Related papers: Student Difficulties with Boundary Conditions in E…
[Taken from the "README" in the book] My goal with this book is to provide some kind of bridge for mathematics between the high-school-level and college-level for physics students. From my perspective, our job as physicists is to observe…
Prior research has demonstrated how the realist perspectives of classical physics students can translate into specific beliefs about quantum phenomena when taking an introductory modern physics course. Student beliefs regarding the…
Scientists who study how the brain solves problems have recently verified that, because of stringent limitations in working memory, where the brain solves problems, students must apply facts and algorithms that have previously been well…
Educators and policy-makers have advocated for reform of undergraduate biology education, calling for greater integration of mathematics and physics in the biology curriculum. While these calls reflect the increasingly interdisciplinary…
We discuss research involving the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) to evaluate one aspect of the pedagogical content knowledge of teaching assistants (TAs): the knowledge of introductory students' alternate conceptions…
Physics education research has probed for the relevance of physics in students' everyday lives. Attitudinal and epistemological surveys have asked students if they think of or use physics in their daily lives. We have previously documented…
This work examines how experiences in one disciplinary domain (biology) can impact the relationship a student builds with another domain (physics). We present a model for disciplinary relationships using the constructs of identity, affect,…
Linear differential equations and recurrences reveal many properties about their solutions. Therefore, these equations are well-suited for representing solutions and computing with special functions. We identify a large class of existing…
Electrokinetic boundary conditions are derived for AC electrokinetic (ACEK) phenomena over leaky dielectric (i.e., semiconducting) surfaces. Such boundary conditions correlate the electric potentials across the semiconductor-electrolyte…
The Dirac delta function is a standard mathematical tool used in multiple topical areas in the undergraduate physics curriculum. While Dirac delta functions are usually introduced in order to simplify a problem mathematically, students…
The computational treatment of many-electron systems capable of exchanging {electrons and nuclei} with the environment represents one of the outermost frontiers in simulation methodology. The exchanging process occurs in a large variety of…
Multifluid simulations of plasma sheaths are increasingly used to model a wide variety of problems in plasma physics ranging from global magnetospheric flows around celestial bodies to plasma-wall interactions in thrusters and fusion…
Uncertainty is an important and fundamental concept in physics education. Students are often first exposed to uncertainty in introductory labs, expand their knowledge across lab courses, and then are introduced to quantum mechanical…
Real physical systems are only understood, experimentally or theoretically, to a finite resolution so in their analysis there is generally an ignorance of possible short-range phenomena. It is also well-known that the boundary conditions of…
We discuss an investigation of student difficulties with the corrections to the energy spectrum of the hydrogen atom for the intermediate field Zeeman effect using the degenerate perturbation theory. The investigation was carried out in…
This paper develops a general approach to the derivation of the boundary conditions for hydrodynamic equations for charged and neutral plasma components. It includes both a well-known classical case for pure diffusion, and considers the…
The Dirac delta function is a standard mathematical tool that appears repeatedly in the undergraduate physics curriculum in multiple topical areas including electrostatics, and quantum mechanics. While Dirac delta functions are often…
We discuss the role of boundary conditions in determining the physical content of the solutions of the Schrodinger equation. We study the standing-wave, the ``in,'' the ``out,'' and the purely outgoing boundary conditions. As well, we…
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…
Complex natural or engineered systems comprise multiple characteristic scales, multiple spatiotemporal domains, and even multiple physical closure laws. To address such challenges, we introduce an interface learning paradigm and put forth a…