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Eder Hernandez; Esmeralda Campos; Pablo Barniol; Genaro Zavala – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2025
Electricity and magnetism are fundamentally interconnected, as represented by the symmetry in Maxwell's equations. Much of the research on Gauss's and Ampere's laws has focused on their application in calculating electric or magnetic fields. However, there remains a significant gap in the literature in exploring these laws in a broader…
Descriptors: Scientific Concepts, Energy, Magnets, Scientific Principles
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Robertson, Amy D.; Goodhew, Lisa M.; Scherr, Rachel E.; Heron, Paula R. L. – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2021
Existing research identifying common student ideas about forces focuses on students' misunderstandings, misconceptions, and difficulties. In this paper, we characterize student thinking in terms of resources, framing student thinking as continuous with formal physics. Based on our analysis of 2048 written responses to conceptual questions, we…
Descriptors: College Students, Knowledge Level, Physics, Scientific Concepts
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Barnes, M. Elizabeth; Misheva, Taya; Supriya, K.; Rutledge, Michael; Brownell, Sara E. – CBE - Life Sciences Education, 2022
Hundreds of articles have explored the extent to which individuals accept evolution, and the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) is the most often used survey. However, research indicates the MATE has limitations, and it has not been updated since its creation more than 20 years ago. In this study, we revised the MATE using…
Descriptors: Evolution, Measures (Individuals), Knowledge Level, Scientific Principles
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Kim, Thomas; Wright, L. Kate; Miller, Kathryn – Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2019
Students in chemistry often demonstrate difficulty with the principle of resonance. Despite many attempts to mitigate this difficulty, there have been few attempts to examine the root cause of these issues. In this study, students were assessed for their perception of Kekule structures based on perceptual learning theory, which is grounded in…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Chemistry, Scientific Principles, Concept Formation
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Sokolowski, Andrzej – Physics Education, 2017
Graphs in physics are central to the analysis of phenomena and to learning about a system's behavior. The ways students handle graphs are frequently researched. Students' misconceptions are highlighted, and methods of improvement suggested. While kinematics graphs are to represent a real motion, they are also algebraic entities that must satisfy…
Descriptors: Graphs, Physics, Science Instruction, Misconceptions
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Leinonen, Risto; Asikainen, Mervi A.; Hirvonen, Pekka E. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2015
This study concentrates on evaluating the consistency of upper-division students' use of the second law of thermodynamics at macroscopic and microscopic levels. Data were collected by means of a paper and pencil test (N = 48) focusing on the macroscopic and microscopic features of the second law concerned with heat transfer processes. The data…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Physics, Thermodynamics, Science Tests
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Beck-Winchatz, Bernhard; Parra, Ruben D. – College Teaching, 2013
As institutions of higher learning are increasingly held accountable for student outcomes, faculty are faced with the challenge to clearly articulate and assess what students should learn in their courses. We report on the assessment of a liberal studies learning outcome related to the nature of science, which involved 178 students from 41…
Descriptors: College Students, Nonmajors, Science Education, Scientific Principles
Engelman, Jonathan – ProQuest LLC, 2016
Changing student conceptions in physics is a difficult process and has been a topic of research for many years. The purpose of this study was to understand what prompted students to change or not change their incorrect conceptions of Newtons Second or Third Laws in response to an intervention, Interactive Video Vignettes (IVVs), designed to…
Descriptors: College Students, Scientific Literacy, Scientific Principles, Scientific Concepts
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Montecinos, Alicia M. – European Journal of Physics Education, 2014
A partially unusual behaviour was found among 14 sophomore students of civil engineering who took a pre test for a free fall laboratory session, in the context of a general mechanics course. An analysis contemplating mathematics models and physics models consistency was made. In all cases, the students presented evidence favoring a correct free…
Descriptors: Misconceptions, Civil Engineering, Graphs, Pretesting
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Holmegaard, Henriette Tolstrup; Madsen, Lene Møller; Ulriksen, Lars – International Journal of Science Education, 2014
In the literature, there is a general concern that a less number of students choose to study science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). This paper presents results from a Danish longitudinal study which examines students' choice of whether or not to continue studying STEM after upper-secondary school. In particular, this study focuses…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, STEM Education, Course Selection (Students), Higher Education
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Hernandez, Gabriel E.; Criswell, Brett A.; Kirk, Nancy J.; Sauder, Deborah G.; Rushton, Gregory T. – Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2014
In the past three decades, researchers have noted the limitations of a problem-solving approach that overemphasizes algorithms and quantitation and neglects student misconceptions and an otherwise qualitative, conceptual understanding of chemical phenomena. Since then, studies and lessons designed to improve student understanding of chemistry has…
Descriptors: Qualitative Research, Chemistry, Models, Problem Solving
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Bickmore, Barry R.; Thompson, Kirsten R.; Grandy, David A.; Tomlin, Teagan – Journal of Geoscience Education, 2009
Science instructors, even at the college level, are routinely confronted with two facts about their students. First, most of their students have a poor understanding of the nature of science (NOS). Second, many of their students have religious objections to particular scientific theories that seem to cripple their ability to learn about, or even…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Scientific Principles, Religion, College Students
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Quinn, Frances; Pegg, John; Panizzon, Debra – International Journal of Science Education, 2009
Meiosis is a biological concept that is both complex and important for students to learn. This study aims to explore first-year biology students' explanations of the process of meiosis, using an explicit theoretical framework provided by the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) model. The research was based on responses of 334…
Descriptors: Biology, Scientific Concepts, Scientific Principles, Concept Formation
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Klein, Perry D.; Piacente-Cimini, Sabrina; Williams, Laura A. – Learning and Instruction, 2007
This study examines the role of writing in learning scientific principles through analogy. Seventy-two university students observed two demonstrations concerning one of three topics: buoyant force of a fluid, projectile motion or forces internal to a system. Each composed an analogy on one of the topics through speaking-only, writing-only, or…
Descriptors: Scientific Principles, Motion, Memory, Misconceptions
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Carmo, Mafalda, Ed. – Online Submission, 2015
We are delighted to welcome you to the International Conference on Education and New Developments 2015-END 2015, taking place in Porto, Portugal, from 27 to 29 of June. Education, in our contemporary world, is a right since we are born. Every experience has a formative effect on the constitution of the human being, in the way one thinks, feels and…
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Educational Development, Educational Change, Educational Trends