Related papers: Exploring Pedagogical Content Knowledge of Physics…
A key to effective teaching is an awareness and accurate understanding of the thinking and implicit assumptions that students bring to the subject to be learned. In the absence of extensive Socratic interactions with students, one strategy…
Understanding how an instructional approach shapes student's cognitive resources and engagement is central to improving undergraduate physics education especially for novice learners. This study examines how three instructional modalities…
Student content knowledge and general reasoning abilities are two important areas in education practice and research. However, there hasn't been much work in physics education that clearly documents the possible interactions between content…
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…
In a recent report, the American Association of Physics Teachers has developed an updated set of recommendations for curriculum of undergraduate physics labs.1 This document focuses on six major themes: constructing knowledge, modeling,…
This manuscript is written for students in introductory physics classes to address some of the common difficulties and misconceptions of the normal force, especially the relationship between normal and friction forces. Accordingly, it is…
We report on the development of students' ideas of probability and probability density in a University of Maine laboratory-based general education physics course called Intuitive Quantum Physics. Students in the course are generally math…
This article quantitatively examines the effects that different incentives have on students' homework completion rates in introductory physics courses at the United States Air Force Academy. Our data suggest that no more than 10-15% of the…
Physics teaching in engineering programmes poses discipline-specific demands that intertwine conceptual modelling, experimental inquiry, and computational analysis. This study examines nine teaching competences for physics instruction…
Among the many decisions to be made in their teaching practice, physics teachers must decide how to explain each particular phenomenon to students. This study explores student teachers' (STs) decision-making process when presented with…
We investigate student understanding of energy and momentum concepts at the level of introductory physics by designing and administering a 25-item multiple choice test and conducting individual interviews. We find that most students have…
Mathematical reasoning flexibility across physics contexts is a desirable learning outcome of introductory physics, where the math world and physical world meet. Physics Quantitative Literacy (PQL) is a set of interconnected skills and…
Reliable and validated assessments of introductory physics have been instrumental in driving curricular and pedagogical reforms that lead to improved student learning. As part of an effort to systematically improve our sophomore-level…
When education researchers describe newly developed curricular materials, they typically concentrate on the research base behind their design, and the efficacy of the final products, but do not highlight the initial stages of creating the…
The observed performance difference between women and men on assessments in physics---the "gender gap"---is a significant and persistent inequity which has broad implications for the participation of women in physics. Research also shows…
The increasing complexity of abstract concepts in physics education and the low level of students critical thinking skills demand innovative instructional strategies aligned with 21st century competencies. This study aims to analyze…
This paper is a tutorial on Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) and its applications. FCA is an applied branch of Lattice Theory, a mathematical discipline which enables formalisation of concepts as basic units of human thinking and analysing…
We report the conceptual inventory results of a large-scale assessment project at a large university. We studied an attempt at introducing materials and instructional methods informed by physics education research (PER-informed materials)…
We discuss an investigation exploring students' difficulties with equations involving resistance, capacitance and inductance. We find that introductory physics students have great difficulty understanding, e.g., how the resistance of an…
Teaching assistants (TAs) are often responsible for grading student solutions. Since grading communicates instructors' expectations, TAs' grading decisions play a crucial role in forming students' approaches to problem solving (PS) in…