The dual purpose of this article is to provide a synthesis of the findings related to the use of computer simulations in physics education and to present implications for teachers and researchers in science education. We try to establish a conceptual framework for the utilization of computer simulations as a tool for learning and instruction in…

In fall of 2004, Carnegie Mellon University embarked on a bold educational experiment, the establishment of an overseas branch campus at Education City in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar. Carnegie Mellon's decision to open up shop in the Middle East was by no means unique; indeed, Carnegie Mellon is just one of a growing number of institutions to…

Testing the pH of various liquids is one of the most popular activities in 5th- through 8th-grade classrooms. The author presents an extensive pH-testing lesson based on a 5E (engagement, exploration, explanation, extension, and evaluation) teaching model. The activity provides students with the opportunity to learn about pH and how it relates to…

In the past years, there have been an increasing number of instrumental investigations as to the nature of speech production errors, prompted by the concern that decades of transcription-based speech error data may be tainted by perceptual biases. While all of these instrumental studies suggest that errors are not, as previously thought,…

The primary purpose of the present study was to determine whether recent findings documenting the benefits of text-related motor activity on young children's memory for reading passages [Glenberg, A. M., Gutierrez, T., Levin, J. R., Japuntich, S., & Kaschak, M. (2004). Activity and imagined activity can enhance young readers' reading…

A student experiment on dynamic calorimetry is described. Dynamic calorimetry is a powerful technique for calorimetric studies, especially at high temperatures and pressures. A low-power incandescent lamp serves as the sample. The ScienceWorkshop data-acquisition system with DataStudio software from PASCO Scientific displays the results of the…

In most physics courses using multimedia, real experiments are represented as digital video demonstrations. These time-based media have the disadvantage that students are often in the state of passive learners. Also, traditional multimedia learning environments only allow for the selection of different digitized media, but the learning process is…

The implementation of a modern game-console controller as a data acquisition interface for physics experiments is discussed. The investigated controller is equipped with three perpendicular accelerometers and a built-in infrared camera to evaluate its own relative position. A pendulum experiment is realized as a demonstration of the proposed…

Two experiments attempted to resolve previous contradictory findings concerning developmental trends in false memories within the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm by using an improved methodology--constructing age-appropriate associative lists. The research also extended the DRM paradigm to preschoolers. Experiment 1 (N = 320) included…

Task instruction may be presented in many forms. However, training system designers are often forced to depend on intuition when choosing a presentation medium. Though past research has investigated the effectiveness of instructional media types, results have been mixed with no clear recommendations of which medium to use for instruction. An…

Bacterial conjugation is a genetic transfer that involves cell-to-cell between donor and recipient cells. With the current method used to teach students in genetic courses at the undergraduate level, the transconjugants are identified using bacterial physiology and/or antibiotic resistance. Using physiology, however, is difficult for both…

This study investigated the role that visual tracking plays in coupling rhythmic limb movements to an environmental rhythm. Two experiments were conducted in which participants swung a hand-held pendulum while tracking an oscillating stimulus or while keeping their eyes fixed on a stationary location directly above an oscillating stimulus. It…

Two experiments were conducted to examine the on-line processing mechanisms used by young children to comprehend pronouns. The work focuses on their use of two highly relevant sources of information: (1) the gender and number features carried by English pronouns, and (2) the differing accessibility of discourse entities, as influenced by…

The nature of the memory processes that support language comprehension and the manner in which information packaging influences online sentence processing were investigated in three experiments that used eye-tracking during reading to measure the ease of understanding complex sentences in Korean. All three experiments examined reading of embedded…

Kinetics constitutes a core topic in both the lecture and laboratory components of lower- level chemistry courses. While textbook examples can ignore issues of time, temperature and safety, the laboratory can not. Reactions must occur slowly enough to be detected by students, occur rapidly enough for data collection in the few hours assigned to a…