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Student learning in instructional physics labs is a growing area of research that includes studies exploring students' beliefs and expectations about experimental physics. To directly probe students' epistemologies about experimental…
We examine the difficulties that introductory physics students, undergraduate physics majors, and physics graduate students have with concepts related to conductors and insulators covered in introductory physics by giving written tests and…
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…
In a previous study, students' self-expressed learning orientations towards an exercise centered on self-monitoring one's ability to solve a pre-lab physics problem were identified from a post-test feedback survey given to an introductory…
Analysis of institutional data for physics majors showing predictive relationships between required mathematics and physics courses in various years is important for contemplating how the courses build on each other and whether there is…
Although Physics is the same worldwide, students belonging to different learning systems as well as different cultural environments may develop different styles of approaching and reasoning out Physics problems. In a first experiment we…
Students face diverse pathways as they journey through undergraduate study. The analysis of student course records can untangle common patterns in course progression, and identify group trends in student outcomes. The current work examines…
In the U.S., introductory calculus-based courses often acts as a gatekeeper to STEM degrees. But access to the prerequisite math is far from equal--students from low-income and racially marginalized communities are far less likely to have…
Embedding physics problems unreal-world settings, here termed contextualized physics problems (CPP), is widely believed to foster students' interest, motivation, and learning. However, firm evidence for this claim remains scarce. To explore…
We describe a study focusing on students' and faculty members' reasoning about problems of differing cognitive complexity related to the double-slit experiment (DSE) with single particles. In the first phase of the study, students in…
Utilizing the integral expression of Coulomb's Law to determine the electric potential from a continuous charge distribution is a canonical exercise in Electricity and Magnetism (E&M). In this study, we use both think-aloud interviews and…
A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our prior work has shown that…
Current trends suggest that significant gender disparities exist within Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education at university, with female students being underrepresented in physics, but more equally represented…
Students in introductory calculus-based physics not only have difficulty understanding the fundamental physical concepts, they often have difficulty relating those concepts to the mathematics they have learned in math courses. This produces…
Prior research suggest that introductory physics students have difficulty with graphing and interpreting graphs. Here, we discuss an investigation of student difficulties in translating between mathematical and graphical representations for…
The performance of over 2000 students in introductory calculus-based electromagnetism (E&M) courses at four large research universities was measured using the Brief Electricity and Magnetism Assessment (BEMA). Two different curricula were…
Computational physics is a key part of what it means to do physics in the twenty-first century. However, upper division computational physics remains a largely understudied area. We set out to understand the experiences of students in an…
The Physics First movement - teaching a true physics course to ninth grade students - is gaining popularity in high schools. There are several different rhetorical arguments for and against this movement, and it is quite controversial in…
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'…
This study investigated the use of concept maps on advancing students conceptual understanding of the Euler Circuit concept. The participants were students at the college of Humanities and Social Sciences with a background in Art. A…