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Student learning in upper division thermal physics has not been studied to the same extent as in other courses like electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. Studies addressing reasoning and learning at the graduate level are even more…
Several reports in education have called for transforming physics learning environments by promoting sensemaking of real-world scenarios in light of curricular ideas. Recent advancements in Generative-Artificial Intelligence has garnered…
Highly successful students, as measured by grades and by scores on the Force Concept Inventory, still struggle with fundamental concepts in mathematics and physics. These difficulties, which turn physics into parrot learning and include…
The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has been widely used to assess student understanding of introductory mechanics concepts by educators and physics education researchers. Many of the items on the FCI have strong distractor choices…
While quantum mechanics (QM) is covered at length in introductory physics textbooks, the concept of quantum entanglement is typically not covered at all, despite its importance in the rapidly growing area of quantum information science and…
Research-validated clicker questions as instructional tools for formative assessment are relatively easy to implement and can provide effective scaffolding when developed and implemented in a sequence. We present findings from the…
Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a given problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem…
The cyclic format of the undergraduate physics curriculum depends on students' ability to recall and utilize material covered in prior courses in order to reliably build on that knowledge in later courses. However, there is evidence to…
Physics students can encounter difficulties in physics problem solving as a result of failing to use knowledge that they have but do not perceive as relevant or appropriate. In previous work the authors have demonstrated that some of these…
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…
In the past few years, contrastive learning has played a central role for the success of visual unsupervised representation learning. Around the same time, high-performance non-contrastive learning methods have been developed as well. While…
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…
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…
A large body of research shows that using interactive engagement pedagogy in the introductory physics classroom consistently results in significant student learning gains; however, with a few exceptions, those learning gains tend not to be…
The current work aims to better understand student course experiences for those who reported negative perceptions in introductory physics. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 students who reported negative perceptions of their…
There are a plethora of concept inventories in physics available for faculty to use, but it is not always clear exactly why you would use these tests, or how you should administer them and interpret the results. These multiple-choice…
This study investigates the influence of ChatGPT, an AI-based language model, on student performance in a physics course. We conducted an experimental analysis with two cohorts of students in a second-semester engineering physics course.…
Conceptual tests are widely used by physics instructors to assess students' conceptual understanding and compare teaching methods. It is common to look at students' changes in their answers between a pre-test and a post-test to quantify a…
Asking questions during class time is one form of participation not commonly employed by members of underrepresented groups in large enrollment college classrooms, even though the form of participation is highly conducive to student…
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…