Chaos theory is not present in the Italian school curricula and textbooks in spite of being present in many topics of classical physics and in everyday life. Chaotic dynamics, in fact, are involved in phenomena easily accessible to everyone or in events experienced by most people in their lives (the dripping of a faucet which keeps people awoken…

Drawing on large-scale survey data and interviews with students during their first year at university, and case studies in their institutions, we explore the problems faced by students taking mathematically demanding courses, e.g. physics and engineering. These students are often taught mathematics as a service subject by lecturers of mathematics.…

The advent of Twitter® and other social media services of its type ushered in a new era of professional development in education. This article addresses how a group of users have been employing Twitter to conduct professional development sessions that would benefit their participants by advancing their pedagogical approaches to learning and…

When grading students' quizzes and exams, I find that students are seemingly always changing their answers from the right answer to the wrong answer. In fact, I have cautioned students against changing their answer. Colleagues have made similar observations and some books on test-taking strategies advise against answer-changing. In an effort to…

Although acoustics examples and demonstrations can be an effective tool for engaging students in introductory physics classes and outreach, teaching principles of sound and vibration to the deaf and hard of hearing needs to be approached carefully. The deaf and hard of hearing have less intuition with sound but are no strangers to some of the…

This paper demonstrates some simple applications of how temperature logging systems may be used to monitor simple heat experiments, and how the data obtained can be analysed to get some additional insight into the physical processes. [For "DIY Soundcard Based Temperature Logging System. Part I: Design," see EJ1114124.]

Interactive engagement-based (IE) physics classes have the potential to invigorate and motivate students, but students may resist or oppose the pedagogy. Understanding the major influences on student satisfaction is a key to successful implementation of such courses. In this study, we note that one of the major differences between IE and…

In today's item response theory (IRT) the response to the test item is considered as a probability event depending on the student's ability and difficulty of items. It is noted that in the scientific literature there is very little agreement about how to determine factors affecting the item difficulty. It is suggested that the difficulty of the…

A lock-in amplifier is a versatile instrument frequently used in physics research. However, many students struggle with the basic operating principles of a lock-in amplifier which can lead to a variety of difficulties. To improve students' understanding, we have been developing and evaluating a research-based tutorial which makes use of a computer…

The purpose of this study was to determine prospective science teachers' subject-matter knowledge (SMK) about overflow container. This study was carried out in the form of a case study in spring term of the academic year of 2013-2014 with seven sophomore prospective science teachers who were studying at Elementary Science Teaching Department in…

An ontological causal relation is a quantified relation between certain interactions and changes in corresponding properties. Key ideas in physics, such as Newton's second law and the first law of thermodynamics, are representative examples of these relations. In connection with the teaching and learning of these relations, this study investigated…

A key challenge when teaching physics is to equip students with the ability to apply the concepts to real-life situations. Students do not learn by information alone; they are affected by their environment, their social setting, how their body and mind feel and the interactions between these different aspects. This may explain why wild places and…

Purpose: At rest, the central nervous system combines and integrates multisensory cues to yield an optimal percept. When engaging in action, the relative weighing of sensory modalities has been shown to be altered. Because the timing of peak velocity is the critical moment in some goal-directed movements (e.g., overarm throwing), the current study…

We conducted two AB experiments (treatment vs. control) in a massive open online course. The first experiment evaluates deliberate practice activities (DPAs) for developing problem solving expertise as measured by traditional physics problems. We find that a more interactive drag-and-drop format of DPA generates quicker learning than a multiple…

For years, education research and policy efforts have addressed the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States. Much of this research fails to characterize the relational aspects involved despite widespread theoretical support for such an emphasis. In this paper, we report findings from a…