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We investigated physics students' learning experience and behaviour in a second-year laboratory by analyzing transcribed audio recordings of laboratory sessions. One student group was given both a problem and procedure and asked to analyze…
The study guide (textbook) is part of a set of materials designed to support high-quality practical training in physics. It includes a collection of tasks for organizing both in-class and independent work. The guide serves as a foundation…
Optics is an important subfield of physics required for instrument design and used in a variety of other disciplines, including materials science, physics, and life sciences such as developmental biology and cell biology. It is important to…
Improving the scientific literacy of non-scientists is an important goal, both because of the ever-increasing impact of science and technology on our lives, and because understanding science enriches our experience of the natural world. One…
To date, there is a lack of research on learning environments for pre-service physics teachers that allow them to learn and practise diagnosing students' conceptions that are (currently) not covered in physics education textbooks (e.g.…
We have designed an introductory laboratory course that engaged first-year undergraduate students in two complementary types of iteration: (1) iterative improvement of experiments through cycles of modeling systems, designing experiments,…
As part of a longitudinal study into identity development in upper-level physics students, we used a phenomenographic research method to examine students' perceptions of what it means to be a physicist. The results revealed four different…
Quantum mechanics is a field often considered very mathematical, abstract, and unintuitive. One way some instructors are hoping to help familiarize their students with these complex topics is to have the students see quantum effects in…
A central goal of Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (IPLS) is to prepare students to use physics to model and analyze biological situations, a skill of increasing importance for their future studies and careers. Here we report our…
We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student's…
Computation is intertwined with essentially all aspects of physics research and is invaluable for physicists' careers. Despite its disciplinary importance, integration of computation into physics education remains a challenge and, moreover,…
Computational thinking in physics has many different forms, definitions, and implementations depending on the level of physics, or the institution it is presented in. In order to better integrate computational thinking in introductory…
Incorporating computer programming exercises in introductory physics is a delicate task that involves a number of choices that may have a strong affect on student learning. We present an approach that speaks to a number of common concerns…
University students taking introductory physics are generally successful executing mathematical procedures in context, but often struggle with the use of mathematical concepts for sense making. Physics instructors note that their students…
Most science classes and in particular Physics are delivered through traditional teaching methods. More specifically, in the traditional stand-and-deliver lecture, the information was transmitted unilaterally from the teacher to the student…
This pedagogical overview will cover the current status of neutrino physics from an experimentalist's point of view, focusing primarily on oscillation studies. The evidence for neutrino oscillations will be presented, along with the…
Since Galileo and (more recently) D'Arcy Thompson, it has been understood that physical processes and constraints influence biological structures and their resulting functions. However these cross-discpline connections -- and their…
The main task of an introductory laboratory course is to foster students' manual, conceptual and statistical ability to investigate physical phenomena. Needing very simple apparatus, pendulum experiments are an ideal starting point in our…
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…
Learning to create, use, and evaluate models is a central element of becoming a scientist. In physics, we often begin an analysis of a complex system with highly simplified or toy models. In introductory physics classes, we tend to use them…