing concept maps. Moreover, compared to individual interviews, the concepts maps drew by students reflected less understandings on core concepts. The presentation received inspiring and constructive suggestions from the audience; further studies will focus on visualization tools representing the abstract concepts.

YAN also presented on the invited symposium on newly published book of "International research handbook on physics education". Together with the international collaborative team, this invited symposium presented the chapter of review on physics textbook research. Dr. YAN presented her research on contents of physics textbooks. The systematic literature review on the research show that there are specific features on physics textbooks, such as the continue focus on conceptual contents and the trend of cross-disciplinary studies on readability of texts. There are similar interests, like other science disciplines, on the epistemic level of contents, including the nature of science and scientific literacy. And there shows the lack of concerns on social issues, including diversity, equity, and inclusions on this area of research.

Written by YAN Xiaomei

Edited by CHEN Ruoxi