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…

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…

Peers play an important role in an individual's learning via collaboration. This study examined three semesters worth of student data collected through collaborative exams in a calculus-based introductory physics course. Participants were asked 142 physics problems over two rounds, and they answered the problems first individually (first round)…

We use a validated conceptual multiple-choice survey instrument focusing on thermodynamic processes and the first and second laws of thermodynamics at the level of introductory physics to investigate the problem-property dependence of introductory and advanced student responses to introductory thermodynamics problems after traditional…

Previous work has looked at the relationship between high school preparation and student performance in calculus-based introductory mechanics (physics 1) courses. Here, we extend that work to look at performance in introductory calculus-based electricity and magnetism (physics 2), and we look at the significance of what college math courses have…

An important goal of introductory physics courses is to encourage effective approaches to problem solving. To achieve this goal, many aspects of desired problem solving approach should be rewarded, e.g. via grade incentives rather than basing grades mainly or solely on correct final answers. Here we discuss findings of a study that suggests that…

Digital learning environments are becoming increasingly ubiquitous as a wide range of EdTech products and services enter classrooms and households across the globe. One salient attribute of these environments is their capacity to generate large amounts of data as students interact with the technology. These data logs can help construct a detailed…

We investigate upper-division student difficulties with direct integration in multiple contexts involving the calculation of a potential from a continuous distribution (e.g., mass, charge, or current). Integration is a tool that has been historically studied at several different points in the curriculum including introductory and upper-division…

For years there has been an acknowledged interest in having students assess the rationality of their solutions to physics problems. In fact, many textbooks now routinely include end-of-problem assessments as part of the authors' detailed solutions to examples. Over the past two decades, I have experimented with various forms of end-of-problem…

In the context of quantum mechanics, students are often asked to use delta functions to solve problems. Here, we investigate three typical problem-solving processes using delta functions: a delta function potential well problem, a position space delta function problem, and a momentum space delta function problem. We studied students'solutions in…

Collaborative learning with peers can lead to students learning from each other and solving physics problems correctly not only in situations in which one student knows how to solve the problems but also when none of the students can solve the problems alone. We define the rate of construction as the percentage of groups collaborating on problem…

The increasing and diversifying student enrollments in introductory physics courses make reliable, valid, and usable instruments for measuring student skills and gains ever more important. In introductory physics, in addition to teaching facts about mechanics, we also seek to teach our students the skills of "thinking like a physicist,"…

Introductory physics courses can be a challenge for some college students, especially those that have not taken Advanced Placement (AP) physics courses in high school. Even some classical mechanics concepts, such as energy, power, or the laws of Newton, can be non-intuitive and hard to grasp. When it comes to evaluating the learning outcome of our…

This study aimed to describe the validity and effectiveness of the floating market-based BioPhy magazine to improve problem-solving skills and encourage students to conduct environmental awareness campaigns. This research was development research with Tessmer formative evaluation model. The field test subjects were 24 students who studied fluids…

This paper seeks to evaluate learning based on the competency approach, taking a didactic experience to evaluate a possible improvement in the ability to solve problems and for autonomous learning in general. For the didactic development, the theme "gases" was taken, which is generally enunciated: Corpuscular kinetic theory of matter;…