The Physics One Mechanics in a community college syllabus usually allocates more time to cover the topics in kinematics, dynamics, energy, momentum, and rotation; with relatively less time for the topics of fluid mechanics and heat diffusion in the creation of a knowledge gap for those students deciding on mechanical and chemical engineering…

The well-known artificial intelligence-based chatbot ChatGPT-4 has become able to process image data as input in October 2023. We investigated its performance on the test of understanding graphs in kinematics to inform the physics education community of the current potential of using ChatGPT in the education process, particularly on tasks that…

There is currently little physics education literature examining thinking and learning in graduate education and even less literature characterizing problem solving among physics graduate students despite this being an essential professional skill for physicists. Given reports of discrepancies between physics problem solving in the undergraduate…

Statistical mechanics has received limited attention in physics education research and remains a relatively underrepresented topic even in research on upper-division physics courses. The purpose of this study was to explore potential challenges that physics students encounter when they solve statistical mechanics problems in groups. Adopting a…

In the context of physics education, it is imperative that educators prioritize the development of students' problem-solving abilities. Given the interdisciplinary nature of physics and its relevance to everyday life, students must possess robust problem-solving skills. However, conventional and uninspiring learning approaches have been shown to…

The subject of physics can sometimes seem esoteric and challenging to engineering students. It would be beneficial to create a more conducive learning environment for them by combining words, mathematical equations, graphs, and diagrams to increase their problem-solving abilities. It has been demonstrated in mechanics that employing multiple…

Students' challenges in learning mechanics are well documented from test situations, and group discussions are considered a fruitful way to meet these challenges. In this paper, we present a study from an authentic teaching setting where upper secondary students in groups solve the task of calculating the acceleration of an elevator by means of a…

Self-explanation, a learning strategy where students explain to themselves the steps taken in a worked example, is an effective learning strategy in early cognitive skill acquisition. However, many physics students produce self-explanations of low quality. There is also a lack of guidelines for what students should seek to explain when studying…

Reasoning with mathematics plays an important role in university students' learning throughout their courses in the scientific disciplines, such as physics. In addition to understanding mathematical concepts and procedures, physics students often must mathematize physical constructs in terms of their associated mathematical structures and…

Introductory calculus-based mechanics ("Physics 1") is an important gateway course for students desiring to pursue a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career. A major challenge with this course is the large spread in the students' incoming physics preparation. This level of preparation is strongly predictive of a…

Eye tracking is becoming increasingly popular in physics education research (PER). As technology has advanced considerably in recent years and has become more user friendly, it is anticipated that eye tracking will play an increasingly significant role in assessing student learning at the process level in future studies. The main objective of this…

Enrico Fermi is remembered for his many contributions to theoretical and experimental physics, but from an educational point of view he also popularized the use of the kind of questions we now call "Fermi problems" (or "Fermi questions"). Fermi problems (FPs) are back-of-envelope problems that arose from the need to make order…

Work and mechanical energy is a fundamental topic in introductory physics. Studies in existing literature have shown that students have difficulties in understanding work and mechanical energy, particularly the topic of work-energy theorem. To study students' knowledge integration in learning work and mechanical energy, a conceptual framework…

We will present a problem-solving method for the dynamics of a projectile that has two perpendicular acceleration vectors through rotation of the axes. This methodology of reparameterizing the two-dimensional system simplifies the speed optimization calculus.

Students' success in physics problem-solving extends beyond conceptual knowledge of physics, relying significantly on their mathematics skills. Understanding the specific contributions of different mathematics skills to physics problem-solving can offer valuable insights for enhancing physics education. Yet such studies are rare, particularly at…