Representational competence is essential for the acquisition of conceptual understanding in physics. It enables the interpretation of diagrams, graphs, and mathematical equations, and relating these to one another as well as to observations and experimental outcomes. In this study, we present the initial validation of a newly developed…

We surveyed a convenience sample of 362 Italian university physics students, asking them to retrospectively assess their experience of emergency remote instruction due to the COVID-19 outbreak. We looked at their psychological well being, motivation for physics, academic orientation, attitude towards physics and physicists, and tried to link these…

This study examined outcomes for AP® Calculus and AP Physics students on the 2015 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) relative to other participating countries and other advanced math and science students in the United States. Compared to other countries in the study, AP Calculus BC and AP Physics C: EM students outperformed all…

Labs have long been considered an important component of physics education. However, while there has been progress in transforming physics education in physics lecture classes to improve student learning, less progress has been made in introductory physics labs. At the same time, the physics community has come to recognize that there is a need to…

We have frequently enhanced our department's laboratory experiment involving standing transverse waves in a taut horizontal cord. In addition to the standard experiment, students in these labs investigate the surprising concept that the acceleration of a pulse in a chain hanging vertically is a constant and is equal to half the acceleration…

A major consequence of special relativity, expressed in the relation E[subscript 0] = mc[superscript 2], is that the total energy content of an object at rest, including its thermal motion and binding energy among its constituents, is a measure of its inertia, i.e., its mass. This relation was first stated by Einstein. He showed that, in order to…

Usually parametric oscillations are not the topic of general physics courses. Probably it is because the mathematical theory of this phenomenon is relatively complicated, and until quite recently laboratory experiments for students were difficult to implement. However parametric oscillations are good illustrations of the laws of physics and can be…

This work reports a classroom experience of a general physics course designed to foster also the initiation of preservice mathematics and biology teachers to physics pedagogical content knowledge. To modify the conceptions that these students have about teaching and learning, the course was taught using different active learning instructional…

With COVID-19 pandemic forcing academic institutions to shift to emergency remote teaching (ERT), teachers worldwide are attempting several strategies to engage their learners. Even though existing research in online learning suggests that effectiveness of the online session is more dependent on pedagogical design rather than technology feature,…

It has been illustrated several times how the built-in acceleration sensors of smartphones can be used gainfully for quantitative experiments in school and university settings (see the overview in Ref. 1 ). The physical issues in that case are manifold and apply, for example, to free fall, radial acceleration, several pendula, or the exploitation…

Ferromagnetic materials such as nickel, iron, or cobalt lose the electron alignment that makes them attracted to a magnet when sufficient thermal energy is added. The temperature at which this change occurs is called the "Curie temperature," or "Curie point." Nickel has a Curie point of 627 K, so a candle flame is a sufficient…

Although we experience motion simply as displacement, we study it through complicated concepts such as acceleration, force, and mass, departing from our everyday experience. But it looks like we can stay attached to our primordial notions of time and length without appealing to any other concepts and still have interesting results.

Hands-on experimentation has widely demonstrated its efficacy in engineering training, especially in control formation, since experimentation using computer-aided control system design (CACSD) tools is essential for future engineers. In this context, this article describes a case study for Control Engineering formation, based on a new lab practice…

This research aims to examine: (1) how Physics teachers who participated in a STEM project, adopted and implemented a STEM activity in the context of a pandemic; (2) from the perspective of Physics teachers, what were the effects on students' learning of a STEM activity implemented in the context of the pandemic; and (3) what challenges had…

This study compares synchronous versus asynchronous online teaching in an introductory calculus-based physics class. Like many schools, our institution transitioned to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. We held optional synchronous online sessions during the original class time, and approximately half of our students were regular…