The problem here dealt with concerns physics education, and specifically the concept of force. The idea behind this research is that a historical approach to the teaching of such a notion is of great help for the students to fully understand the meaning of this basic physical magnitude. For, most of scientific concepts can be better grasped by the…

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…

Achieving knowledge integration for deep learning requires students to construct well-connected knowledge structures by understanding and applying the central ideas of a concept. However, research on student learning in work and mechanical energy reveals persistent challenges in grasping fundamental concepts, particularly in connecting the…

Energy is one important concept in physics, but science education research has repeatedly shown that students struggle to develop a full understanding of energy. Especially challenging for students is the notion of potential energy. Overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential energy forms, students struggle to make connections between them.…

This study evaluated recent advances in learning progressions for the concept of matter (LPCM) and explored trends by reviewing the literature on the topic published between 2005 and 2021. A total of 21 studies were reviewed. Fifteen studies were devoted to developing LPCM of varying spans and grain sizes. There were six follow-up studies based on…

Despite its crucial importance in physics, there are not many studies focusing on student difficulties and teaching strategies related to the (1D) wave equation in the PER literature. In order to contribute to fill this gap, we conducted a study with university students which focused on specific aspects that are crucial for understanding this…

This study investigates the impact of constructivist teaching methods on achievement and misconceptions in mechanics, with a focus on gender differences. The research involved 88 first-year physics students enrolled in the physics teacher training program. Using a quasi-experimental design, students were divided into experimental (constructivist…

Developing a deeper understanding of scientific concepts is one of the primary goals of science education. To improve students' conceptual understanding, it is necessary to explore the major characteristics of their learning process. Informed by previous work on conceptual understanding, this study focuses on the concept of evaporation, exploring…

This study investigates if a force-based teaching approach, based on quantum mechanical principles and developed in a lesson study, would enhance the understanding of chemical bonding among upper secondary school students. The teaching approach was based on research on the teaching and learning of chemical bonding. The study included first-year…

This study focuses on exploring pre-service science teachers' conceptual integration understandings in explaining the subject of metabolism with the concepts of physics and chemistry. Action research was employed in this study. Nine pre-service science teachers taking the General Biology II course participated. Participants were taught metabolism…

Misconceptions hinder and challenge the learning of physics and science subjects in general. This study aimed to identify misconceptions in physics topics, namely gravity and force, and to overcome them through timely and appropriate interventions among ninth-grade students at Khuruthang Middle Secondary School in Punakha district, Bhutan. This…

In many science and engineering undergraduate programmes, physics courses are fundamental and can be seen as a potential place where students can develop complementary abilities such as the computational thinking process. The present work proposes and describes the learning science and engineering with electronic spreadsheets cycle (LSEESC)…

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…

We discuss an investigation of student sensemaking and reasoning in the context of degenerate perturbation theory (DPT) in quantum mechanics. We find that advanced undergraduate and graduate students in quantum physics courses often struggled with expertlike sensemaking and reasoning to solve DPT problems. The sensemaking and reasoning were…

The purpose of this study is to review the postgraduate theses on science/physics education in Turkey to guide the teaching of the sound concept. Although the theses examined within the scope of this study belong to a certain region, the previous literature shows us that the learning difficulties/misconceptions are generally independent of…