Publication Date
In 2025 | 3 |
Since 2024 | 6 |
Since 2021 (last 5 years) | 33 |
Since 2016 (last 10 years) | 79 |
Since 2006 (last 20 years) | 154 |
Descriptor
Introductory Courses | 161 |
Problem Solving | 161 |
Physics | 151 |
Science Instruction | 98 |
Teaching Methods | 60 |
College Science | 49 |
Scientific Concepts | 46 |
College Students | 41 |
Undergraduate Students | 34 |
Calculus | 31 |
Mechanics (Physics) | 30 |
More ▼ |
Source
Author
Singh, Chandralekha | 22 |
Maries, Alexandru | 7 |
Mason, Andrew | 7 |
Yerushalmi, Edit | 6 |
Lin, Shih-Yin | 5 |
Cohen, Elisheva | 4 |
Heller, Kenneth | 4 |
Henderson, Charles | 4 |
Marshman, Emily | 4 |
Rebello, N. Sanjay | 4 |
Caballero, Marcos D. | 3 |
More ▼ |
Publication Type
Journal Articles | 148 |
Reports - Research | 100 |
Reports - Descriptive | 33 |
Dissertations/Theses -… | 13 |
Reports - Evaluative | 13 |
Tests/Questionnaires | 6 |
Information Analyses | 2 |
Guides - Classroom - Teacher | 1 |
Education Level
Higher Education | 120 |
Postsecondary Education | 82 |
Secondary Education | 9 |
High Schools | 7 |
Elementary Secondary Education | 1 |
Two Year Colleges | 1 |
Audience
Teachers | 5 |
Practitioners | 2 |
Location
Minnesota | 4 |
California | 3 |
Maryland | 3 |
Chile | 2 |
China | 2 |
Colorado | 2 |
Croatia | 2 |
Georgia | 2 |
Indiana | 2 |
Ireland (Dublin) | 2 |
Michigan | 2 |
More ▼ |
Laws, Policies, & Programs
Assessments and Surveys
Force Concept Inventory | 4 |
ACT Assessment | 1 |
Classroom Assessment Scoring… | 1 |
SAT (College Admission Test) | 1 |
What Works Clearinghouse Rating
Gjerde, Vegard; Paulsen, Vegard Havre; Holst, Bodil; Kolstø, Stein Dankert – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2022
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…
Descriptors: Problem Solving, Physics, Recall (Psychology), Learning Strategies
Burkholder, Eric; Salehi, Shima; Sackeyfio, Sarah; Mohamed-Hinds, Nicel; Wieman, Carl – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2022
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…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Mechanics (Physics), STEM Education, Calculus
Tong, Dazhen; Liu, Jia; Sun, Yechao; Liu, Qiaoyi; Zhang, Xiangqun; Pan, Sudong; Bao, Lei – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2023
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…
Descriptors: Student Evaluation, Physics, Science Instruction, Scientific Concepts
Mary Jane Brundage; David E. Meltzer; Chandralekha Singh – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2025
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…
Descriptors: Problem Solving, Science Process Skills, Introductory Courses, Scientific Concepts
McCoy, Bradley K. – Physics Teacher, 2021
In a typical first physics class, homework consists of problems in which numerical values for physical quantities are given and the desired answer is a number with appropriate units. In contrast, most calculations in upper-division undergraduate physics are entirely symbolic. Despite the need to learn symbolic manipulation, students are often…
Descriptors: Physics, Introductory Courses, Undergraduate Students, Problem Solving
Barron J. Montgomery; Argenta M. Price; Carl E. Wieman – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2024
A major goal of physics education is to develop strong problem-solving skills for students. To become expert problem solvers, students must have opportunities to deliberately practice those skills. In this work, we adopt a previously described definition of problem solving that consists of a set of 29 decisions made by expert scientists. We…
Descriptors: Undergraduate Students, Physics, Decision Making, Science Education
J. Caleb Speirs; MacKenzie R. Stetzer; Beth A. Lindsey – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2024
Over the course of the introductory calculus-based physics course, students are often expected to build conceptual understanding and develop and refine skills in problem solving and qualitative inferential reasoning. Many of the research-based materials developed over the past 30 years by the physics education research community use sequences of…
Descriptors: Physics, Science Education, Network Analysis, Calculus
Koenig, Kathleen; Maries, Alexandru; Teese, Robert; Chabot, Michelle – Physics Teacher, 2022
Students in introductory college physics often have wide ranges of preparation, making it challenging to deliver effective instruction for all. While numerous educational products and strategies have been shown to be broadly effective, there is a need for research-based online materials that support personalized learning and focus specifically on…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, College Science, Introductory Courses, Physics
Burkholder, Eric W.; Murillo-Gonzalez, Gabriel; Wieman, Carl – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2021
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…
Descriptors: Physics, Science Instruction, Introductory Courses, Calculus
Wong, Kin Son; Wong, Hang – Physics Teacher, 2022
The law of conservation of momentum is a fundamental law of nature. It states that the momentum of an isolated system is conserved. In high school or introductory-level physics courses, for simplicity, teachers and textbooks always use collisions in one dimension as the examples to introduce the concept of conservation of momentum. To solve simple…
Descriptors: Scientific Principles, Kinetics, Motion, Scientific Concepts
Good, Melanie; Maries, Alexandru; Singh, Chandralekha – Physics Education, 2022
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…
Descriptors: Problem Solving, Physics, Sex Fairness, Incentives
Mungan, Carl E. – Physics Teacher, 2021
A common homework problem in many introductory physics courses is similar to the following. "A car drives at constant speed over a hill on a road in the shape of a vertical circular arc. What is the maximum speed the car can have and not lose contact with the road at the crest of the hill?" Unfortunately this problem is flawed, because…
Descriptors: Homework, Introductory Courses, Motion, Problem Solving
Gerd Kortemeyer – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2023
Solving problems is crucial for learning physics, and not only final solutions but also their derivations are important. Grading these derivations is labor intensive, as it generally involves human evaluation of handwritten work. AI tools have not been an alternative, since even for short answers, they needed specific training for each problem or…
Descriptors: Artificial Intelligence, Problem Solving, Physics, Introductory Courses
Miller, Olivia Colleen – ProQuest LLC, 2023
This dissertation investigates the complexities associated with developing expertise in physics problem-solving and the methods for measuring and assessing the skills involved. Problem-solving skills are critical in today's rapidly changing world, and thus, it is important to emphasize them in education. However, lacking precise methods for…
Descriptors: Physics, Science Instruction, Problem Solving, Measurement Techniques
Christof Keebaugh; Emily Marshman; Chandralekha Singh – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2024
We discuss an investigation of student sensemaking and reasoning in the context of degenerate perturbation theory (DPT) in quantum mechanics. We find that advanced undergraduate and graduate students in quantum physics courses often struggled with expertlike sensemaking and reasoning to solve DPT problems. The sensemaking and reasoning were…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Quantum Mechanics, Teaching Methods, Physics