Related papers: Paradigms in Physics Education Research
This is a report on a qualitative study of students' learning where a physics computer simulation session is used to supplement lectures on the topic. Drawing on phenomenography as the analytical framework, the students' learning-focuses…
Broad instructional methods like interactive engagement have been shown to be effective, but such general characterization provides little guidance on the details of how to structure the instructional materials. In this study, we seek…
Current investigations into pedagogical goals of introductory algebra-based physics students at the University of Central Arkansas, by learning orientation towards an in-class metacognitive group problem solving task, seek to determine…
To help faculty use research-based materials in a more significant way, we learn about their perceived needs and desires and use this information to suggest ways for the Physics Education Research community to address these needs. When…
Introductory undergraduate courses in classical physics stress a perspective that can be characterized as realist; from this perspective, all physical properties of a classical system can be simultaneously specified and thus determined at…
If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated…
The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce…
Drawing on the Data and Predictions strand of the Indicazioni Nazionali per il curricolo 2012, this study proposes a problem based instructional approach to the teaching of probability. More specifically, the study adopts a design based…
A goal of PER is to understand how students use math in physics contexts. To investigate how students use math, we need to identify transitions between conceptual sense-making about physical systems and using mathematics to describe and to…
A national survey of physics faculty was conducted to investigate the prevalence and nature of computational instruction in physics courses across the United States. 1246 faculty from 357 unique institutions responded to the survey. The…
Instructors in introductory physics courses often use labs and demonstrations to reinforce that the physics equations introduced in lectures and textbooks describe what actually happens in the real world. The surface features and…
Physicists engage with the public to varying degrees at different stages of their careers. However, their public engagement covers many activities, events, and audiences, making their motivations and professional development needs not well…
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…
The aim of "A glance beyond the quantum model" [arXiv:0907.0372] to modernize the Correspondence Principle is compromised by an assumption that a classical model must start with the idea of particles, whereas in empirical terms particles…
Covariational reasoning--considering how changes in one quantity affect another, related quantity--is a foundation of quantitative modeling in physics. Understanding quantitative models is a learning objective of introductory physics…
Humans have mental models that allow them to plan, experiment, and reason in the physical world. How should an intelligent agent go about learning such models? In this paper, we will study if models of the world learned in an open-ended…
This paper describes a new approach for learning from homework, called Peer-Assisted Reflection (PAR). PAR involves students using peer feedback to improve their work on open-ended homework problems. Collaborating with peers and revising…
While the positive outcomes of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) have been extensively categorized, the mechanisms for those outcomes are less understood. Through lightly structured focus group interviews, we have extracted the…
Prior research has shown that physics students often think about experimental procedures and data analysis very differently from experts. One key framework for analyzing student thinking has found that student thinking is more point-like,…
Misconception is the difference between a student's idea and his scientific concept. Physics learning needs to be designed by teachers to minimize misconceptions. Different diagnostic tools have been developed and used by researchers to…