This study explored the effects of explicit and implicit epistemologically enhanced instructions probing 9th-grade students' personal epistemologies on their physics-related personal epistemology (PPE) and physics achievement in the heat and temperature unit. In the implicit epistemologically enhanced instruction (IEEI), different dimensions of…

This comparative study investigated the effect of supplementing problem-based learning (PBL) with video resources on students' academic achievement in physics, a unit of simple machines. It was carried out in the Ugandan Government and private lower secondary schools. The quasi-experimental design employed a cluster sampling design with 947…

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…

Issues like why students felt far from physics and did not choose physics as their prime learning option are familiar in education. This paper aims to study the effectiveness of the STEM-Project-Based learning module in physics on students' personal interest and sensemaking and effort. This research used the quasi-experimental model, employing a…

Chaotic phenomena are not part of standard curricula, although this subject offers several interesting aspects which can help students better understand basic features of science. A central observation is that even simple physical systems, if chaotic, are unpredictable, just like the weather. We present the principles applied when developing a…

In this paper we put forth a model for physics course reform that uniquely uses proven, research-based active-learning strategies to help students improve their physics knowledge and problem-solving skills. In this study, we compared the exam performance of students in two sections of the same introductory physics course. One section (the…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of teaching through a virtual laboratory prepared using simulations teaching materials and that are based on constructivist thought about geometrical optics upon the students' academic success and their attitudes towards physics. Quasi-experimental pretest and posttest control groups was used…

To make it easier for students to learn the contents of physics and increase their motivation to learn, physics teachers need to apply different teaching strategies. With this study we aimed to examine the impact of the modified Know-Want-Learn (mKWL) strategy in physics teaching on elementary school students' metacognition. The pedagogical…

This study investigated the extent to which the proposed Factory of Ideas (FOI) teaching approach impacted on students' understanding of energy based on their prior knowledge. The FOI is a didactic approach that, unlike the classic cognitive conflict approach, employs a variety of activities to offer students a scientific conception for comparison…

The emergence of open online courses and flipped classrooms has brought new opportunities to unbundle the traditional university. This study aimed to investigate a thermal physics classroom integrated with an open online learning mode to afford various learning strategies for students in Taiwan. Moreover, we examined students' preferred learning…

Students' epistemologies of experimental physics refer to how they understand the role of experimentation as well as the experimental operation and design and communication of results in physics. This research aimed to find whether students in inquiry-based physics laboratory activities show more expert-like epistemologies of experimental physics…

Over the last decade, policy makers have urged universities to innovate their teaching methodologies. Although educational research has shown that active methods lead to improvements in learners' performance more than traditional lectures in small classes, some factors impede active methods from spreading in large size classes. In this paper we…

A mental model (MM) is an internal representation of students' conceptual understanding. Currently, students have still had difficulties in explaining the physical state of elasticity of solid materials, at submicroscopic level. These difficulties call for this research. Through a mixed method, the study aimed to reveal the development and…

Professional problem-solving practice in physics and engineering relies on mathematical sense making--reasoning that leverages coherence between formal mathematics and conceptual understanding. A key question for physics education is how well current instructional approaches develop students' mathematical sense making. We introduce an assessment…

Contemporary society of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) increasingly requires the education system (i.e., the school) to train competent, creative and proactive professionals who will be able to solve real life problems. If society is to achieve this, some key paradigm changes must occur in education. The school must first prepare…