Related papers: Motivation and needs of informal physics practitio…
The gap between theory and practice is well-documented in educational research. Physics teachers' willingness to apply research findings in practice may be influenced by a sceptical attitude towards science education research. This study…
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…
Statistical physics has proven to be a very fruitful framework to describe phenomena outside the realm of traditional physics. The last years have witnessed the attempt by physicists to study collective phenomena emerging from the…
In the wake of a rash of executive orders and administrative actions aimed at shaping the scale, scope, and focus of the scientific enterprise in the United States during the second Trump Presidency, we have undertaken a survey of members…
An interpretive phenomenological approach is adopted to investigate scientists' attitudes and practices related to hype in science communication. Twenty-four active quantum physicists participated in 5 focus groups. Through a…
The importance of science beliefs such as self-efficacy, interest, identity, sense of belonging, perceived recognition and effectiveness of peer interaction in science education has been increasingly recognized in recent years. Here, we use…
As more neurodivergent students enter college, discussion on neurodiversity in higher education is gaining momentum. It is increasingly imperative that we understand how neurodivergent individuals construct their identities within 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…
Physics in schools is distinctly different from, and struggles to capture the excitement of, university research-level work. Initiatives where students engage in independent research linked to cutting-edge physics within their school over…
Despite nation efforts to promote diversity and inclusion, women and gender minorities remain underrepresented in physics. One common approach to studying gender in physics contexts treats gender as a categorical identity variable (e.g.…
Physics has a bad press: it is seen by a majority of people as a boring discipline ever since their High School days. There is no glamour to it, just toil and pain, and for many who engaged in it, the end sight is often unemployment. Could…
The pursuit of knowledge in particle physics requires constant learning. As new tools become available, new theories are developed, and physicists search for new answers with ever-evolving methods. However, it is the case that formal…
As educators we often ask our physics students to work in groups---on tutorials, during in-class discussions, and on homework, projects, or exams. Researchers have documented the benefits of group work for students' conceptual mastery and…
Recently, social phenomena have received a lot of attention not only from social scientists, but also from physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists, in the emerging interdisciplinary field of complex system science. Opinion…
In order to reach the full civic and scientific potential of physics, this white paper calls for a culture change in physics to recognize informal physics education (also referred to as public engagement or outreach) as an essential…
This opening editorial aims to interest researchers and encourage novel research in the closely related fields of sociophysics and computational social science. We briefly discuss challenges and possible research directions in the study of…
Instructors and researchers think "thinking like a physicist" is important for students' professional development. However, precise definitions and observational markers remain elusive. We reinterpret popular beliefs inventories in physics…
Community-based professional development initiatives have been shown to support physics faculty in their adoption of research-based instructional strategies. Hoping to better understand these initiatives' mechanisms of success, we analyze…
Group work is becoming increasingly common in introductory physics classrooms. Understanding how students engage in these group learning environments is important for designing and facilitating productive learning opportunities for…
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…