University of Cyprus, Cyprus (UCY)

The University of Cyprus is a public University with approximately 4000 undergraduate and 1000 masters and PhD students. We have approximately 350 members of the faculty. The Department of Educational Sciences at the University of Cyprus is a large department with 22 members of the faculty, and 35 associate or assistant personnel. We have two undergraduate (primary and preprimary school education) programs, a pre-service post-graduate secondary education program (across all subject domains taught in secondary education) and seven postgraduate programs at the Masters and PhD level (including science, math and technology education). The University of Cyprus is the largest teacher training university of the country and the only one responsible for training secondary education teachers right before entering schools. UCY personnel train about 100 pre-service teachers per year, as well as about 100 in-service teachers, and it currently leads the curriculum reform of the country. In Science Education, and especially in our research group ReSciTEG (Research in Science and Technology Education Group), we are active in research into inquiry learning, ICT, computer supported collaborative learning, physical and virtual laboratory experimentation, modeling, science (including STEM) curriculum development and assessment, conceptual understanding, teacher training and professional development, and educational evaluation.

The Research in Science and Technology Education Group at the University of Cyprus conducts a co-ordinated program of research, curriculum development and instruction (including pre- and in-service teacher training). The group includes faculty, research associates, post-doctoral students and graduate students (both at the Master’s and PhD level). ReSciTEG is currently engaged in three major projects: the use of virtual and remote labs in the context of inquiry-based (science) learning, the development of computer supported inquiry learning environments, and raising youth awareness about responsible research and innovation through inquiry-based Science Education. ReSciTEG (Prof. Zacharias Zacharia) is also leading the curriculum reform of the country for science and technology education across K-12. Our work has received continuous financial support over the years from the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation and the European Commission (through various programs, e.g., IST, Science and Society, ERASMUS+, FP 7). Finally, the ReSciTEG members have published papers related to all these research projects in many major journals (e.g., Science, Cognition and Instruction, Learning and Instruction, Journal of Research in Science Teaching).