Anyone who has taught introductory physics should know that roughly a third of the students initially believe that any object at rest will remain at rest, whereas any moving body not propelled by applied forces will promptly come to rest. Likewise, about half of those uninitiated students believe that any object moving at a constant speed must be…

Many educators have utilized the phenomenon of the so-called "hydrostatic paradox" to actively engage students in classroom instructional activities related to hydrostatic equilibrium. Various approaches requiring different levels of mathematical knowledge have been proposed in the literature to provide students clear explanations of…

Many icebergs are vulnerable to capsizing. In doing so the gravitational potential energy of the ice is increased, while that of the displaced sea water is decreased. Applying the principle of the conservation of energy shows that by capsizing, there is also a net transfer of energy to the surrounding sea water. This will be a maximum for a…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] In the "standard" physics education research curriculum-development model, researchers are cast primarily as producers of curricula and instructors are cast primarily consumers, i.e., adopters and adapters. We illustrate a complementary model in…

Information Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming valuable tools to help improve education, especially during teaching and learning of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. In this regard, we conducted this study to explore the usability of ICT tools in Physics taught courses. To collect data, we used classroom…

This empirical census study was a quasi-experimental analysis of certification level (primary vs. secondary) and in-field vs. out-of-field certification. The sample included chemistry teachers (n = 2312) and physics teachers (n = 1387) in New York State in 2011-12. Findings indicated that the number of out-of-field teachers was relatively low, but…

This multiple case study used the lens of identity to investigate how three beginning science teachers deal with practical work during their first two years of teaching careers in high school. In-depth data were collected from multiple sources for the three participants and data analysis was focused on the interactions between personal,…

This research aimed to develop a computer detective game for science education to provide students in experiencing real-world problem-solving after learning electricity-related knowledge, and to explore the effects of designing the guidance of process constraints and prompts into this game. To explore the effects of guidance, two different game…

Although the benefits of addressing cognitive, social and affective aspects of learning in order to support conceptual change have been discussed in the literature, there are few studies of such interventions in the normal classroom. This study used a multidimensional conceptual change framework in order to teach five biology and physics topics…

A personalized and media-rich learning framework called "Knowledge and Curriculum Integration Ecosystem" (KACIE) has been developed and implemented in a junior-level fluid mechanics course in Fall 2016, Spring 2017, Fall 2017, and Spring 2018, in a prominent HBCU. This model shares characteristics of blended instruction as well as a…

This paper examines the chronotopic nature of physics discourse and instructional practices that are mediated through the integration of disciplinary spatial repertoires and mathematical symbolic systems. The paper addresses how meanings are constructed during instruction between bilingual international teaching assistants (ITAs) and undergraduate…

Since 2017 the Italian Space Agency (ASI) participates to so-called 'Alternanza Scuola-Lavoro' (i.e. 'school-work synergy') outreach projects promoted by the Italian government, and the ASI Space Science Data Center (SSDC) actively contributes to them, with the primary aim of bringing students closer to space-related activities before choosing…

The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the kinds of experiences that were critical to the physics trajectories of four purposefully selected undergraduate female physics students in central Europe. The data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews and were analyzed following an inductive approach and a…

Women are underrepresented in physics. Because of the structure of the Japanese educational system, more women must choose physics as a subject for university entrance exams to increase the number of women studying advanced physics at university. In this study, we investigated the factors influencing girls' choice of physics for university…

Despite limiting access to applicants from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, the practice of using hard or soft Graduate Record Examination (GRE) cutoff scores in physics graduate program admissions is still a popular method for reducing the pool of applicants. The present study considers whether the undergraduate institutions of…