We discuss how research on student difficulties was used as a guide to develop, validate, and evaluate a Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT) to help students learn how to determine the completely symmetric bosonic or completely antisymmetric fermionic wave function and be able to compare and contrast them from the case when the particles…

Background/purpose: This study aimed to measure the level of scientific concepts acquisition among basic-stage students in light of their teachers' use of artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Materials/methods: A scientific concepts acquisition test was developed to collect data. The study sample consisted of 396 tenth-grade students,…

Despite the recognized link between scientific reasoning, mental sets, and conceptual change, the cognitive mechanisms underlying successful conceptual change remain unclear. To explore this, we developed computer-based reasoning programs with and without mental set support to examine their effects on conceptual change in tasks of varying…

We use the Survey of Thermodynamic Processes and First and Second Laws-Long, a research-based survey instrument with 78 items at the level of introductory physics, to investigate introductory and advanced students' difficulties with internal energy, work, and heat transfer. We present analysis of data from 12 different introductory and advanced…

When learning physics, students need more than just an understanding of mathematical and physical concepts. Integrating the two fields is crucial, as research indicates that students often struggle even when they have a strong grasp of both. In this paper, we use the heat equation as an example from higher education. Given the importance of the…

Difficulties presented by students on the concept of instantaneous velocity are well known. This is in part due to instantaneous speed being often defined in terms of the notion of mathematical limit, which may not be clear to many students in introductory physics courses. In this work we present a complementary teaching proposal that can help…

Although there has been extensive research on students' understanding of the particulate nature of matter (PNM), there is still a lack of research on contexts that can be used to teach this challenging topic. In a previous design-based research study, the authors developed a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) on the PNM in the context of crystal…

Australia-wide consensus was reached on seven core concepts of physiology. The "movement of substances" core concept with the descriptor "the movement of substances (ions or molecules) is a fundamental process that occurs at all levels of organization in the organism" was unpacked by a team of three Australian physiology…

The flipped classroom teaching model has been widely used in anatomy education to embrace a blended learning strategy. However, the impact that a continuous flipped classroom teaching model exerts on student learning of human topographic anatomy remains unclear. To address this question, student learning experience and performance were compared…

Most chemistry students struggle with interpreting and understanding NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectra and the general concepts of NMR spectroscopy. NMR spectroscopy seems to be difficult to both teach and learn. Therefore, the corresponding courses should be investigated in more detail. We conducted a survey with N = 39 German university…

An Australia-wide consensus was reached on seven core concepts of physiology, one of which was cell-cell communication. Three physiology educators from a "core concepts" Delphi task force "unpacked" this core concept into seven different themes and 60 subthemes. Cell-cell communication, previously unpacked and validated, was…

A wide array of conceptual change strategies attempted to address students' persistent alternative conceptions, yet there remained ubiquitous struggles of teachers teaching abstract and highly contentious science concepts. This study investigated the effectiveness of the novel Conceptual Change Framework of Instruction (CCFI) in teaching eclipses…

A task force of physiology educators from 25 Australian universities generated an Australia-wide consensus on seven core concepts for physiology curricula. One adopted core concept was "cell membrane," defined as "Cell membranes determine what substances enter or leave the cell and its organelles. They are essential for cell…

The field of science education has put effort into providing opportunities for students to position themselves as epistemic agents pursuing the goal of making sense of natural phenomena. However, students often struggle in adapting scientific practices to achieve the sense-making goal. In this position paper, we conceptualise students'…

Even after research-based instruction, students who demonstrate the ability to assemble relevant conceptual knowledge on one physics question may have difficulty assembling that same knowledge on a closely related problem. Recent research has suggested that reflexive, bottom-up reasoning processes seemingly unrelated to the physics concepts…