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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…
Questions of participant understanding of the nature of an activity have been addressed in anthropology and sociolinguistics with the concepts of frames and framing. For example, a student may frame a learning activity as an opportunity for…
We report results from a study designed to identify links between undergraduate students' views about experimental physics and their engagement in multiweek projects in lab courses. Using surveys and interviews, we explored whether students…
Equations are about more than computing physical quantities or constructing formal models; they are also about understanding. The conceptual systems physicists use to think about nature are made from many different resources, formal and…
Instruction in quantum mechanics is becoming increasingly important as the field is not only a key part of modern physics research, but is also important for emerging technologies. However, many students regard quantum mechanics as a…
Researchers in physics education have advocated both for including modeling in science classrooms as well as promoting student engagement with sensemaking. These two processes facilitate the generation of new knowledge by connecting to…
Teaching electromagnetism by demonstrating a practical application associated with learning content is an important teaching technique. Demonstrations are often performed through video-assisted procedures, and are usually limited to a…
The impact of inquiry-based instruction on the improvement of content knowledge of electricity and wave properties in two studies was the subject of this investigation. Groups of pre-college and undergraduate students performed a series of…
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…
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…
Identifying and understanding student difficulties with physics content in a wide variety of topical areas is an active research area within the PER community. In many cases, physics topics appear multiple times in different contexts across…
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…
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…
Education is a goal-oriented field. But if we want to treat education scientifically so we can accumulate, evaluate, and refine what we learn, then we must develop a theoretical framework that is strongly rooted in objective observations…
Traditional tests are not effective tools for diagnosing the content and structure of students' knowledge of physics. As a possible alternative, a set of term-association tasks (the "ConMap" tasks) was developed to probe the…
In this article we present and discuss a didactic activity that combines epistemic aspects of the nature of science (NOS) and a simple, relatively low-cost experiment on electromagnetic induction. The aim of the activity is for students to…
Environmental Education (EE) is vital for shaping citizens who understand and value sustainability as an epistemological and practical alternative to mitigate current environmental issues. This research was prompted by the exploration of…
Wellness and mindfulness act as buzzwords these days, often seen as separate from physics. Yet we know they are important, and everything is related to physics! In this article, we will consider a few simple classroom activities that can…
In most VR experiences, the visual sense dominates other modes of sensory input, encouraging non-visual senses to respond as if the visual were real. The simulated visual world thus becomes a sort of felt actuality, where the 'actual'…
A considerable share of the literature on physics education and on education more broadly focuses on the principles which should guide the design of courses and of classroom activities. In this short article I wish to place more attention…