A merit-based PhD scholarship is available for the holder to conduct research in a project, funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project scheme (ARC DP180100143).There is a growing demand to engage students in scientific thinking process and build their problem-solving capabilities through evidence-based teaching strategies. This project investigates how students develop creative and critical thinking skills as well as scientific understanding while constructing visual explanations (science diagrams) in groups. The project will also develop and evaluate teaching strategies to better support students’ scientific thinking skills and understanding.The PhD student will interact with secondary school science teachers and students, video-record classroom interactions, conduct interviews, analyse class videos and diagrams, write a doctoral thesis, and contribute to writing peer-reviewed journal articles.The successful PhD student will be supervised by a team of experienced science education researchers (Dr Mihye Won and Professor David F. Treagust) from the STEM Education Research Group (formerly Science and Mathematics Education Centre—SMEC) at Curtin University, Perth, Australia.A merit-based PhD scholarship is available for the holder to conduct research in a project, funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project scheme (ARC DP180100143).There is a growing demand to engage students in scientific thinking process and build their problem-solving capabilities through evidence-based teaching strategies. This project investigates how students develop creative and critical thinking skills as well as scientific understanding while constructing visual explanations (science diagrams) in groups. The project will also develop and evaluate teaching strategies to better support students’ scientific thinking skills and understanding.The PhD student will interact with secondary school science teachers and students, video-record classroom interactions, conduct interviews, analyse class videos and diagrams, write a doctoral thesis, and contribute to writing peer-reviewed journal articles.The successful PhD student will be supervised by a team of experienced science education researchers (Dr Mihye Won and Professor David F. Treagust) from the STEM Education Research Group (formerly Science and Mathematics Education Centre—SMEC) at Curtin University, Perth, Australia.