Related papers: Toward Better Physics Labs for Future Biologists
Students with disabilities are enrolling in postsecondary education in increasing numbers and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at steady rates since the early 1990s. Specifically, in 2014, the National Center on…
Development of conceptual multiple-choice tests related to a particular physics topic is important for designing research-based learning tools to reduce the difficulties. We explore the difficulties that the advanced undergraduate and…
Recent autonomous LLM agents have demonstrated end-to-end automation of machine-learning research. Real-world physical science is intrinsically harder, requiring deep reasoning bounded by physical truth and, because real systems are too…
Radioactive molecules provide a powerful new platform in the search for new physics at energy scales complementary to high-energy particle colliders. By combining enhancements from nuclear properties with the sensitivity and control offered…
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…
Although most teachers acknowledge the importance of taking investigative approached in students' science learning experiences, implementing them in high-school classes can be challenging for teachers. In this work, we analyzed data from…
We discuss the development and evaluation of five research-based tutorials on Coulomb's law, superposition, symmetry and Gauss's Law to help students in the calculus-based introductory physics courses learn these concepts. We discuss the…
We use the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws-Long (STPFaSL-Long), a research-based survey instrument with 78 items at the level of introductory physics, to investigate introductory and advanced students'…
Molecules containing short-lived, radioactive nuclei are uniquely positioned to enable a wide range of scientific discoveries in the areas of fundamental symmetries, astrophysics, nuclear structure, and chemistry. Recent advances in the…
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…
It has been reported that students often leave the introductory physics classroom believing that physics is less connected to the real world than when they entered. In this paper we aim to complicate that narrative by considering students'…
Research has shown that it is challenging to change departmental culture to support the adoption of transformed teaching practices. Michigan State University is working to transform its introductory physics courses by engaging faculty in…
The use of lab notebooks for scientific documentation is a ubiquitous part of physics research. However, it is common for undergraduate physics laboratory courses not to emphasize the development of documentation skills, despite the fact…
Physics education research has consistently shown that students have higher learning outcomes when enrolled in interactive-engagement courses. Consequently, many schools are actively reforming their introductory curricula. For courses where…
Instructional physics labs are critical junctures for many STEM majors to develop an understanding of experimentation in the sciences. Students can acquire useful experimental skills and grow their identities as scientists. However, many…
Increasing numbers of physicists engage in research activities that address biological questions from physics perspectives or strive to develop physics insights from active biological processes. The on-going development and success of such…
Physics in schools is distinctly different from, and struggles to capture the excitement of, university research-level work. Initiatives where students engage in independent research linked to cutting-edge physics within their school over…
In a first course to classical mechanics elementary physical processes like elastic two-body collisions, the mass-spring model, or the gravitational two-body problem are discussed in detail. The continuation to many-body systems, however,…
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…
The ability to develop, use, and refine models of experimental systems is a nationally recognized learning outcome for undergraduate physics lab courses. However, no assessments of students' model-based reasoning exist for upper-division…