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Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a given problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem…
Traditional tests are not effective tools for diagnosing the content and structure of students' knowledge of physics. As a possible alternative, a set of term-association tasks (the "ConMap" tasks) was developed to probe the…
Uncertainty is an important concept in physics laboratory instruction. However, little work has examined how students reason about uncertainty beyond the introductory (intro) level. In this work we aimed to compare intro and beyond-intro…
The feedback provided by current testing education tools about the deficiencies in a student's test suite either mimics industry code coverage tools or lists specific instructor test cases that are missing from the student's test suite.…
We describe a study on the conceptual difficulties faced by college students in understanding hydrodynamics of ideal fluids. This study was based on responses obtained in hundreds of written exams and oral interviews, which were held with…
This paper continues the application of circuit theory to experimental design started by the first two authors. The theory gives a very special and detailed representation of the kernel of the design model matrix. This representation turns…
Electric circuits manipulate electric charge and magnetic flux via a small set of discrete components to implement useful functionality over continuous time-varying signals represented by currents and voltages. Much of the same…
Concept inventories are standardized assessments that evaluate student understanding of key concepts within academic disciplines. While prevalent across STEM fields, their development lags for advanced computer science topics like dynamic…
There is some evidence that conceptual inquiry-based introductory physics lab curricula, such as RealTime Physics, may improve students' understanding of physics concepts. Thus, these curricula may be attractive for instructors who seek to…
During the last 30 years, stimulated by the quest to build superconducting quantum processors, a theory of quantum electrical circuits has emerged and this theory goes under the name of circuit quantum electrodynamics or circuit-QED. The…
This brief examines the behavior of DC circuits comprised of resistively interconnected constant power devices, as may arise in DC microgrids containing micro-sources and constant power loads. We derive a sufficient condition for all…
We propose a unified approach to addition of resistors and capacitors such that the formulae are always simply additive. This approach has the advantage of being consistent with the intuition of the students. To demonstrate our point of…
Analyzing students' written solutions to physics questions is a major area in PER. However, gauging student understanding in college courses is bottlenecked by large class sizes, which limits assessments to a multiple-choice (MC) format for…
An expression for the conductance of interacting electrons in the diffusive regime as a function of the ensemble averaged persistent current and the compressibility of the system is presented. This expression involves only ground-state…
Building on successful work on studying and transforming our senior-level Advanced Lab course, we have transformed our junior-level Electronics course to engage students in a variety of authentic scientific practices, including…
A lock-in amplifier is a versatile instrument frequently used in physics research. However, many students struggle with the basic operating principles of a lock-in amplifier which can lead to a variety of difficulties. To improve students'…
Students in physics laboratory courses, particularly at the upper division, are often expected to engage in troubleshooting. Although there are numerous ways in which students may proceed when diagnosing a problem, not all approaches are…
In this article we describe special type of mathematical problems that may help develop teaching methods that motivate students to explore patterns, formulate conjectures and find solutions without only memorizing formulas and procedures.…
Boundary conditions (BCs) are considered as an important topic that advanced physics under- graduates are expected to understand and apply. We report findings from an investigation of student difficulties using boundary conditions (BCs) in…
Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) is a non-invasive technique widely used for understanding charge transfer and charge transport processes in electrochemical systems and devices. Standard approaches for the interpretation of EIS…