Related papers: Creating a Physicist: The Impact of Informal Progr…
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…
A simple model to help students see the connections between a physics course and their engineering major is described. "Bridging" had positive effects on performance, attitude, and motivation, as measured by grade analyses, surveys, and…
We investigated how students perceive the role of IYPT (www.iypt.org) participation in their development of soft skills. We also investigated how students teachers assess the contribution of YPT participation to students soft skills…
Societal stereotypes and biases pertaining to who belongs in physics and who can excel in physics can impact motivational beliefs, e.g., of women and racial and ethnic minority students in physics courses. This study investigates how the…
The Young Physicists' Tournament (YPT) inspires high-school students to immerse themselves into an inquiry process closely resembling the real physics research. Using questionnaires' replies from the students and their teachers engaged in…
Interleaved practice enhances the memory and problem-solving ability of students in undergraduate courses. We introduce a personalized learning tool built on a Large Language Model (LLM) that can provide immediate and personalized attention…
While the positive outcomes of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) have been extensively categorized, the mechanisms for those outcomes are less understood. Through lightly structured focus group interviews, we have extracted the…
A central goal of Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (IPLS) is to prepare students to use physics to model and analyze biological situations, a skill of increasing importance for their future studies and careers. Here we report our…
Multiple external representations (MERs) and personalized feedback support physics learning, yet evidence on how personalized feedback can effectively integrate MERs remains limited. This question is particularly timely given the emergence…
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…
Engaging in interactions with peers is important for student learning. Many studies have quantified patterns of student interactions in in-person physics courses using social network analysis, finding different network structures between…
With limited time available in the classroom, e-learning tools can supplement in-class learning by providing opportunities for students to study and learn outside of class. Such tools can be especially helpful for students who lack adequate…
Physics Education Research frequently investigates what students studying physics do on small time scales (e.g. single courses, observations within single courses), or post-education time scales (e.g., what jobs do physics majors get?) but…
Helping students learn to think like a physicist is an important goal of many introductory physics courses. One characteristic distinguishing more experienced physicists from novice students is that they make better use of problem solving…
Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) increase students' access to research. This lesson plan describes an interdisciplinary CURE developed to be able to involve over 60 students per semester in original research using…
Undergraduate research has become an essential mode of engaging and retaining students in physics. At Loyola University Chicago, first-year physics students have been participating in the Freshman Projects program for over twenty years,…
Students must learn effective problem solving strategies in order to develop expertise in physics. Effective problem solving strategies include a conceptual analysis of the problem followed by planning of the solution, and then…
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…
Gaining recognition as a physics person by peers is an important contributor to undergraduate students' physics identity and their success in physics courses. Previous research has separately demonstrated that women perceive less…
Students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving in physics can greatly impact their actual problem solving practices and also influence their motivation to learn and ultimately the development of expertise. We developed and validated…