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The most general linear and local set of boundary conditions, involving relations between the normal components of the D and B vectors and tangential components of the E and H vectors at each point of the boundary, are considered in this…
To date, there is a lack of research on learning environments for pre-service physics teachers that allow them to learn and practise diagnosing students' conceptions that are (currently) not covered in physics education textbooks (e.g.…
The physics community explores and explains the physical world through a blend of theoretical and experimental studies. The future of physics as a discipline depends on training of students in both the theoretical and experimental aspects…
In their study of physics beyond the first year of University -- termed upper-division in the US, many of students' primary learning opportunities come from working long, complex back-of-the-book style problems, and from trying to develop…
Continuum solvation methods can provide an accurate and inexpensive embedding of quantum simulations in liquid or complex dielectric environments. Notwithstanding a long history and manifold applications to isolated systems in open boundary…
We have been investigating the difficulties that students in upper-level undergraduate courses have in determining the probability distribution for measuring energy and position as a function of time when the initial wave function is…
Favorable outcomes from ongoing research at the University of Colorado Boulder on student learning in junior-level electrostatics (E&M I) have led us to extend this work to upper-division electrodynamics (E&M II). We describe here our…
Standardized assessment tests that allow researchers to compare the performance of students under various curricula are highly desirable. There are several research-based conceptual tests that serve as instruments to assess and identify…
Group work is becoming increasingly common in introductory physics classrooms. Understanding how students engage in these group learning environments is important for designing and facilitating productive learning opportunities for…
We investigated students' use of Newton's second law in mechanics and electromagnetism contexts by interviewing students in a two-semester calculus-based physics course. We observed that students' responses are consistent with three mental…
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…
In this article, we draw on previous reports from physics, science education, and women's studies to propose a more nuanced treatment of gender in physics education research (PER). A growing body of PER examines gender differences in…
Developing students' ability to troubleshoot is an important learning outcome for many undergraduate physics lab courses, especially electronics courses. In other work, metacognition has been identified as an important feature of…
Quantum mechanics is a field often considered very mathematical, abstract, and unintuitive. One way some instructors are hoping to help familiarize their students with these complex topics is to have the students see quantum effects in…
The static limit of Lorentz-violating electrodynamics in vacuum and in media is investigated. Features of the general solutions include the need for unconventional boundary conditions and the mixing of electrostatic and magnetostatic…
A vast scientific literature in physics education documents a general widespread difficulty in dealing with Electro-Magnetic Induction (EMI) at various levels of instruction. But, at the best of our knowledge, there is a lack of research…
As research-based self-paced e-learning tools become increasingly available, a critical issue educators encounter is implementing strategies to ensure that all students engage with them as intended. Here, we discuss the effectiveness of…
We describe the development of a junior-senior level course for Physics majors designed to teach Mathematica skills in support of their undergraduate coursework, but also to introduce students to modern research level results. Standard…
One of the objectives of the undergraduate physics curriculum is for students to become aware of the connections between the fundamental principles of classical physics and their personal experience. Nonetheless, numerous studies have shown…
The modeling of finite-extent semiconductor nanostructures that are embedded in a host material requires the numerical treatment of the boundary in a finite simulation domain. For the study of a self-assembled InAs dot embedded in GaAs,…