This study describes a program that the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) carried out in partnership with Birmingham City Schools (BCS) to test an educational intervention, i.e., Hands-On Physics (HOP), among 8th grade students in predominantly minority schools. It also evaluated teachers' demographics and educational backgrounds. The…

This is a story about discovering a bias that affected participation grades in my Introductory Physics for Life Sciences class. My expectation, that actively engaged students tended to talk frequently in my presence as their teaching assistant, would have erased two students' outstanding performances if not for the participation grade policies…

Martin Wagenschein's ideas of prioritising phenomena in making sense of science processes have influenced the German "Lehrkunstdidaktik" (art of teaching) approach. This article sketches a "Lehrkunstdidaktik" teaching unit inspired by Michael Faraday's "Chemical History of a Candle." It shows how primary and lower…

This work presents the evaluation of a practical experience on noise pollution based on the use of smartphones to check if it helps students to better understand the concepts related to this phenomenon. This evaluation has been done with a pre-post design in which 112 students, enrolled in the "Physics and Chemistry" course of the 1st…

The COVID-19 epidemic, which deeply affected educational practices all over the world, caused significant difficulties in the process of effective evaluation of students with the suspension of face-to-face education. This research deals with the assessment-evaluation methods applied by science and physics teachers in the online education process…

Twenty years into the millennium, the world has been confronted with a pandemic that has had an immeasurable impact on the workplace, learning environment and related technologies. Technology and technological advancements are founded on three disciplines, namely Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science. Internationally, an integration of the…

Science competencies acquired at early years are basic and influence on children's later development. Gender differences in these early science competencies may explain the often-reported gender differences in later science abilities. Research in this field was not usually focused on pre-schoolers. In this study, we focus on the interaction…

COVID-19 is the first global pandemic in the age of the internet and the world has collectively documented the virus's spread, offering a unique opportunity to study both the virus and the streams related to COVID-19, on topics from testing access to income to race. They develop their own research question to investigate the relationship between…

This study aims to develop a score equating application for computer-based school exams using parallel test kits with 25% anchor items. The items are arranged according to HOTS (High Order Thinking Skill) category, and use a scientific approach according to the physics lessons characteristics. Therefore, the questions were made using stimulus,…

This study examines the perceptions of Jordanian science teachers' conceptions of assessment, and how these perceptions are affected by the teacher's gender, length of experience, and subject variables. The teacher conception of the assessment questionnaire was completed by 488 teachers. It consisted of 27 items spread over four dimensions: school…

Ishimoto, Davenport, and Wittmann have previously reported analyses of data from student responses to the Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE), in which they used item response curves (IRCs) to make claims about American and Japanese students' relative likelihood to choose certain incorrect responses to some questions. We have used an…

Introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS) courses have emerged as a type of physics course within the introductory courses sequence. The interdisciplinary aspects of these courses as well as the diverse student populations that they serve create significant challenges for instructors who choose to design and deliver them. The Living Physics…

We experience (perceive, act upon and react to, and conceptualize) dynamical processes in nature as agentive. Expressed differently, we experience events as resulting from activities and interactions of "Forces of Nature" (such as wind, light, heat, fluids, electricity, substances, and motion) that are conceived of as powerful agents…

In an ever-increasing technological society, teachers have now, more than ever, a vast offering of educational technologies made available for classroom use. However, the time necessary for vetting and developing rigorous lessons with the usage of such technologies can be overwhelming for a classroom teacher. Still, teachers need the opportunity…

We present a multi-method design for elucidating young, mostly illiterate children's (grades 1 and 2 of Swiss elementary school, ages 6-8) ideas about energy. The design uses semi-structured interviews and video recordings as the main methods of data generation and collection, respectively. A plurality of tasks, including drawing, sorting and a…