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Students' learning orientation, as applied towards learning problem solving, may be differentiated into learning a problem solving framework for its own sake, learning for the sake of doing well in the course, and non-goal-related…
When considering performing an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences course transformation for one's own institution, life science majors' achievement goals are a necessary consideration to ensure the pedagogical transformation will be…
Studying Mathematics requires a synthesis of skills from a multitude of academic disciplines; logical reasoning being chief among them. This paper explores mathematical logical preparedness of students entering first year university…
Effective physics learning, especially in complex topics, requires balancing mathematical formalism with conceptual understanding. Conceptual problem-solving involves connecting math to physical reality, and using an epistemological…
High school science classrooms across the United States are answering calls to make computation a part of science learning. The problem is that there is little known about the barriers to learning that computation might bring to a science…
It is becoming common to hear teaching advice about spending more time on the "physics of the problem" so that students will get more physical insight and develop a stronger intuition that can be very helpful when thinking about physics…
We investigated the common difficulties that students have with concepts related to rotational and rolling motion covered in the introductory physics courses. We compared the performance of calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics…
Identifying the relevant physics principles is a central component of problem solving. A major goal of most introductory physics courses is to help students discern the deep similarities between problems based upon the physics principles so…
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…
We present a new probing dataset named PROST: Physical Reasoning about Objects Through Space and Time. This dataset contains 18,736 multiple-choice questions made from 14 manually curated templates, covering 10 physical reasoning concepts.…
Understanding issues involved in expertise in physics problem solving is important for helping students become good problem solvers. In part 1 of this article, we summarize the research on problem-solving relevant for physics education…
Developing and making sense of quantitative models is a core practice of physics. Covariational reasoning -- considering how the changes in one quantity affect changes in another, related quantity -- is an essential part of modeling…
Physics faculty care about their students learning physics content. In addition, they usually hope that their students will learn some deeper lessons about thinking critically and scientifically. They hope that as a result of taking a…
Previous research has found that introductory physics students perform far better on numeric problems than on otherwise equivalent symbolic problems. This paper describes a framework to explain these differences developed by analyzing…
A common hope of many physics educators and researchers is that students leave the course with a stronger sense that physics is relevant to them than when they entered the course. Multiple survey measures have attempted to measure shifts 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'…
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,…
The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than surface features or contexts, is considered one of several proxy predictors of expertise in problem solving. With inspiration from the classic study by Chi,…
Measurement uncertainty plays a critical role in the process of experimental physics. It is useful to be able to assess student proficiency around the topic to iteratively improve instruction and student learning. For the topic of…
Previous research has shown that students often struggle to develop an understanding of linear and quadratic relationships. Covariational reasoning has been identified as a way to support this development. This study aims to investigate how…