Related papers: Current Trends in Physics Enrollment
An essential companion to the development and advancement of the field of Particle Physics is a strong program in physics education at all levels, that can attract entry level students across the full demographic spectrum and provide them…
During recent collaboration with colleagues to revise our institution's general-education curriculum, I encountered many perceptions of what we mean by the Natural Sciences. I was surprised to find that perceptions of scientific pedagogy…
This position paper discusses emerging behavioral, social, and economic dynamics related to the COVID-19 pandemic and puts particular emphasis on two emerging issues: First, delayed effects (or second strikes) of pandemics caused by dread…
On their way to an academic career in physics, Ph.D. students have to overcome difficulties at many levels. Beyond the intellectual challenge, there are also psychological, social and economic barriers. We studied the difficulties…
Problem solving is central to physics instruction. Results from Physics Education Research (PER), however, demonstrate that traditional ways of teaching with problem solving are inefficient and ineffective for promoting true physics…
Science education at all levels is currently undergoing dramatic changes to its curricula and developing assessments for these new curricula is paramount. We have used the basis of many of these new changes (scientific practices,…
Physics can be seen as a conceptual approach to scientific problems, a method for discovery, but teaching this aspect of our discipline can be a challenge. We report on a first-time remote teaching experience for a computational physics…
The traditional pedagogical paradigm in physics is based on a deductive approach. However, with the recent advances in information technology, we are facing a dramatic increase in the amount of readily available information; hence, the…
We investigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the transition between high school and college in Brazil. Using microdata from the universe of students that applied to a selective university, we document how the Covid-19 shock…
This Physics Today article discusses why the physics community needs to embrace the challenge of educating students with diverse educational backgrounds to meet future research and workforce demands and outlines some of the efforts…
The Physics First movement - teaching a true physics course to ninth grade students - is gaining popularity in high schools. There are several different rhetorical arguments for and against this movement, and it is quite controversial in…
Current trends suggest that significant gender disparities exist within Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education at university, with female students being underrepresented in physics, but more equally represented…
Among all of the first-year graduate students enrolled in doctoral-granting physics departments, the percentage of female and racial minority students has remained unchanged for the past 20 years. The current graduate program admissions…
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…
The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) marks a potential inflection point in the way academic information is accessed, raising fundamental questions about the evolving role of search in student learning. This study…
Both the basic educational contents for students and study programs for science teachers include several topics in physics and astronomy, from the simplest ones to others as advanced as nuclear fusion to explain stellar evolution and…
In April 2019, Aycock et al. published "Sexual harassment reported by undergraduate female physicists" in Phys. Rev. PER. Their main finding is that 3/4 of undergraduate women in physics in the U.S. report experiencing sexual harassment.…
In recent decades it has been detected in Italy a decrease in enrollment in basic sciences, i.e. Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. The increase in specific orientation is strategically crucial to achieve the goal of maintaining and…
Physics and physics education in the United States suffer from severe (and, in some cases, worsening) underrepresentation of Black, Latina/o, and Native people of all genders and women of all races and ethnicities. This underrepresentation…
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.…