Science competitions target students interested in science with the aim to support them in developing science competence and career aspirations. Contrary to the common belief that science competition participants are exceptionally competent and strongly motivated to pursue a science career, there is growing evidence that the entirety of…

Recent years have seen a rise in interest in how education can foster critical thinking and discourage epistemically unwarranted beliefs. Considering this, this paper seeks to explore whether master's physics students are more critical and skeptical in the philosophical tradition of 'Scientific skepticism', than 1st year students. This is done by…

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to better understand the transition from secondary school to higher education regarding students' assessment and written-exam experiences. We used mixed methods to investigate students' experiences of first-year university physics exams and cancelled secondary school exams, regarding their motivational…

Previous work has identified that recognition from others is an important predictor of students' participation, persistence, and career intentions in physics. However, research has also found a gender bias in peer recognition in which student nominations of strong peers in their physics course disproportionately favor men over women. In this…

Neurodiversity is the celebration of the diversity of minds. It is the understanding that people think, sense, and behave in different ways, and the assertion that the non-normative ways which people and their minds operate are, in fact, good. Neurodivergent people are beginning to access higher education at much higher rates than ever before.…

Understanding human behavior and reasoning is essential for developing successful instruction. Discipline-based education researchers have examined how students learn, informing the development of successful instructional strategies. Researchers have also identified barriers to the successful implementation of such strategies. This work utilizes…

'A lack of prior knowledge in the other discipline' is often given by geoscience instructors to explain why students struggle to apply knowledge from other disciplines to the Earth. We examine this assumption by considering the disciplinary crossing of buoyancy (physics) to isostasy (geoscience). We investigate the teachers' perspective through…

This study evaluated agreement in activity outcomes from ActiGraph accelerometers worn on both wrists in a laboratory and free-living setting. Part 1: Thirty-seven participants (25.5 ± 10.5 years) completed laboratory activities. Part 2: Thirty-nine participants (28.5 ± 9.8 years) wore accelerometers for 7 days. Outcomes included average…

In an attempt to address the need for an alternative presentation of the quantum mechanical position and momentum spaces, we provide a presentation that is more constructive and less calculative than those found in literature. Our approach is based on a simple, intuitively understood relation that expresses the physical equivalence of the quantum…

Recently, small computer fans have been demonstrated to be an effective method for teaching simple resistive circuits both qualitatively and quantitatively. The current through the fans is related to the rotational speed of the fans and allows multiple senses to be engaged (touch, sight, and hearing). Methods for learning simple circuits in an…

Is a suction cup at the bottom of a bathtub subject to an upward force from the surrounding water, even if there is no water under it? A student question, posted in a teacher facebook group on a Monday morning, led to a discussion involving 21 comments with 225 replies offered by 16 teachers during the next few days, including several simple…

A simple experiment is described to verify the current dependence of Ampère's law for a long straight current-carrying conductor. A narrow and long rectangular multi-loop design is used to increase the strength of the magnetic field in between the long sides. As expected, the magnetic field is found to be linearly proportional to the electric…

The study of buoyancy is common in physics classrooms. In the last 20 years, several educators have described, theoretically and experimentally, buoyant forces and Archimedes' principle, both in "The Physics Teacher" and elsewhere. However, as far as I know, no one has reported on the pedagogical implications and experimental results of…

RC circuits are ubiquitous. They are the most common entities in modern electronics; introductory physics courses typically include a chapter and a lab on RC circuits. Several papers dealing with many aspects of RC circuits have been published in "The Physics Teacher" and other educational journals. An RC circuit contains a series…

We have added two improvements to a self-luminous LED stroboscope (a flashing point-like projectile developed for introductory mechanics): downsizing by replacing heavy and risky batteries with a compact and safe capacitor of several Farads (a so-called Super-C) and wireless control via ordinary IR (infrared) communications. Consequently, the…