Understanding the mechanisms of increasing the number of physics teachers educated per year at institutions with thriving physics teacher preparation programs may inspire and support other institutions in building thriving programs of their own. The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC), led by the American Physical Society (APS) and the…

The quantitative results of Sources of Self-Efficacy in Science Courses-Physics (SOSESC-P) are presented as a logistic regression predicting the passing of students in introductory Physics with Calculus I, overall as well as disaggregated by gender. Self-efficacy as a theory to explain human behavior change [Bandura [1977] "Psychological…

A key question in physics education is the effectiveness of the teaching methods. A curriculum that has been investigated at the University of Central Florida (UCF) over the last two years is the use of particular elements of The Physics Suite. Select sections of the introductory physics classes at UCF have made use of Interactive Lecture…

A model for engaging undergraduates in cutting-edge experimental nuclear physics research at a national user facility is discussed. Methods to involve students and examples of their success are presented. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)

Digital games are very popular in modern culture. The authors are examining ways to leverage these engaging environments to assess and support student competencies. The authors examine gameplay and learning using a physics game they developed called Newton's Playground. The sample consisted of 167 eighth- and ninth-grade students who played…

A SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS TO BE PERFORMED WITH SMALL APPARATUS BY STUDENTS IS PRESENTED. PREPARATION OF DATA SHEETS AND ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS ARE ENCOURAGED. IN THE CATEGORY OF MATTER AND MOLECULES, THE CONCEPT TO BE DEVELOPED IS THE DETERMINATION OF WHETHER THERE ARE EMPTY SPACES IN AIR AND IN LIQUIDS. EXPERIMENTS WITH INERTIA, THE LAW OF SPRINGS,…