This study used structural topic models (STMs) to analyze physics pre-service teachers' conceptual understanding of scientific literacy. Participants included 126 physics pre-service teachers studying at Shandong Normal University in China. First, we used an open-ended questionnaire to collect the data. Second, STM was used to classify the data,…

As physics laboratory courses (labs) transition from traditional, model-verifying activities to discovery-based investigations, it becomes crucial to understand the role of the instructor in the implementation of various lab types. Prior work has started to address this need by examining either coarse-grained frequencies or fine-grained content of…

The problem here dealt with concerns physics education, and specifically the concept of force. The idea behind this research is that a historical approach to the teaching of such a notion is of great help for the students to fully understand the meaning of this basic physical magnitude. For, most of scientific concepts can be better grasped by the…

This paper presents important findings that were observed as interconnected key elements of high-quality co-teaching of a physics course for pre-service science teachers while the collaborating faculty experienced a "pedagogical convergence." This pedagogical convergence is akin to the "conceptual convergence" that Roschelle…

To be able to form and develop competencies with regard to the nature of science (NOS) for students, the teachers must have appropriate conceptions about NOS. Therefore, this study explored levels of conceptions about the nature of science of future physics teachers who have experienced two different physics teachers-education curricula using the…

This article is about a famous physics course taken by thousands of students at Amherst College in the 1950s, designed and taught by its distinguished instructor, Arnold B. Arons. There are very few of us left who have taken the course. The youngest one would be, as the course was discontinued in 1968, about 72 years old!

Prospective physics teachers must have research skills because they will later utilize and transfer these skills throughout their teaching careers. However, research shows that students' research skills, including in Indonesia, are still low. In addition to equipping students with theoretical research knowledge, an emphasis is needed on the…

The purpose of the study is to explore how pre-service teachers perceive buoyancy force affecting an object in a liquid and identify their misunderstandings and misconceptions. Pre-service teachers were interviewed to reveal their understandings of an object' floating, suspending and sinking in a liquid. In addition, they were asked about how an…

As introductory physics courses increasingly focus on student engagement, the use of Learning Assistants (LAs) has increased. LAs and other instructors need to have sufficient PCK to effectively guide student learning. Our goal was to research LAs observed PCK in the classroom and to develop a set of questions to assess LAs' PCK. Our research…

Chemistry students should learn not only the key concepts and processes of the discipline but also how they arise, are established, and develop over time. Undergraduate programs for chemistry teachers seldom include training in the history of chemistry to prepare future teachers to put concepts in a historical context. In schools, atom and atomic…

Background: Many researchers have investigated student reasoning in Newtonian mechanics. In 1979 Viennot revealed that most students associate the concept of force with the velocity or acceleration of a motion. Forty years later, student understandings remain a major challenge for teachers. The implications of this challenge are still unclear,…

Research carried out through the last 20 years gave us undeniable evidence that to learn anything we need to be active participants, not passive observers. One of the important aspects of learning physics is constructing explanations of physical phenomena. To support and guide students toward constructing their explanations, teachers need to be…

This study examines how pre-service science teachers integrate technology into the design of learning activities, paying particular attention to types of technology integration, cognitive demand, scientific research skills, and TPACK. A mixed methods approach was used to analyze 49 learning activities designed by pre-service physics, chemistry,…

Many readers of this journal are probably familiar with calls from governmental, business, and educational authorities to expand and improve the preparation of science teachers, with a particular focus on the shortage of highly qualified physics teachers. It may seem as if this problem has been around forever, and in fact similar expressions of…

A learner's perception of what a career in physics is like has a major impact on their decision to pursue physics professionally. This decision can also be influenced by a high school student's awareness of issues concerning diversity within the physics community. We surveyed current high school physics students and investigated their perception…