Related papers: Engaging young minds with particle physics
The perspectives of introductory classical physics students can often negatively influence how those students later interpret quantum phenomena when taking an introductory course in modern physics. A detailed exploration of student…
There has been a growing realisation that school science curricula do not adequately reflect the revolutionary changes in our scientific understanding of the 20th century. This discrepancy between current school education and our modern…
There is a large variety of goals instructors have for laboratory courses, with different courses focusing on different subsets of goals. An often implicit, but crucial, goal is to develop students` attitudes, views, and expectations about…
In their study of physics beyond the first year of University -- termed upper-division in the US, many of students' primary learning opportunities come from working long, complex back-of-the-book style problems, and from trying to develop…
Students with disabilities are enrolling in postsecondary education in increasing numbers and in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at steady rates since the early 1990s. Specifically, in 2014, the National Center on…
Physics in Films is an alternative version of the physical science course offered to non-science majors at the University of Central Florida. The course uses the popularity of Hollywood films to generate interest in science and to engage…
This study offers new insights into students' interest in computer science (CS) education by disentangling the distinct effects of age and gender across a diverse adolescent sample. Grounded in the person-object theory of interest (POI), we…
This document represents a contribution of the United States early career collider physics community to the 2025--2026 update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics. Preferences with regard to different future collider options and…
One overarching objective of science is to further our understanding of the universe, from its early stages to its current state and future evolution. This depends on gaining insight on the universe's most macroscopic components, for…
Recent years have seen a growing interest in modernizing physics and science curricula around the world. While many science educators and curriculum developers design instructional resources to successfully introduce topics of Einsteinian…
Development of conceptual multiple-choice tests related to a particular physics topic is important for designing research-based learning tools to reduce the difficulties. We explore the difficulties that the advanced undergraduate and…
The objective of this paper is to describe a development of an innovative approach to enable students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to apply the concepts learned in physics and mathematics to engineering…
Learning to create, use, and evaluate models is a central element of becoming a scientist. In physics, we often begin an analysis of a complex system with highly simplified or toy models. In introductory physics classes, we tend to use them…
This paper re-centres the discussion of student learning in physics to focus on context. In order to do so, a theoretically-motivated understanding of context is developed. Given a well-defined notion of context, data from a novel…
Computational physics is a key part of what it means to do physics in the twenty-first century. However, upper division computational physics remains a largely understudied area. We set out to understand the experiences of students in an…
We present the screenplay of a physics show on particle physics, by the Physikshow of Bonn University. The show is addressed at non-physicists aged 14+ and communicates basic concepts of elementary particle physics including the discovery…
Quantum mechanics is difficult to learn because it is counterintuitive, hard to visualize, mathematically challenging, and abstract. The Physics Education Technology (PhET) Project, known for its interactive computer simulations for…
In recent years, computing has become an important part of the way we teach and learn physics. Teachers, both at high school and college levels, now use computational activities in many of their courses. Physics departments are offering…
A goal of physics is to understand the greatest possible breadth of natural phenomena in terms of the most economical set of basic concepts. However, as the understanding of physics has developed historically, its pedagogy and language have…
Computation is becoming an increasingly important part of physics education. However, there are currently few theories of learning that can be used to help explain and predict the unique challenges and affordances associated with…