In response to insufficient participation and female underrepresentation in physics education, this article uses questionnaire data from Norwegian physics students in upper secondary ("N" = 585) and first-year tertiary ("N" = 278) education to characterize the "physics choosers." An expectancy-value perspective is…

A variety of factors are associated with students' achievement in secondary school physics, including cohort size--the total number of students studying Physics in the school--and socioeconomic status. Earlier studies also showed boys achieving better in Physics, while more recent research has shown better results for girls. Statistical analysis…

For some time, it has been clear that students who are tutored generally learn more than students who experience classroom instruction (e.g., Bloom, 1984). Much research has been devoted to identifying features of tutorial dialogue that can explain its effectiveness, so that these features can be simulated in natural-language tutoring systems. One…

Teaching a subject like physics needs special teaching methods. It has been felt that in spite of strenuous efforts of physics teacher, students fail to grasp the certain concepts of subject, which lead disinterest among students towards physics. More ever students are often unable to apply their knowledge to advance studies. Therefore there is a…

This study reports on a content course for science immersion teacher candidates that emphasized authentic practice of science and thinking scientifically in the context of introductory astrophysics. We explore how 122 science teacher candidates spanning three cohorts did and did not reason scientifically and how this evolved in our program. Our…

Results of a successful pilot study are presented, in which quizzes are introduced in a second year bachelor course for mechanical engineering students. The pilot study course entailed the basic concepts of mechanical vibrations in complex, realistic structures. The quiz is held weekly using a SharePoint application. The purpose of the quizzes is…

We study the misconceptions about colour that most people hold, determining the general phenomenological laws that govern them. Concept mapping was used to combat the misconceptions which were found in the application of a test specifically designed to determine these misconceptions, while avoiding the possible misleading inductions that could…

In this article we discuss dilemmas and paradoxes in the use of learning resources and the need to list sources when writing, issues that are relevant for students as well as for teachers and authors of textbooks. We draw on experience from a Norwegian research project investigating students' writing in two subjects: physics and Norwegian in…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the shift of Thai teachers' views of learning and their pedagogical practices from the traditional approach to be more centered on an argument-based inquiry approach (ABI) in Thai classrooms, where teachers and learners have long been familiar with the lecture-based tradition. Other than examining the…

For some time, it has been clear that students who are tutored generally learn more than students who experience classroom instruction (e.g., Bloom, 1984). Much research has been devoted to identifying features of tutorial dialogue that can explain its effectiveness, so that these features can be simulated in natural-language tutoring systems. One…

This study investigates whether the integration of ICT in education can facilitate teaching and learning. An example of such integration is computer assisted language learning (CALL) of English technical vocabulary by undergraduate physics students in Rwanda. The study draws on theories of cognitive load and multimedia learning to explore learning…

For the students who have just entered colleges, learning university physics would be a challenge. This paper discusses how to make students who have just finished senior high school physics won't feel difficult in learning university physics and how to guide and cultivate the students' interest in the study of physics so to stimulate the…

I present a witty solution in this article about how we may obtain data simply and cheaply from physical experiments, with which we can do counting, as well. To this interdisciplinary task I turn to Delphi for help, in which we can program a digital video as a multimedia element. I show an example from the programming of plain multimedia elements…

In the fall of 2008, the authors contacted a representative sample of over 3,600 high schools in the U.S., both public and private, to determine whether or not physics was taught there. The authors received responses from over 99% of the schools. For the schools which indicated they were offering physics, they obtained contact information for the…

Each fall the Statistical Research Center conducts its Survey of Enrollments and Degrees, which asks all degree-granting physics and astronomy departments in the US and Puerto Rico to provide information concerning the number of students they have enrolled and counts of recent degree recipients. In the academic year 2007-08 there were 252…