This research examines Super Science High Schools (SSH) as sites for gifted education. These schools represent the only government program in Japanese formal education explicitly aiming to foster the development of excellence in STEM subjects. Interview data with teachers from 3 SSH schools and a representative of a prefectural board of education, and annual reports of the schools and publications by JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), are analyzed through the concept of educational capital of the actiotope-model. Results show the strengths of the program being in 1) the social educational capital in the form of strong network of cooperative institutions, and key personnel within and beyond the schools and 2) cultural educational capital that enables paying special attention to selected students. Infrastructural and economic educational capital help create learning opportunities, but the rigidity of the system and cultural ideas on ‘proper education’ can hinder the creation of individual learning pathways needed to achieve excellence. This relates to how teachers need to negotiate their ideas of meritocracy and equal outcomes with expectations to aim for excellence. Didactic educational capital concerning teachers’ competencies on guiding research activities and STEAM activities can be seen as key development areas.

In this research, we have developed an Exploratory Spherical Power Plant App that deepens the basic understanding of the power transmission system. In addition, the purpose was to clarify the usefulness and improvement points of this app by practicing and evaluating it in energy learning using the developed app. As a result, it showed the possiblity to develop a power plant search app that explains the main equipment of thermal power, hydropower, nuclear power, geothermal power, solar power, wind power plants and fuel cell substations, and presents related data. In addition, it was shown to have potential as a learning material to promote understanding of the mechanism of power generation for the students who were participants. Furthermore, it was suggested that contents such as spherical scenes, materials, and videos may not only provide experiential learning but also promote knowledge supplementation. On the other hand, as possible improvements, examination of the movement method in the spherical scene, expansion of the scene, and improvement of the image quality were mentioned.

This study focused on observations and experiments in science classes to examine the effects of interest in observation and experiments on learning strategies and “knowledge of skills for observations and experiments” (academic achievement index). The hypothesized model was a model with interest as the predictor variable, learning strategies as the mediation variable, and knowledge of skills as the objective variable. The first was to estimate the factor structure of the learning strategies in observations and experiments, and the second was to estimate the “Item Discriminations” and “Item Difficulties” using Item Response Theory in order to clarify the structure of the target variable, “knowledge of skills for observations and experiments”.

The results of testing the model showed that there was an indirect effect (β=.266 [.092, .452]) from positive emotion (“strength” of interest) to “knowledge of skills for observations and experiments” mediated by problem-solving strategy. And there was an indirect effect (β=.092 [.037, .192]) from thought deepening-based orientation (“depth” of interest) to “knowledge of skills for observations and experiments” mediated by problem-solving strategy. This result indicates that both the strength and depth of interest in observations and experiments independently contribute to academic achievement in science learning.

We often see incomplete proof with inversive inference generated when junior high school students solve the problem of geometrical proof. The purpose of this study is to clarify the reason why incomplete proof with inversive inference is generated. We designed a semi-structured task-based interview survey from the viewpoint of the epistemic value and the status of a proposition, which are components of a proposition’s meaning, and conducted it on 20 pairs of ninth graders. The data from the survey was divided into three types and the frequency of emergence of the codes related to the epistemic value and the status of the proposition for each type was investigated. As a result, the students who generated an incomplete proof understood that the epistemic value based on perception was insufficient and that the epistemic value “necessary” was needed in order to obtain the logical value “true”. Also, it was found that incomplete proof with inversive inference is generated by two patterns, and that some aspects of the epistemic value and the understanding of the status of the proposition generate an incomplete proof. Finally, based on these findings, we provided teaching implications to control the generation of incomplete proofs with inversive inference.

This research aimed to reveal the consciousness of Japanese secondary science teachers when dealing with content relating to social and ethical issues in science classes. In a survey, we analyzed responses obtained from 266 science teachers at junior high schools and 206 science teachers at high schools in Osaka Prefecture. We found the following three points: 1) Their knowledge, awareness, and experience about “science, technology, and society” in science classes increased with age and teaching experience, 2) However, these trends differed according to subject in high school science teachers. The consciousness of biology teachers tended to be higher than physics and chemistry teachers’, 3) In class, they more often set up opportunities to learn about various people’s values and opinions about ethical issues with science and technology than to ask students to express their opinions. These results showed science teachers’ awareness of handling contents relating to social and ethical issues with science and technology in class. The results also indicated the necessity to develop training programs and teaching materials that deal with the relationship between advanced science technology and society.