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To help faculty use research-based materials in a more significant way, we learn about their perceived needs and desires and use this information to suggest ways for the Physics Education Research community to address these needs. When…
The lack of diversity in physics and astronomy PhD programmes is well known but has not improved despite decades of efforts. PhD bridge programmes provide an asset-based model to help overcome the societal and disciplinary obstacles to…
Grading can shape students' learning and encourage use of effective problem solving practices. Teaching assistants (TAs) are often responsible for grading student solutions and providing feedback, thus, their perceptions of grading may…
In previous work we analyzed databases for 95 classes to show that the percent grade scale was correlated with a much higher student fail rate than the 4.0 grade scale. This paper builds on this work and investigates equity gaps occurring…
Four sections of introductory physics for physical scientists and engineers (about 180 students each) are compared. One section, treatment group, was organized so that students worked to learn the classical ideas connecting forces and…
Contrary to claims about the irrelevance of philosophy for science, I argue that philosophy has had, and still has, far more influence on physics than is commonly assumed. I maintain that the current anti-philosophical ideology has had…
Students' high school decisions will always impact efforts to achieve gender parity in STEM at the university level and beyond. Without a comprehensive understanding of gendered disparities in high school course selection, it will be…
We use the theories of identity statuses and communities of practice to describe three different case studies of students finding their paths through undergraduate physics and developing a physics subject-specific identity. Each case study…
While it is well known which curricular practices can improve student performance on measures of conceptual understanding, the sustaining of these practices and the role of faculty members in implementing these practices are less well…
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…
In this work, we analyse all existing data related to the number of incomers and outcomers (who actually obtain the degree) of the following courses offered at the Federal University of Santa Catarina: physics teaching, bachelor in physics,…
This case study of a typical U.S. particle physics experiment explores the issues of gender bias and how it affects the academic career advancement prospects of women in the field of physics beyond the postdoctoral level; we use public…
It is well known that women are underrepresented in the academic systems of many countries. Gender discrimination is one of the factors that could contribute to this phenomenon. This study considers a recent national academic recruitment…
In this investigation, we analyzed individual interviews with six female undergraduate physics majors at a large, public, research university in the US to understand their progression at different transition points to becoming physicists.…
Laboratory courses represent a unique and potentially important component of the undergraduate physics curriculum, which can be designed to allow students to authentically engage with the process of experimental physics. Among other…
The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce…
Engaging in meaningful collaborations with peers, both inside and outside the classroom, can greatly enhance students' understanding of physics and other STEM disciplines. We analyzed the characteristics of women and men who typically…
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…
We investigated the effects of student-generated problems on exams. The process was gradual with some training throughout the semester. Initial results were highly positive with the students involved performing significantly better, and…
For this study, we compared the attitudes and beliefs about science of physical science (physics and mathematics) and life science (biochemistry and biology) students at the beginning of their university degrees using the CLASS (Colorado…