Related papers: Identifying Student Difficulties with Understandin…
The cyclic format of the undergraduate physics curriculum depends on students' ability to recall and utilize material covered in prior courses in order to reliably build on that knowledge in later courses. However, there is evidence to…
Previously we discussed how well students in an introductory physics course diagnosed their mistakes on a quiz problem with different levels of scaffolding support. In that case, the problem they self-diagnosed was unusually difficult. We…
During testing of the Stress Managed Cosine-Theta dipole mirror magnet SMCTM1, magnet quenches were observed following large voltage spikes in the half-coil voltage taps which preceded normal quench initiation. Following some recent work at…
We demonstrate how students' use of modeling can be examined and assessed using student notebooks collected from an upper-division electronics lab course. The use of models is a ubiquitous practice in undergraduate physics education, but…
Models of physical systems are used to explain and predict experimental results and observations. The Modeling Framework for Experimental Physics describes the process by which physicists revise their models to account for the newly…
We have designed an experiment that involves studying the effects of a conducting plate on the motion of an oscillating disc magnet. We have employed the video analysis method by Tracker software to investigate the variation of…
We have investigated the long-term effect of student-centered instruction at the freshman level on juniors' performance on a conceptual survey of Electricity and Magnetism (E&M). We measured student performance on a research-based…
We investigate introductory physics students' difficulties in translating between mathematical and graphical representations and the effect of scaffolding on students' performance. We gave a typical problem that can be solved using Gauss's…
Identifying and understanding student difficulties with physics content in a wide variety of topical areas is an active research area within the PER community. In many cases, physics topics appear multiple times in different contexts across…
The discovery of Electromagnetism by Oersted (1820) started an 'extraordinary decennium' ended by the discovery of electromagnetic induction by Faraday (1831). During this decennium, in several experiments, the electromagnetic induction was…
We investigate currents in a quantum ring threaded by a magnetic flux which can be varied in an arbitrary way from an initial value $\phi_i$ at time $t_i$ to a final value $\phi_f$ at time $t_f$. Dynamics of electrons in the ring is…
Studying the interaction of spin-polarized currents with the magnetization configuration is of high interest due to the possible applications and the novel physics involved. High resolution magnetic imaging is one of the key techniques…
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'…
The 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…
Magnons are the low-energy excitations of magnetically ordered materials. While the magnetic moment of a ferromagnet aligns with an applied magnetic field, it has been experimentally shown that the magnetic order can be inverted by…
Thermodynamics of magnetic materials is discussed in practical, lab-oriented terms. In the common experimental configuration in which the external magnetic field comes from a solenoidal coil connected to a power supply, magnetic work is…
Electromagnetism, being much less intuitive than mechanics, where a lot of sources of misconceptions have been documented, has in addition to the common sources of misconceptions borrowed from mechanics other sources related to the abstract…
The magnetic flux penetration into the half-space superconductor sample is studied in the flux flow regime in parallel geometry assuming that an external magnetic field increasing with time in accordance with the power law. Assuming that…
There are diverse teaching methodologies to promote both collaborative and individual work in undergraduate physics courses. However, few educational studies seek to understand how students learn and apply new knowledge through open-ended…
Current-induced magnetization switching, a fundamental phenomenon related to spin-transport of electrons, enables non-voltaic and fast information write, facilitating applications in low-power memory and logic devices. However,…