Related papers: Attitude and Motivation towards Learning Physics
Despite the large body of research showing that students in STEM classes at all levels learn better via active learning than they do via lecture, post-secondary physics and astronomy (P&A) faculty members continue to primarily use…
When we teach physics to prospective scientists and engineers we are teaching more than the "facts" of physics - more, even, than the methods and concepts of physics. We are introducing them to a complex culture - a mode of thinking and the…
This paper re-centres the discussion of student learning in physics to focus on context. In order to do so, a theoretically-motivated understanding of context is developed. Given a well-defined notion of context, data from a novel…
Physics has a reputation among majority of life sciences students for being very complicated and tough. If we leave students with this impression, it is likely that students see physics class as useless and irrelevant to life sciences.…
Embedding physics problems unreal-world settings, here termed contextualized physics problems (CPP), is widely believed to foster students' interest, motivation, and learning. However, firm evidence for this claim remains scarce. To explore…
A brief account of some recent controversies about the teaching and learning of physics is presented. A shorter version of this outcome was accepted by The Physics Teacher, but publication is still pending.
The mindset literature is a longstanding area of psychological research focused on beliefs about intelligence, response to challenge, and goals for learning (Dweck, 2000). However, the mindset literature's applicability to the context of…
This research uses 10 years of institutional data at a large public university in the USA to investigate trends in the undergraduate majors students declare, drop, and earn degrees, especially comparing physics to other disciplines. We find…
To give teenagers a new, everyday perspective on STEM topics, we use particle physics as our main topic to engage young students. Our strategy is designed to demystify particle physics, making it more accessible and attractive early in high…
Our main goal is to develop plans to increase physics enrollment. Once again we thoroughly analyze the problem from the beginning and reach the conclusion that the most appropriate starting point in this direction should be to look into…
Formally investigating the sources of students' difficulties around specific subjects is crucial for developing appropriate strategies to help students. We have been studying difficulties in understanding magnetism encountered by students…
University students taking introductory physics are generally successful executing mathematical procedures in context, but often struggle with the use of mathematical concepts for sense making. Physics instructors note that their students…
We discuss a case study of the influence of epistemology on learning for a student in an introductory college physics course. An analysis of videotaped class work, written work, and interviews indicates that many of the student's…
There is some evidence that conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics lab curricula, such as RealTime Physics, may improve students' understanding of physics concepts. Thus, these curricula may be attractive for instructors who seek to…
As part of a larger research project into massively open online courses (MOOCs), we have investigated student background, as well as student participation in a physics MOOC with a laboratory component. Students completed a demographic…
Mathematics is an essential element of physics problem solving, but experts often fail to appreciate exactly how they use it. Math may be the language of science, but math-in-physics is a distinct dialect of that language. Physicists tend…
Over the past year and a half we have developed an innovative approach to the teaching of `Physical Science', a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. The new approach uses popular…
Enhancing motivation and learning attitudes in an introductory physics course is an important but difficult task that can be achieved through class blogging. We incorporated into an introductory course a blog operated by upper-level physics…
Studying quantum physics in upper secondary school is now a standard practice (Stadermann et al., 2019). But given the context of science education, with low recruitment numbers in higher education and poor attitudes towards science, it…
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 studies suggest this…