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Robertson, Amy D.; Goodhew, Lisa M.; Scherr, Rachel E.; Heron, Paula R. L. – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2021
Existing research identifying common student ideas about forces focuses on students' misunderstandings, misconceptions, and difficulties. In this paper, we characterize student thinking in terms of resources, framing student thinking as continuous with formal physics. Based on our analysis of 2048 written responses to conceptual questions, we…
Descriptors: College Students, Knowledge Level, Physics, Scientific Concepts
Emigh, Paul J.; Gire, Elizabeth; Manogue, Corinne A.; Passante, Gina; Shaffer, Peter S. – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2020
A growing body of research-based instructional materials for quantum mechanics has been developed in recent years. Despite a common grounding in the research literature on student ideas about quantum mechanics, there are some major differences between the various sets of instructional materials. In this article, we examine the major instructional…
Descriptors: Physics, Science Instruction, Quantum Mechanics, Worksheets
Ivanjek, Lana; Shaffer, Peter; Planinic, Maja – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2020
The topic of atomic spectra is part of university and secondary school curricula around the world. Relatively little research, however, has been done on the learning and teaching of this subject, despite the fact that it forms a foundation for advanced study in quantum mechanics, astronomy, and astrophysics. A systematic investigation into student…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Scientific Concepts, Concept Formation, Physics
Sabo, Hannah C.; Goodhew, Lisa M.; Robertson, Amy D. – Physical Review Physics Education Research, 2016
We report some of the common, prevalent conceptual resources that students used to reason about energy, based on our analysis of written responses to questions given to 807 introductory physics students. These resources include, for example, associating forms of energy with indicators, relating forces and energy, and representing energy…
Descriptors: Energy, Science Instruction, Introductory Courses, Physics
Passante, Gina; Emigh, Paul J.; Shaffer, Peter S. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2015
Superposition gives rise to the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics and is therefore one of the concepts at the heart of quantum mechanics. Although we have found that many students can successfully use the idea of superposition to calculate the probabilities of different measurement outcomes, they are often unable to identify the…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Mechanics (Physics), Quantum Mechanics, Scientific Concepts
Passante, Gina; Emigh, Paul J.; Shaffer, Peter S. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2015
Energy measurements play a fundamental role in the theory of quantum mechanics, yet there is evidence that the underlying concepts are difficult for many students, even after all undergraduate instruction. We present results from an investigation into student ability to determine the possible energies that can be measured for a given wave function…
Descriptors: Energy, Physics, Science Instruction, Undergraduate Study
Emigh, Paul J.; Passante, Gina; Shaffer, Peter S. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2015
The time evolution of quantum states is arguably one of the more difficult ideas in quantum mechanics. In this article, we report on results from an investigation of student understanding of this topic after lecture instruction. We demonstrate specific problems that students have in applying time dependence to quantum systems and in recognizing…
Descriptors: Quantum Mechanics, Lecture Method, Concept Teaching, Scientific Concepts
Heron, Paula R. L. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2015
The impact of lecture instruction on student conceptual understanding in physics has been the subject of research for several decades. Most studies have reported disappointingly small improvements in student performance on conceptual questions despite direct instruction on the relevant topics. These results have spurred a number of attempts to…
Descriptors: Lecture Method, Science Instruction, Physics, Introductory Courses
Daane, Abigail R.; McKagan, Sarah B.; Vokos, Stamatis; Scherr, Rachel E. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2015
Research has demonstrated that many students and some teachers do not consistently apply the conservation of energy principle when analyzing mechanical scenarios. In observing elementary and secondary teachers engaged in learning activities that require tracking and conserving energy, we find that challenges to energy conservation often arise in…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Energy Conservation, Scientific Concepts, Elementary School Teachers
Scherr, Rachel E.; Robertson, Amy D. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2015
We observe teachers in professional development courses about energy constructing mechanistic accounts of energy transformations. We analyze a case in which teachers investigating adiabatic compression develop a model of the transformation of kinetic energy to thermal energy. Among their ideas is the idea that thermal energy is generated as a…
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Science Teachers, Faculty Development, Energy
Daane, Abigail R.; Vokos, Stamatis; Scherr, Rachel E. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2014
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) require teachers to understand aspects of energy degradation and the second law of thermodynamics, including energy's availability and usefulness, changes in energy concentration, and the tendency of energy to spread uniformly. In an effort to develop learning goals that support teachers in building…
Descriptors: Energy, Thermodynamics, Physics, Elementary School Teachers
Kryjevskaia, Mila; Stetzer, MacKenzie R.; Heron, Paula R. L. – Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2013
In a previous paper that focused on the transmission of periodic waves at the boundary between two media, we documented difficulties with the basic concepts of wavelength, frequency, and propagation speed, and with the relationship v=f[lambda]. In this paper, we report on student attempts to apply this relationship in problems involving two-source…
Descriptors: Optics, Physics, Scientific Concepts, College Science