This study aims to determine the dominant learning styles of pre-service physics teachers and to examine them in terms of variables such as gender, information and communication technologies skills, academic achievement and type of motivation. Survey model was used. The sample composed of 50 pre-service physics teachers. The data were collected…

This study analyzes the analogies used in the teaching of introductory quantum theory concepts. Over twelve weeks, the researcher observed each class for a semester and conducted interviews with the students and the instructor. In the interviews, students answered questions about quantum theory concepts, which the instructor had taught them using…

This study investigates how elite Turkish high school physics students claim to approach learning physics when they are simultaneously (i) engaged in a curriculum that led to significant gains in their epistemological sophistication and (ii) subject to a high-stakes college entrance exam. Students reported taking surface (rote) approaches to…

This study investigates a group of pre-service physics teachers' perceptions about the causes of problems in school experience through the attribution theory. The participants were thirteen pre-service physics teachers from a public university in Turkey. Data were collected through the interviews by requesting the participants to reflect their own…

This paper is the first part of a multiphase study examining students' mental models about the quantization of physical observables--light, energy, and angular momentum. Thirty-one second-year physics and physics education college students who were taking a modern physics course participated in the study. The qualitative analysis of data revealed…

This study investigates the ongoing debate in the conceptual change literature between unitary and elemental perspectives on students' knowledge structure coherence. More specifically, the current study explores two potential explanations for the conflicting results reported by Ioannides and Vosniadou (2002)and diSessa, Gillespie, and Esterly…