Related papers: Gender Differences in Undergraduate Physics Course…
We present a model for competency-based grading for calculus-based introductory physics that encourages students to obtain proficiency with all course content. By allowing students to continually improve their proficiency with skills and…
Physics labs provide a unique opportunity for students to grow their physics identity and science identity in general since they provide students with opportunity to tinker with experiments and analyze data in a low-stakes environment.…
We have analyzed the impact of taking an associated lab course on the scores on final exam questions in two large introductory physics courses. Approximately a third of the students who completed each course also took an accompanying…
The literature on gender differences in research performance seems to suggest a gap between men and women, where the former outperform the latter. Whether one agrees with the different factors proposed to explain the phenomenon, it is…
Improving students' understanding of the nature of experimental physics is often an explicit or implicit goal of undergraduate laboratory physics courses. However, lab activities in traditional lab courses are typically characterized by…
We investigate student comfort with the material in an upper-division spins-first quantum mechanics course. Pre-lecture surveys probing students' comfort were administered weekly, in which students assigned themselves a "discomfort level"…
At the beginning of academic year 2007-08, staff in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Glasgow started to implement a number of substantial changes to the administration of the level 1 physics undergraduate class.…
Despite increasing representation in graduate training programs, a disproportionate number of women leave academic research before obtaining an independent position. To understand factors underlying this trend, we analyzed a…
In this study, headcounts of all personnel in Nobel Prize-winning labs were collected and sorted by gender. These results are used to determine gender representation of graduate students in elite institutions on the pipeline towards higher…
Too often, physics students are beset by feelings of failure and isolation rather than experiencing the creative joys of discovery that physics has to offer. This dissertation research was founded on the desire of a teacher to make physics…
Across the United Kingdom, initiatives designed to increase the participation and outcomes for women in physics continue, working with children of various ages as well as with adults. Improvements have been achieved by a combination of…
Efforts to build the workforce in support of the second quantum revolution are growing, including the creation of education programs that will prepare students for jobs in this area. We surveyed 186 undergraduate students with majors across…
A national survey of physics faculty was conducted to investigate the prevalence and nature of computational instruction in physics courses across the United States. 1246 faculty from 357 unique institutions responded to the survey. The…
The Physics GRE is currently a required element of the graduate admissions process in nearly all U.S. astronomy programs; however, its predictive power and utility as a means of selecting "successful" applicants has never been examined. We…
This is a report on a qualitative study of students' learning where a physics computer simulation session is used to supplement lectures on the topic. Drawing on phenomenography as the analytical framework, the students' learning-focuses…
The literature dedicated to analysis of the difference in research productivity between the sexes tends to agree in indicating better performance for men. This study enters in the vein of work on the subject. Through bibliometric…
In deciding on a student's grade in a class, an instructor generally needs to combine many individual grading judgments into one overall judgment. Two relatively common numerical scales used to specify individual grades are the 4-point…
The reaction time of a group of students majoring in Physics is reported here. Strong co-relation between fatigue, reaction time and performance have been seen and may be useful for academicians and administrators responsible of working out…
One argument for keeping the physics GRE is that it can help applicants who might otherwise be missed in the admissions process stand out. In this work, we evaluate whether this claim is supported by physics graduate school admissions…
This article describes an undergraduate physics module at a university in England that places year 3 student physicists in secondary school classrooms for a semester. This is done as a way of introducing them to the occupation of secondary…