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While it is well known which curricular practices can improve student performance on measures of conceptual understanding, the sustaining of these practices and the role of faculty members in implementing these practices are less well…
Physics outreach programs provide a critical context for informal experiences that promote the transition from new student to contributing physicist. Prior studies have suggested a positive link between participation in informal physics…
An active learning physics course (treatment) was re-organized in an attempt to increase students' problem solving abilities. This re-organized course covered all of the relevant concepts in the first 6 weeks with the final 4 weeks spent in…
Recruiting and retaining highly qualified physics and physical science teachers is critical for maintaining America's global competitiveness. Unfortunately, only one third of the high school teachers in physics have a degree in physics and…
Taking notes during lectures is one of the required skills, among many others, that students need (i) to master the topic covered in the lecture, (ii) to actively engage in the learning process with minimal to no distractions, (iii) to…
The field of e-learning has emerged as a topic of interest in academia due to the increased ease of accessing the Internet using using smart-phones and wireless devices. One of the challenges facing e-learning platforms is how to keep…
At the start of the COVID 19 pandemic, the majority of secondary instruction in the United States transitioned to an online environment. In many parts of the country, online schooling continued for upwards of two years. Many experts have…
We analyze the current trends in higher education and discuss its impact on physics enrollment in US institutions. The pandemic, lockdowns, unemployment, and healthcare problems have led to unique social and economic conditions. These…
Through in-class observations of teaching assistants (TAs) and students in the lab sections of a large introductory physics course, we study which TA behaviors can be used to predict student engagement and, in turn, how this engagement…
Modeling Instruction (MI), an active-learning introductory physics curriculum, has been shown to improve student academic success. Peer-to-peer interactions play a salient role in the MI classroom. Their impact on student interest and…
Using 6 years of evaluation data we assess the medium- and long-term impacts upon a diverse range of students, teachers, and schools from participating in a programme of protracted university-mentored projects based in cutting-edge space…
The decline in student interest in science and technology is a major concern in the western world. One approach to reversing this decline is to introduce modern physics concepts much earlier in the school curriculum. We have used the…
In two earlier studies, we developed a new method to measure students' ability to transfer physics problem solving skills to new contexts using a sequence of online learning modules, and implemented two interventions in the form of…
One argument for keeping the physics GRE is that it can help applicants who might otherwise be missed in the admissions process stand out. In this work, we evaluate whether this claim is supported by physics graduate school admissions…
Previous research has suggested that changing the percentage of the course grade associated with exam grades in STEM courses can change the gender gap in the course. It has also been shown that assessments with the highest stakes have the…
Our main goal is to develop plans to increase physics enrollment. Once again we thoroughly analyze the problem from the beginning and reach the conclusion that the most appropriate starting point in this direction should be to look into…
Collaboration among students is fundamental for knowledge building and competency development. Yet, the effectiveness of student collaboration depends on the extent that these interactions occur under conditions that favor commitment,…
With an investigation into how students in a physics Master of science program make sense of their whole first year study experience in one of the years following a programme reform, we try to offer insights and advice to consider when…
As part of a larger research project into massively open online courses (MOOCs), we have investigated student background, as well as student participation in a physics MOOC with a laboratory component. Students completed a demographic…
Studying for physics exams can be difficult and stressful, especially during a student's introductory year in physics. For students who do not plan to major in physics, the desire to do well is based less on understanding concepts and more…