Enhancing the problem-solving skills of learners belonging to socio-economically disadvantaged groups is a great concern in general and particularly in the Indian context. Problem-solving skills are the most important skills of the 21st century for all learners to acquire necessary competencies. The main purpose of this work is to investigate the…

Air pollution is one of our day's significant reasons for human health problems and affects every community throughout the world. Monitoring air pollution is a key aspect of raising awareness and pollution mitigation approaches followed by different nations. This paper targets to develop a low-cost Internet of things-based embedded system to…

Scholars have suggested that student non-cognitive factors, such as attitudes, have contributed to the gender gap in STEM. Gender has been under investigation for students' attitudes towards science/physics, but student scientific attitudes (SA) have meagre exploration. This study examined the relationships between gender, SA (in terms of…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Instructional labs: Improving traditions and new directions.] We present the pedagogical design and implementation of "ESSENCe": Experimental problem solving using Staging, Scaffolding, Embedded information sources, iNstruments, and Collaboration. Research in experimental physics requires…

Students are introduced to the term wavelength in optics at school level. In this paper, we present an inexpensive and simple method to measure the wavelength of the light of a light emitting diode using a light depending resistor. This experimental set-up is developed at Science Laboratory, Nehru Planetarium (Mumbai), India. It is useful as an…

Education for sustainable development is an emerging concept that encompasses a new vision in physics education that empowers the learner to assume responsibility for creating a sustainable future. Physics education is still struggling to adapt to the personalized approach in learning. Personalized learning thrives in this technology-rich…

We elaborate on a new approach of assessing content-based epistemic clarity of college physics students in terms of their ability to discriminate between different epistemic warrants for propositions in a chained argument in physics. A threefold classification (nominal, physical, and mathematical) of warrants is used, with each class split into a…

The first law of thermodynamics involves several types of energies and many studies have shown that students lack awareness of them. They have difficulties in applying the law to different thermodynamic processes. These observations were confirmed in our pilot studies, carried out with students from undergraduate colleges across the whole of…

Sleep is an important physiological process which is very much essential to lead a healthy life. Sleep was once considered an inactive, or passive, state in which both the body and the brain "turned off" to rest and recuperate from the day's waking activities. The quality of sleep determines the well being of an individual. Adequate…

A large scale survey reveals that the performance of the Indian preuniversity students in internationally standardized physics tests is intermediate to the American and the Chinese but reveals a disturbing bimodality. Scientific reasoning skills, however, are similar to both. The bimodality in physics tests corresponds to two different educational…

Flotation is usually taught in Indian schools after students have been introduced to the concepts of mass, density, pressure, volume and buoyancy. This paper describes an attempt to teach the principle of flotation to a class of sixth graders--who had not yet been taught these concepts--so they could understand (and perhaps, arrive at) Archimedes'…

Physics and Mathematics are two deeply interlinked domains of Science. Mathematics is considered as the language in which the Physics theories are built by employing mathematical symbols and operations to make equations and representations in the world of Physics completely meaningful. In spite of being the backbone of Physics, the use of…

Physics is a science that deals with matter and energy, and their interaction. The subject matter of Physics includes mechanics, heat, light, optics, electricity, magnetism, radiation, gravitation, atom structure etc. Physics concepts are included in the science textbook form primary level of education. Some Physics abstract concepts are difficult…

In twenty first century, abundant innovative tools have been identified by the researchers to evaluate the conceptual understandings, problem solving, beliefs and attitudes about physics. Nevertheless, lacking of wide variety of evaluation instruments with respect to problem solving in physics. It indicates that the complexity of the domain fields…

Physics educators generally seek the best approach to make learning process effective for learners. The major objective of this study is to verify the extent of using inquiry-based instructional strategies in higher secondary physics classrooms, and to support the use of inquiry-based instructional strategies to effectively describe the nature of…