Background: Although there is an increasing recognition of the importance of critical thinking in science education across the world, the relevant research literature is extremely thin. There is an urgent need to generate more empirical evidence. Purpose: We examined two essential issues concerning critical thinking (the relationship between…

It can be difficult to find ways to motivate students while teaching a physics course for non-physics students. Students come to class with many different attitudes and preconceptions, some of which are detrimental to their learning. As physics educators, we strive for student engagement and motivation in course material no matter what type of…

The relativistic addition of velocities is usually introduced early in the study of Einstein's special theory of relativity. The equations are simple enough, but randomly chosen velocities lead to unwieldy calculations that can dishearten the student. This paper presents tables of velocity components in two dimensions, composed of five or fewer…

A key concept in current fluid dynamics and its applications to biology and technology is a phenomenon known as wetting. Wetting is familiar from everyday life and is simply the ability of a liquid to stay in contact with a solid surface. The wettability depends on the properties of the liquid and the solid and can be characterized by the static…

Transfer of structural math knowledge to physics is difficult for students. While research suggests various improvement techniques, enhancing parallelism of algebraic structures used in physics to those studied in mathematics courses seems underrepresented. This paper proposes an alternative way of introducing wave functions as a set of parametric…

Simulations can provide opportunities for engaged exploration in physics teaching and learning. Beyond the two-dimensional world of screen-based simulations, abstract concepts like vectors (for example, of electric fields) can frequently be visualized better in a three-dimensional virtual reality (VR) environment. These visualizations can be…

Students often face difficulties to understand Archimedes' principle and to apply it in everyday life. It is therefore necessary to explore a different teaching approach that addresses students' visual and auditory senses in a unique manner. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of using multiple representations on undergraduate…

This article provides a process to carefully evaluate the suitability of a content domain for which diagnostic classification models (DCMs) could be applicable and then optimized steps for constructing a test blueprint for applying DCMs and a real-life example illustrating this process. The content domains were carefully evaluated using a set of…

Experimental results are presented on the collision of a superball with two different wood blocks. The results are in reasonable agreement with a simple collision model where kinetic energy is conserved, but better agreement is obtained if a small loss of kinetic energy is assumed, as observed. The physics is slightly more complicated than the…

A significant approach that should be followed by physics teachers at the secondary education level in order to enhance students' understanding is to highlight the generality of the mathematical procedures that describe different physical phenomena. In this paper, the common procedure that is used to calculate the duration of various physical…

In recent years, with the more powerful functions of smartphones, the use of sensors integrated by mobile phones as an auxiliary tool for physical experiment teaching has become more popular. Combined with the related mobile phone apps, people easily can develop and expand the physical experiment contents of mechanics, optics, acoustic phenomena,…

Supporting student participation and learning in STEM involves motivating students to engage in the most effective learning activities. In this article, we study how student motivation interacts with learning activities, and we pay special attention to active learning and the Scandinavian context where participation in learning activities is…

This study investigates the impact of different animation styles on learning outcomes in physics, with a focus on explanations of the seasons. Using a combination of pre-post performance tests and eye tracking, we compared animations featuring a presenter with pure animations without a person in the frame. The sample consisted of students from a…

There is a growing need for more effective interdisciplinary science instruction across undergraduate degree programs. In addition to supporting students' connections between disciplinary concepts, interdisciplinary learning can develop students' critical thinking skills and allow them to evaluate scientific investigations and claims between…

It is agreed that algebra has an important role in physics, particularly through handling symbols. A lot of previous research has focused on how mathematics is used in physics from perspectives where mathematics is taken for granted, and not addressing potential differences of mathematics in the physics classroom and in the mathematics classroom.…