Conducting experiments in physics using modern measuring techniques, and particularly those utilizing computers, is often much more attractive to students than conducting experiments conventionally. However, the cost of professional kits in the Czech Republic is still very expensive for many schools. The basic equipment for one student workplace…

This paper provides the formula for the elevation angle at which a projectile has to be fired in a vacuum from a general position to hit a target at a given distance. A spreadsheet application that models the trajectory is presented, and the problem of finding the points of shot and impact of a projectile moving in a vacuum if three points of the…

I had a solid geometry teacher in high school who, when looking at a particular theorem, liked to say, "It's intuitively obvious." In college I heard that same phrase from a professor teaching electrodynamics. And when I taught in college a colleague of mine liked to tell his students that the laws of physics were "intuitively…

What trajectory in the laboratory frame does a marble follow if it is held inside a freely rotating pipe and then suddenly released so that it can slide frictionlessly outward along the pipe? A previously published solution is only valid for a pipe of small moment of inertia (so that it is either low in mass or short in length).

Consider the following ConcepTest. A platelet is drifting with the blood flowing through a horizontal artery. As the platelet enters a constriction, does the blood pressure increase, decrease, or stay the same?

Recently the handsome little galvanometer (only 10 cm high) in Fig. 1 came into the Greenslade Collection. This is a design without a moving coil and, consequently, is very rugged. At the same time, John Daffron independently sent Tom Greenslade the picture of a similar galvanometer that he had made some years back and has been using for…

Most combinations of musical tones are perceived as either "consonant," "pleasing" to the human ear, or "dissonant," which is "not pleasing." Despite being largely subjective in nature, sensations of consonance and dissonance can be quantified and then compared to the judgments of human subjects. The…

In this study, secondary school students' (N?=?617; grades 7 to 10) understanding of models and modeling was assessed using tasks which explicitly refer to the scientific disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics and, as a control, to no scientific discipline. The students' responses are interpreted as their biology-, chemistry-, and…

This paper is a quasi-experimental investigation into the effectiveness of using analogy in teaching new and unfamiliar physics concepts to students enrolled in a British curriculum school in the United Arab Emirates. The students (N = 34) were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the control group (N = 17) following the traditional teaching…

The instructional lab setting has been found to be dominated by prescribed tasks and pre-prepared lab kits. This was explained by teachers' need to guide students to simultaneously progress through a lab curriculum, which prompts them to standardize the lab experience. Nevertheless, prominent professional associations have persistently called to…

Teaching science concepts for conceptual understanding has its challenges. Promoting conceptual change in the science classroom can be difficult because most concepts are complicated and counter-intuitive. This dissertation research aimed to determine the effect of teaching for conceptual understanding models on pre-service teachers' conceptual…

Studies have shown the potential of explainer videos. An alternative is a written explanation, as found in science textbooks. Prior research suggests that instructional explanations sometimes lead to the belief that a topic has been fully understood, even though that is, not the case. This 'illusion of understanding' may be affected by the medium…

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields are in high demand for qualified personnel worldwide, yet drop-out rates of a career path in STEM occur at various points in lifespan. Based on a big-data analysis of 534,590 records retrieved from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics for several points in time over one and a half…

As systematic inequities in higher education and society have been brought to the forefront, graduate programs are interested in increasing the diversity of their applicants and enrollees. Yet, structures in place to evaluate applicants may not support such aims. One potential solution to support those aims is rubricbased holistic review. Starting…

According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015 measurements, Slovak primary school pupils commonly can reach some below average scores in terms of scientific literacy and have less and less positive attitudes towards the natural sciences. Natural sciences and statistics are intertwined disciplines. This implies that…