Problem solving is considered an essential ability for becoming an expert in physics, and individualized feedback on the structure of problem-solving processes is a key component to support students in developing this ability. Problem-solving processes consist of multiple elements whose order forms the sequential structure of these processes.…

Teaching assistants have a very important role in physics education as they interact with students and guide them in different contexts. A multitude of research has focused on how to prepare teaching assistants to implement high-quality, research-based teaching techniques. Video clubs, i.e., working with a group of teachers to watch and discuss…

Estimating astronomical scales requires multiple complex mental processes, such as spatial thinking and interpreting large numbers. As such, it is a nontrivial question how these estimates can be most efficiently assessed. There is reason to believe that results from previous studies probing astronomical scale estimates are possibly susceptible to…

The Energy and Momentum Conceptual Survey (EMCS) is a multiple-choice survey that contains conceptual problems involving a variety of energy and momentum concepts covered in a typical introductory physics course for science and engineering majors. Prior studies suggest that many concepts on the survey are challenging for introductory physics…

Inequality in education is a challenge that have persisted and still likely to persist for a long time in the field of education because students come into the classroom with different characteristics thus posing a great concern to the realization of classroom objectives. The use of adequate teaching strategy might break this limitation thereby…

Introductory physics is a gateway course that is required for many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors. In introductory physics courses, women and racially minoritized students often have lower grades and higher attrition than white men. Inclusive teaching is widely recommended to ensure that all students have the…

This study investigates the role of learning dimensions in planning and trialing teaching-learning sequences (TLSs) on surface phenomena in liquids for high school students. Particularly, it aims to identify how different modeling approaches--macroscopic and mesoscopic--impact students' learning in terms of different dimensions of learning such as…

The physics' subject aims to provide the student with a broad understanding of the physical phenomena that occur around them every day and introduce them to the scientific search. The use of experiments in the teaching of the subject contributes to the understanding of these phenomena, the development of skills and critical thinking and has many…

Student learning in simple electric circuits has been an important area in physics education research. This study builds off a previous investigation that applied the conceptual framework model to examine knowledge integration in student learning of simple electric circuits and developed a multiple-choice concept test for assessing knowledge…

One expected outcome of physics instruction is that students develop quantitative reasoning skills, including strategies for evaluating solutions to problems. Examples of well-known "canonical" evaluation strategies include special case analysis, unit analysis, and checking for reasonable numbers. We report on responses from three tasks…

Background/purpose: Critical thinking (CT) is fundamental in science education, but instruments to measure CT in specific domains, such as physics, are still limited. The present study aims to develop and validate the Critical Thinking Test in Temperature and Heat (CTTH), an instrument designed to measure critical thinking skills in the topic of…

Higher engineering education programmes increasingly include courses characterised by real-world problems and student collaboration in multidisciplinary teams. Research findings demonstrate that students remain limited in perceiving and meaningfully bridging disciplinary differences in these course contexts. Drawing on the literature on boundaries…

This study analyses the effectiveness of directed vs. minimally directed inquiry-based instructional approaches in improving students' attitudes toward physics. It specifically compares the impacts of cognitively guided instructional strategy (CGIS) and Cubing instructional strategy (CIS) on student attitudes. Using a pretest--post-test…

This paper analyses the epistemic criteria that pre-service teachers consider when assessing the quality of a scientific investigation about friction force. The participants were 71 pre-service primary teachers working in 18 small groups of three or four participants (N = 18), who were enrolled in a science teaching methods course that addressed…

Students often face difficulties to understand Archimedes' principle and to apply it in everyday life. It is therefore necessary to explore a different teaching approach that addresses students' visual and auditory senses in a unique manner. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of using multiple representations on undergraduate…