The annual Physics Exhibition is briefly described. (DB)

Discusses the difficulties with the standard model for introduction of attractive forces into the van der Waals equation. Presents an analysis in terms of force and time delays and an alternative analysis for more advanced students in terms of energy. (JRH)

A British team attended the 35th International Physics Olympiad in South Korea. In the competition, a team of five, along with candidates from over 70 other nations, answered five-hour theoretical and experimental papers. In addition the candidates, together with their leaders and observers, were able to attend an extensive scientific, cultural…

In this paper is applied the impulsive force in the oscillatory motion to obtain the mathematical expression for the resultant force in the point where the tangent is undefined.

Since 2005, the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE), with generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, has been conducting research to understand the needs and practices of faculty for in-progress scholarly communication (i.e., forms of communication employed as research is being executed) as well as archival publication. This…

Background: Students' academic self-concepts are known to be domain specific. Researchers have also identified two related components of self-concept:cognitive (how competent students feel about a subject domain) and affective (their interest in the subject). This paper examines whether both components are domain specific. Research has also shown…

Students find science relevant to society, but they do not find school science interesting. This survey study analyzes Finnish grade 9 students' actual experiences with science teaching methods and their preferences for how they would like to study science. The survey data were collected from 3,626 grade 9 students (1,772 girls and 1,832 boys)…

This paper summarizes variations in instructors' implementation practices during Peer Instruction (PI) and shows how these differences in practices shape different norms of classroom interaction. We describe variations in classroom norms along three dimensions of classroom culture that are integral to Peer Instruction, emphasis on: (1)…

This paper investigates the enrolment trends and the critical factors that impinge on students' choice of physics as major field of study. The data were generated from primary and secondary sources. Primary data was acquired based on a semi-structured interview with 14 sophomore and 11 senior students and five instructors of the department of…

Within the field of education, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of formative assessment and of structural knowledge. In an effort to fill needs in each of these areas, this article describes an innovative feedback strategy intended to improve students' structural knowledge. Twenty-four high school physics students were…

In this paper, the authors analyse how educational institutions behave in relation with the contents available through the Web. They also reflect on the features of the currently available information managers, from an educational point of view. They found there is a lack of tools for information management at low scale when it has to be used as a…

Simple experiments involving musical instruments of the woodwind family can be used to demonstrate the basic physics of vibrating air columns in resonance tubes using nothing more than straightforward measurements and data collection hardware and software. More involved experimentation with the same equipment can provide insight into the effects…

The laboratory exercise described in this paper is based on a well-known qualitative demonstration of Curie temperature. A long ferromagnetic wire, in the form of a spiral, is attracted to a strong permanent magnet placed near its midpoint (see Fig. 1). The temperature of the wire is increased by passing a current through it. When the temperature…

Although the resolution to the wave-particle paradox has been known for 80 years, it is seldom presented. Briefly, the resolution is that material particles and photons are the quanta of extended spatially continuous but energetically quantized fields. But because the resolution resides in quantum field theory and is not usually spelled out in…