Maxwell's needle apparatus is used to determine the shear modulus (?) of the material of a wire of uniform cylindrical cross section. Conventionally, a single observation is taken for each observable, and the value of ? is calculated in a single shot. A modification to the above apparatus is made by varying one of the observables, namely the mass…

A teacher learning how to write test questions (test items) will almost certainly encounter item-writing guidelines--lists of item-writing do's and don'ts. Item-writing guidelines usually are presented as applicable across all assessment settings. Table I shows some guidelines that I believe to be generally applicable and two will be briefly…

The uniting of two seemingly disparate subjects in the classroom provides an interesting motivation for learning. Students are interested in how these subjects can possibly be integrated into related ideas. Such is the mixture of physics and music. Both are based upon mathematics, which becomes the interlocking theme. The connecting physical…

How physics can be made interesting is a question that needs no answer. That's because physics is interesting! It's a field of study jam-packed with fascination and wonder. The general public has an enormous thirst for physics knowledge, as indicated by the great numbers who purchase science magazines and books and watch "NOVA" and other…

This article introduces a low-cost, easy to make apparatus that can be used to locate the position of an image formed by a plane mirror. The apparatus is combined with a method used to identify an image's position by drawing a ray diagram, based on the principle of reflection, to show how an image is formed. An image's distance and an object's…

Although recognizing prefixes in physical quantities is inherent for practitioners, it might not be inherent for students, who do not use prefixes in their everyday life experiences. This deficiency surfaces in AP Physics exams. For example, readers of an AP Physics exam reported "a common mistake of incorrectly converting nanometers to…

Partial derivatives are used in a variety of different ways within physics. Thermodynamics, in particular, uses partial derivatives in ways that students often find especially confusing. We are at the beginning of a study of the teaching of partial derivatives, with a goal of better aligning the teaching of multivariable calculus with the needs of…

Observation of the water jets flowing from three equidistant holes on the side of a vertical cylindrical bottle is an interesting and widely used didactical experiment illustrating the laws of fluids in motion. In this paper we analyze theoretically and numerically the ranges of the stationary water jets flowing from various rotationally symmetric…

As we saw last month, over 40% of the students who recently earned bachelor's degrees in physics enter the job market. There are employment opportunities for these graduates in all areas of the economy. When we contact graduates, we ask them where they are working, and we use their responses to compile a list of employers in each state who have…

A research on the effects of the microteaching Multiple-Representation Lesson Study (MRLS) on pre-service Physics teachers' critical thinking was conducted using a pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental design. Eighteen fourth year Bachelor of Secondary Education-Physical Science majors participated in the research. The experimental group employed…

Instructional support is fundamental to successful implementation of Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) in various educational settings. Although research indicates that instructional support can lead to learning gain and achievement of inquiry strategies, it does not explain why the same level of guidance for students with relatively the same level of…

This study addresses the development and evaluation of the Physics Problem-Solving Taxonomy (PPST), comprising five levels: retrieval, diagnosis, strategy, conceptual, and creative thinking. The taxonomy draws on Bloom's revised taxonomy in the cognitive domain, the Types of Knowledge Taxonomy, and the Problem-Solving Taxonomy in engineering. The…

Students' intentions to persevere and their career choices in science, technology, engineering, and math fields can be impacted by their physics identities. Women are severely underrepresented at all levels in physics and engineering. Physics in particular has stereotypes about being a discipline for brilliant men. Therefore, it is particularly…

Although peer interaction in the college classroom may benefit some students by developing peer networks for future collaborations, prior research has suggested that these relationships most often benefit students from overrepresented communities, while minoritized student populations may gain less from these experiences. In this article, we…

The adoption and use of various eLearning systems to enhance the quality of education in secondary schools in Tanzania is becoming common. However, there is little evidence to suggest that students actually use them. Existing studies tend to focus on investigating students' attitude towards using these systems through surveys. Nonetheless, data…