The issue of students' engagement in learning physics has generally been analysed in science education research using attitudes towards science, or motivation to learn science. However, the corresponding studies have their limitations. Therefore, the object of this paper is to present and to analyse an alternative to these theoretical approaches;…

Science educators have generally agreed that understanding the atom concept is the basis of science education. However, the numerous research studies have shown that many students at all educational levels have difficulties understanding this concept. This study was developed under three headings. The first was to identify misconceptions that…

Empirical research evaluating the effectiveness of learning objects is noticeably absent. No formal research has been done on the use of learning objects in secondary schools. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of learning objects by high school students. The evaluation metric used to assess benefits and quality of learning objects…

Designed for individualized use in an applied physics course in postsecondary vocational-technical education, this series of twenty-three learning modules is equivalent to the content of two quarters of a five-credit hour class in electrical technology, electronic service technology, electronic engineering technology, or electromechanical…

These proceedings contain the papers of the 10th International Conference on Mobile Learning 2014, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, in Madrid, Spain, February 28-March 2, 2014. The Mobile Learning 2014 International Conference seeks to provide a forum for the presentation and…

This report will document the changes in the number and citizenship of incoming graduate physics and astronomy students. It will provide student characteristics, such as gender, age, and the type of program in which they are enrolled. It will also discuss the educational backgrounds of the incoming students, highlighting differences between US and…

When high school physics teacher Deborah Waldron needed to pump up her knowledge of biology for National Board Certification, she enrolled in 9th grade Intensified Biology at her school. Waldron shares her observations of what she learned: from the inevitability of starting long-term projects late at night to the realization of how tempting…

Research into the research-teaching "nexus" has undergone significant changes in focus and methodology. From an initial quantitative concern with correlating measurements of research productivity and teaching effectiveness, the empirical emphasis has shifted in favour of exploring the "experiences" of participants (academics…

Chi (2005) proposed that students experience difficulty in learning about physics concepts such as light, heat, or electric current because they attribute to these concepts an inappropriate ontological status of material substances rather than the more veridical status of emergent processes. Conceptual change could thus be facilitated by training…

It has recently been determined that generating an explanatory hypothesis to explain a discrepant event is important for students' conceptual change. The purpose of this study is to investigate how students' generate new explanatory hypotheses. To achieve this goal, questions are used to identify students prior ideas related to electromagnetic…

Recent papers document that student problem-solving competence varies (often strongly) with representational format, and that there are significant differences between the effects that traditional and reform-based instructional environments have on these competences [Kohl and Finkelstein, Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 1, 010104 (2005); Kohl and…

Since the recommendation of biology (or natural history, as it used to be called) in 1893 as part of the high school science curriculum, biology was considered a descriptive subject. In the late 1890s biology consisted of zoology, botany, and physiology. The group that decided on the high school science course configuration was the Committee of…

This article illustrates how a computer algebra system, such as Maple[R], can assist in the study of theoretical fluid mechanics, for both Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids. The continuity equation, the stress equations of motion, the Navier-Stokes equations, and various constitutive equations are treated, using a full, but straightforward,…

What do we want our students to get out of the introductory physics course? Often these goals include improved conceptual understanding, improved critical thinking and improved writing and communication. These can be difficult goals to accomplish. One possible way to address these goals is through the use of peer ranking of student writing. In a…

Modeling, simulation, and discrete mathematics have all been identified by professional mathematics education organizations as important areas for secondary school study. This classroom study focused on the components and tools for modeling and how students use these tools to construct their understanding of contextual problems in the content area…