This paper traces Einstein's discovery of "the equivalence of mass [m] and energy ["E[subscript 0]"]." He came to that splendid insight in 1905 while employed by the Bern Patent Office, at which time he was not an especially ardent reader of physics journals. How then did the young savant, working outside of academia in semi-isolation, realize…

When an ice cube floating on water in a container melts, it is said in some textbooks that the water level does not change. However, as pointed out by Lan in a recent work, when the buoyant force from a less dense fluid resting above the waterline is taken into account, one should expect a detectable "increase" in the volume of water. Here in this…

The clarity of the argument, and the detail in the mathematics, make this a real piece of "mathematics in context". However, while this might be not described as "mathematics for the faint hearted", there are classroom implications for application, interest, and motivation. "All things solar" have seen a rise in popularity through the serious…

Orbital theory provides a powerful tool for rationalizing and understanding many phenomena in chemistry. In most introductory chemistry courses, students are introduced to atomic and molecular orbitals in the form of two-dimensional drawings. In this work, we describe a general method for producing 3D printing files of orbital models that can be…

In this paper, we present a low-cost method to study the Gay-Lussac's law. We use a heating wire wrapped around the test tube to heat the air inside and make use of a solid state pressure sensor which requires a previous calibration to measure the pressure in the test tube.

Literature in "Physics Education" has shown that students encounter many difficulties in understanding wave propagation. Such difficulties lead to misconceptions also in understanding sound, often used as context to teach wave propagation. To address these issues, we present in this paper a module in which the students are engaged in…

This paper presents a research directed to examine the relation between students' metacognitive awareness and physics learning efficiency. Questionnaire of metacognitive awareness and physics knowledge test were applied on the sample of 746 subjects of both sexes, first graders of Grammar Schools in Novi Sad, Republic of Serbia. Obtained results…

Students evaluate their achievement in a specific domain in relation to their achievement in other domains and form their self-concepts accordingly. These comparison processes have been termed "dimensional comparisons" and shown to be an important source of academic self-concepts in addition to social and temporal comparisons. Research…

Several researches in physics education have demonstrated the problematic status of teaching the subject of gravitation and weight and students' knowledge of these concepts. This paper presents findings of a study of students' knowledge following instruction within a changed conceptual framework of the weight concept in several 9th grade classes…

Even though density is taught in middle school, high school students often struggle to understand that the density of a substance is consistent regardless of amount. This is because many high school students know density = mass/volume, but do not have the conceptual understanding necessary to explain density-related phenomena. The scaffolded…

The investigation aims in this study were to uncover the observations of infrastructures and physics laboratory in vocational high school for Stone and Concrete Construction Techniques Expertise Field or Teknik Konstruksi Batu dan Beton (TKBB)'s in Purwokerto Central Java Province, mapping the Vocational High School or Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan…

This study assessed the readability of the four recommended physics textbooks in senior secondary schools in Osun State of Nigeria. A total of 25 physics teachers and 300 senior secondary three (SS3) physics students were randomly selected in the 12 secondary schools used for the study. A survey design was used for the study. Results showed that…

Education research provides a range of curricular reform options that can lead to improved student course outcomes. These options can appear easy to implement with the hope of immediate increases in student learning. In 2006 the Ithaca College Physics Department went down this path by moving all of their 100-level courses out of lecture halls and…

In this study, we examined whether gendered discourse styles were evidenced in online, synchronous, physics collaborative learning group discussions, and the extent to which such discourse patterns were related to the uptake of ideas within the group. We defined two discourse styles: the oppositional/direct style, theorized to be the socialized…

Most high school and introductory college physics classes study simple harmonic motion and various wave phenomena. With the majority of states adopting the Next Generation Science Standards and pushing students to explore the scientific process for themselves, there is a growing demand for hands-on inquiry activities that involve and develop more…