Related papers: Neuroqueering Physics Literacy
Popular media is an unspoken yet ever-present element of the physics landscape and a tool we can utilize in our teaching. It is also well-understood that students enter the physics classroom with a host of conceptions learned from the world…
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 physics community explores and explains the physical world through a blend of theoretical and experimental studies. The future of physics as a discipline depends on training of students in both the theoretical and experimental aspects…
Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the…
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…
Despite the increasing use of large language models (LLMs) in everyday life among neurodivergent individuals, our knowledge of how they engage with, and perceive LLMs remains limited. In this study, we investigate how neurodivergent…
Energy concepts are fundamental across the sciences, yet these concepts can be fragmented along disciplinary boundaries, rather than integrated into a coherent whole. To teach physics effectively to biology students, we need to understand…
Learning physics requires understanding the applicability of fundamental principles in a variety of contexts that share deep features. One way to help students learn physics is via analogical reasoning. Students can be taught to make an…
University courses in conceptual physics and astronomy typically serve as the terminal science experience for non-science majors. Significant work has gone into developing research-verified pedagogical methods for the algebra- and…
A vast body of literature addresses the complex nature of science's reproducibility crisis. In contrast with this perceived complexity, some recent papers from the discipline of physics suggests that irreproducibility does not point to a…
I provide a critical commentary regarding the attitude of the logician and the philosopher towards the physicist and physics. The commentary is intended to showcase how a general change in attitude towards making scientific inquiries can be…
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…
Many undergraduate students of engineering and the exact sciences have difficulty with their mathematics courses due to insufficient proficiency in what we in this paper have termed clear thinking. We believe that this lack of proficiency…
Disagreement is essential to scientific progress. However, the extent of disagreement in science, its evolution over time, and the fields in which it happens, remains poorly understood. Leveraging a massive collection of English-language…
Scientific literacy, a central goal of modern science education, should be accessible to all students regardless of their backgrounds. Despite international education reforms focused on diversity, equity and inclusion many teachers struggle…
Finding general principles underlying brain function has been appealing to scientists. Indeed, in some branches of science like physics and chemistry (and to some degree biology) a general theory often can capture the essence of a wide…
Too often, physics students are beset by feelings of failure and isolation rather than experiencing the creative joys of discovery that physics has to offer. This dissertation research was founded on the desire of a teacher to make physics…
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…
Understanding how decision making changes across the lifespan is a central challenge for neuroscience, yet research on cognitive aging has remained largely disconnected from the theoretical and computational advances that now shape modern…
Students in inquiry science classrooms face an essential tension between sharing new ideas and critically evaluating those ideas. Both sides of this tension pose affective risks that can discourage further discussion, such as the…