We conducted a study with introductory and upper-division physics students in a Mexican university to learn how students independently recognize the electric field's main characteristics in the electric field lines diagram and as a source or target representation in conversion processes. We used the theory of registers of semiotic representations…

The preschool level is often the first formal opportunity for children to experience science. There are many examples of appropriate experiments and scientific experiences aimed at young children, both in Mexico and around the world. Even the formal public preschool program in Mexico includes sections called Academic Training Topics, one of which…

Educational games have attracted attention as valuable didactic instruments since they combine a proven efficiency in learning improvement with a fun and enjoyable atmosphere. Despite the increasing number of educational game contributions treating a wide variety of topics, to the best of our knowledge, none revise units or physical quantities.…

We conducted a study with introductory and upper-division level physics students in a Mexican and a Spanish university to learn how students recognize the main characteristics of the electric field in three of its more widely used representations, namely, algebraic notation, vector field plot, and electric field lines, and how the students do…

The Mechanical Waves Conceptual Survey (MWCS), presented in 2009, is the most important test to date that has been designed to evaluate university students' understanding of four main topics: propagation, superposition, reflection, and standing waves. In a literature review, we detected a significant need for a study that uses this test as an…

Identifying students' difficulties in understanding Gauss's and Ampere's laws is important for developing educational strategies that promote an expertlike understanding of the field concept and Maxwell's equations of electromagnetic phenomena. This study aims to analyze and compare students' understanding of symmetry when applying Gauss's and…

In this article we present several modifications of the mechanical waves conceptual survey, the most important test to date that has been designed to evaluate university students' understanding of four main topics in mechanical waves: propagation, superposition, reflection, and standing waves. The most significant changes are (i) modification of…

This paper shows the results of a diagnostic research that evaluates the perception of teaching competencies by physics teachers, in universities and high schools that have experienced curricular change of the mode of competences-based education (EBC). The research was conducted in both physics teachers in high school and college level nationally…

This study explores the relationship among student college attainment and the variables mathematical thinking, analytical thinking, language structure, reading comprehension, mathematics result, physics result, written language (Spanish), and English as a foreign language. Method: The participants were 130 students enrolled in an undergraduate…

In its program of studies for preschool level, the Secretary of Public Education of Mexico promoted development of four standards of science: Scientific knowledge, applications of scientific knowledge and technology, skills associated to science, and attitudes associated to science. However, to develop this skills and reach out the standards there…

Studying students' problem-solving abilities in physics education research has consistently shown that novices focus on a problem's surface features rather than its physical principles. Previous research has observed that some electricity and magnetism students confuse electricity and magnetism concepts, often presented in parallel problems (or…

In this article, we present several modifications to the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics. The most significant changes are (i) the addition and removal of items to achieve parallelism in the objectives (dimensions) of the test, thus allowing comparisons of students' performance that were not possible with the original version, and (ii)…

Solving the position of a simple pendulum at any time is apparently one of the most simple and basic problems to solve in high school and college physics courses. However, because of this apparent simplicity, teachers and physics texts often assume that the solution is immediate without pausing to reflect on the problem formulation or verifying…

This study is an initial exploration of students' abilities to analyze critically authenticity of physics problems, carried out with Spanish translation of the eight Edition of popular physics textbook "Fundamentals of Physics", written by Halliday, Resnick and Walker. Students (N = 34) involved in the study were those of applied physics…

In this article we discuss the findings of our research on students' understanding of vector concepts in problems without physical context. First, we develop a complete taxonomy of the most frequent errors made by university students when learning vector concepts. This study is based on the results of several test administrations of open-ended…