This study examined laboratory experiments and traditional lecturing as an introductory teaching method in physics. In this participatory action research study, a qualitative and quantitative method were used to examine the level of achievement and the levels of engagement of high school students in introductory physics. The qualitative data was…

Well-designed digital games hold promise as effective learning environments. However, designing games that support both learning and engagement without disrupting flow is quite tricky. In addition to including various game design features (e.g., interactive problem solving, adaptive challenges, and player control of gameplay) to engage players,…

Poggendorff showed experimentally, in the middle of the 19th century, that the weight of an Atwood machine is reduced when it is brought to motion. His experiment has been revisited from time to time, making use of instrumentation that reflects the technological development of the moment. In this paper, the evolution of the experiment is briefly…

My favorite exam question comes from the final exam in an introductory mechanics course: "A rolling 31 ton railroad boxcar collides with a stationary flatcar. The coupling mechanism activates so the cars latch together and roll down the track attached. Of the initial kinetic energy, 38% dissipates as heat, sound, vibrations, mechanical…

As presented in physics textbooks, as well as in a few papers, the typical example of an induced motional electromotive force e[subscript mot] = "Blv" consists of a conductive rod of length "l" frictionlessly sliding with speed v along parallel wires within an orthogonal and constant uniform magnetic field of magnitude…

We have developed much simpler cloud chambers that use only ice and cooking salt instead of the dry ice or ice gel pack needed for the cloud chambers produced in our previous work. The observed alpha-ray particle tracks are as clear as those observed using our previous cloud chambers. The tracks can be observed continuously for about 20?min, and…

Trampolines can be found in many gardens and also in some playgrounds. They offer an easily accessible vertical motion that includes free fall. In this work, the motion on a trampoline is modelled by assuming a linear relation between force and deflection, giving harmonic oscillations for small amplitudes. An expression for the cycle-time is…

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…