Across the field of education research there has been an increased focus on the development, critique, and evaluation of statistical methods and data usage due to recently created, very large datasets and machine learning techniques. In physics education research (PER), this increased focus has recently been shown through the 2019 Physical Review…

Recently, Nissen et al. argued in this journal for the use of Cohen's d, in place of the more commonly used normalized gain, in the analysis of preinstruction and postinstruction scores on concept inventories used to measure the effectiveness of instruction. Their reason for advocating such a change is that they say normalized gains are…

Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely been performed with exploratory methods such as factor analysis and cluster analysis. Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT) provides an alternative to traditional exploratory factor analysis which allows statistical testing to identify the optimal number of…

We compared students' performance on a paper-based test (PBT) and three computer-based tests (CBTs). The three computer-based tests used different test navigation and answer selection features, allowing us to examine how these features affect student performance. The study sample consisted of 9,698 fourth through twelfth grade students from across…

Increases in student-centered pedagogy have been more prevalent in K-12 education than in collegiate undergraduate science education. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of using student-centered pedagogy advocated in K-12 education on introductory astronomy students' content knowledge, interest, and recall of content taught in…

Concept inventories (CI) are validated, research-based, multiple-choice tests, which are widely used to assess the effectiveness of pedagogical practices in bringing about conceptual change. In order to be a useful diagnostic tool, a CI must reflect only the student understanding of the conceptual material. The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is…

Research on the test structure of the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has largely ignored gender, and research on FCI gender effects (often reported as "gender gaps") has seldom interrogated the structure of the test. These rarely crossed streams of research leave open the possibility that the FCI may not be structurally valid across…

The increased emphasis on STEM related careers and the use of science in everyday life makes learning science content and concepts critical for all students especially for those with disabilities. As suggested by the National Resource Council (2012), more emphasis is being placed on being able to critically think about science concepts in and…

This study aimed to ascertain misconceptions of students about basic physical concepts in the "Force and Motion" unit of secondary school seventh class curriculum, to eliminate the misconceptions with created argument environment and traditional approaches after evaluated, and categorize these misconceptions in an ontological sense.…

Information literate students with a good understanding of science are regarded as an important pool of future successful professionals. The study explored correlations between the information literacy (IL) and scientific literacy (SL) of university students and analysed their achievements according to Bloom's cognitive categories of remembering,…

The purpose of this study was to design a one-hour brain dissection protocol for a medical neuroscience course and evaluate the short and long-term effects of its implementation on medical students. First-year medical students (n = 166) participated in a brain dissection activity that included dissection of the basal nuclei and associated deep…

We present the Electricity and Magnetism Conceptual Assessment (EMCA), a new assessment aligned with second-semester introductory physics courses. Topics covered include electrostatics, electric fields, circuits, magnetism, and induction. We have two motives for writing a new assessment. First, we find other assessments such as the Brief…

When considering performing an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences course transformation for one's own institution, life science majors' achievement goals are a necessary consideration to ensure the pedagogical transformation will be effective. However, achievement goals are rarely an explicit consideration in physics education research topics…

The ability to interpret and reason from Tree of Life diagrams is a key component of twenty-first century science literacy. This article reports on the authors' continued development of a multifaceted research-based curriculum--including an instructional booklet, lectures, laboratories and a field activity--to teach such tree thinking to biology…

The overarching purpose of our study was to compare performances of treatment and control condition students who completed a literacy-infused, inquiry-based science intervention through sixth grade as measured by a big idea assessment tool which we refer to as the Big Ideas in Science Assessment (BISA). First, we determine the concurrent validity…