Related papers: Investigations about Science Misconceptions
Traditional tests are not effective tools for diagnosing the content and structure of students' knowledge of physics. As a possible alternative, a set of term-association tasks (the "ConMap" tasks) was developed to probe the…
For many students, introductory college science courses are often the only opportunity in their formal higher education to be exposed to science, shaping their view of the subject, their scientific literacy, and their attitudes towards…
This systematic mapping study consisted of tracking the scientific literature that addresses the issue of analogies as a didactic strategy in science teaching. An analogy can be understood as comparing an existing knowledge with a new…
We examine the effect of misconceptions about friction on students' ability to solve problems and transfer from one context to another. We analyze written responses to paired isomorphic problems given to introductory physics students and…
We address the question "How do students make sense of Physics from the point of view of constituting physics knowledge?". A phenomenographic study is described as a result of which we present six qualitatively different ways in which…
It is a fact of our existence, that no matter where we are, we most often find ourselves either hearing, seeing, talking, or even engaged in design related activities. Despite this reality, the notion of 'design', and in particular…
During recent collaboration with colleagues to revise our institution's general-education curriculum, I encountered many perceptions of what we mean by the Natural Sciences. I was surprised to find that perceptions of scientific pedagogy…
We gained insight into ideas and beliefs on testing of students who finished an introductory course on programming without any formal education on testing. We asked students to fill in a small survey, to do four exercises and to fill in a…
An introduction to applied mathematics written for students in engineering and science. Focus is on a rigorous presentation that also builds understanding by discussion, analogy, and examples. Discussion of concepts involved in modeling…
A survey was developed to probe student understanding of quantum mechanics at the beginning of graduate instruction. The survey was administered to 202 physics graduate students enrolled in first-year quantum mechanics courses from seven…
The standard assumptions that underlie many conceptual and quantitative frameworks do not hold for many complex physical, biological, and social systems. Complex systems science clarifies when and why such assumptions fail and provides…
Uncertainty is an important concept in physics laboratory instruction. However, little work has examined how students reason about uncertainty beyond the introductory (intro) level. In this work we aimed to compare intro and beyond-intro…
In this work, we study a sample of 600 engineering students in three consecutive physics courses of different levels, according to their curriculum. We focus on the most frequent students' misconceptions in newtonian mechanics. It was…
Common research tasks ask students to identify a correct answer and justify their answer choice. We propose expanding the array of research tasks to access different knowledge that students might have. By asking students to discuss answers…
With the aim of finding ways that can lead to solving the problem of learning the exact sciences and involving the university student in a participatory and active way during the semester period with the help of new technologies, the…
The ubiquitous presence of computer simulations in all kinds of research areas evidence their role as the new driving force for the advancement of science and engineering research. Nothing seems to escape the image of success that computer…
The physics learning is very important to techniques teaching and the engineers upbringing. However, there is evidence that science classes from elementary school through to university are generally failing to provide most students with an…
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…
In order to describe natural phenomena, science develops sophisticated models that use mathematical and formal languages which seem, and often are, very far from common experience. When a phenomenon is not accessible to our senses, its…
Physics education research has probed for the relevance of physics in students' everyday lives. Attitudinal and epistemological surveys have asked students if they think of or use physics in their daily lives. We have previously documented…