Physical education in colleges plays an increasingly important role in cultivating high-quality innovative talent. The main factors that affect college students' approaches to learning physics remain unknown. This study examined the relationships among college engineering students' epistemic views of physics, conceptions of learning physics, and…

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…

Background: Although there is an increasing recognition of the importance of critical thinking in science education across the world, the relevant research literature is extremely thin. There is an urgent need to generate more empirical evidence. Purpose: We examined two essential issues concerning critical thinking (the relationship between…

A central objective of science education is to foster a profound comprehension of fundamental scientific principles among students. Research has shown that a highly integrated knowledge structure is a key factor in achieving a deep understanding. This research has developed a friction force conceptual framework to model students' different…

A deep understanding of mechanical waves is crucial for students to succeed in studying many advanced physics topics. Studies in existing literature have revealed that students often have widespread difficulties and misconceptions on wave propagation. This research develops and applies a conceptual framework model to examine students'…

In physics education, a number of studies have developed assessments of teachers' knowledge of student understanding (KSU) of specific physics concepts with modified versions of existing concept inventories, in which teachers were asked to predict the popular incorrect answers from students. The results provide useful but indirect information to…

Despite the importance of undergraduate research for student learning and development, not enough work has been done to clarify its effects in different disciplinary contexts. Using data from the China College Student Survey, this research adopts Becher and Trowler's theory of discipline classification to understand the relationship between…

Video instruction has been widely studied and is generally considered as effective as live instruction for teaching scientific concepts and procedures. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of prerecorded videos for teaching more challenging content. This study conducted a controlled experiment on over 300 high school students to…

Upper-division physics students solve partial differential equations in various contexts in quantum mechanics courses. Separation of variables is a standard technique to solve these equations. We investigated students' solutions to midterm exam questions and utilized think-aloud interviews. We also applied a framework that organizes students'…

Modern society is complex and ever-changing. To adapt to this situation, the level of education must be continuously enhanced, and college students who are about to enter society are the group that needs the most attention. As a creative and effective teaching organizational form and teaching strategy, the cooperative learning method plays an…

Developing a deeper understanding of scientific concepts is one of the primary goals of science education. To improve students' conceptual understanding, it is necessary to explore the major characteristics of their learning process. Informed by previous work on conceptual understanding, this study focuses on the concept of evaporation, exploring…

The history of science has a unique value to teaching, and textbooks play an important role in permeating the history of science in science courses. This study aims to compare the presentation of history of science in two versions of high school physics textbooks in China. We selected the 2019 edition of the national and local textbooks as…

Achieving knowledge integration for deep learning requires students to develop well-connected knowledge structures through the central idea of a concept. However, a number of studies on student learning in momentum have revealed persistent difficulties in understanding its fundamental concept, particularly in relating net force, time, and change…

The use of simulations to better convey abstract scientific concepts or difficult-to-observe scientific occurrences through the manipulation of variables or virtual objects has the potential to improve student science learning. However, misconceptions or extraneous load may emerge if simulation support is insufficient. In this study, we used a…

This study aims to analyze the alignment between Physics National Volume I test questions and physics curriculum standards as well as establishing a method of evaluating college entrance examination physics test questions using the Evaluation-Surveys of Enacted Curriculum (E-SEC) model. Firstly, Physics National Volume I from 2011 to 2020 was…