Physics Education
Thermal physics is a core course requirement for most physics degrees and encompasses both thermodynamics and statistical mechanics content. However, the primary content foci of thermal physics courses vary across universities. This…
Computation holds great potential for introducing new opportunities for creativity and exploration into the physics curriculum. At the University of Oslo we have begun development of a new class of assignment called computational essays to…
Historically, non-disabled individuals have viewed disability as a personal deficit requiring change to the disabled individual. However, models have emerged from disability activists and disabled intellectuals that emphasize the role of…
The traditional approach to studying student understanding presents a question and uses the student answers to make inferences about their knowledge. However, this method does not capture the range of possible alternative ideas available to…
Stereoscopic virtual reality (VR) has experienced a resurgence due to flagship products such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and smartphone-based VR solutions like Google Cardboard. This is causing the question to resurface: how can…
The Physics Inventory of Quantitative Literacy (PIQL), a reasoning inventory under development, aims to assess students' physics quantitative literacy at the introductory level. The PIQL's design presents the challenge of isolating types of…
In many upper-division lab courses, instructors implement multiweek student-led projects. During such projects, students may design and carry out experiments, collect and analyze data, document and report their findings, and collaborate…
Among all of the first-year graduate students enrolled in doctoral-granting physics departments, the percentage of female and racial minority students has remained unchanged for the past 20 years. The current graduate program admissions…
Thin film technology is a most relevant field in terms of number of different applications and, even more, in how widespread the use of the technology is. Virtually all optical devices involving light beams or with imaging capabilities…
This paper investigates the interactions between context and professional development of physics instructors in a case study of two physics faculty. A phenomenological-case study approach was used to analyze two physics faculty at different…
Using elementary knowledge of Special Relativity, we design a computational classroom experiment in excel and python. Here, we show that any inertial observer $\mathcal{B}$ with an arbitrary speed $u_\mathcal{B}$ is associated with a unique…
Research on cognitive effects of educational games in general shows promising results. However, large variations in learning outcomes between individual educational games exists. Research on the design process and different design elements…
In previous work we analyzed databases for 95 classes to show that the percent grade scale was correlated with a much higher student fail rate than the 4.0 grade scale. This paper builds on this work and investigates equity gaps occurring…
We present a model for competency-based grading for calculus-based introductory physics that encourages students to obtain proficiency with all course content. By allowing students to continually improve their proficiency with skills and…
Data from the Kepler satellite were analysed using the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) database. With the participation of 53 students, we determined the parameters of the HAT-P-7b (Kepler-2) exoplanet system (transit duration,…
The sensors in modern smartphones are a promising and cost-effective tool for experimentation in physics education, but many experiments face practical problems. Often the phone is inaccessible during the experiment and the data usually…
International Masterclasses (IMC) enable high school students and teachers to work with particle physicists to analyze authentic data from contemporary experiments and experience being "physicists for a day". The IMC program has a worldwide…
The discovery of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations in 2012 concluded the longest search for a particle in the history of particle physics and was based on the largest and most complex physics experiments ever conducted,…
The South East Physics network (SEPnet) is a collaboration between nine universities in the South East of England, working together to deliver excellence in physics. By sharing resources, we are able to add much more value to our…
This contribution highlights challenges afflicting physics education in Africa and provides a reflection on key areas for intervention to strengthen capacity building.