Developing students' understanding of the nature of science (NOS) is seen as critical for educating scientifically literate citizens, and has emerged as an important curricular goal internationally. In Norway, a new curriculum reform has recently been implemented, intended to improve the Norwegian education in several ways. The reform aims to…

The purpose of this study is to examine how physics students position themselves compared to other student groups on various attitudes and opinions relevant to the tradition of "scientific skepticism". Previous research has shown physics students identifying and having mindsets in line with the epistemic ideas from this philosophical…

Students' challenges in learning mechanics are well documented from test situations, and group discussions are considered a fruitful way to meet these challenges. In this paper, we present a study from an authentic teaching setting where upper secondary students in groups solve the task of calculating the acceleration of an elevator by means of a…

This study examined outcomes for AP® Calculus and AP Physics students on the 2015 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) relative to other participating countries and other advanced math and science students in the United States. Compared to other countries in the study, AP Calculus BC and AP Physics C: EM students outperformed all…

Quantum physics is challenging for young students, but also a source of fascination. "Observation" is a key concept in order to understand how principles and experimental results in quantum physics differ from what we are used to in classical physics and everyday experiences. In this study we investigate how pre-university physics…

The first direct observation of gravitational waves in 2015 has led to an increased public interest in topics of general relativity (GR) and astronomy. Physics teachers and educators respond to this interest by introducing modern ideas of gravity and spacetime to high school students. Doing so, they face the challenge of finding suitable models…

This study explores transformative experiences in university physics education and their potential to contribute to Bildung through a case study based on interview data of six Norwegian master's physics students. The results show that the students experience becoming more skeptical and critical in different ways, and while not solely ascribing…

This study offers curriculum developers, teachers, and science education researchers a fine-grained profile on strengths and weaknesses in specific science domains and topics. The study involved a representative sample of 3844 Norwegian pupils in grade 8. Their responses on 216 TIMSS items in 18 topics from 4 science domains were modelled in a…

This study examined how high school students' attitudes toward advanced physics were predicted by their sense of school belonging, and how gender moderated this relationship. The Trends in International Math and Science (TIMSS) 2015 Advanced data, consisting of responses from 12th grade students enrolled in advanced physics courses among nine…

The study aimed to determine the extent of associations of physics, mathematics, and between physics and mathematics based on the results of the 2007, 2011, and 2015 Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey achievement tests. Utilizing educational data mining and correlational data analysis (significance set at [alpha] = 0.05), this study's…

Recent years have seen a rise in interest in how education can foster critical thinking and discourage epistemically unwarranted beliefs. Considering this, this paper seeks to explore whether master's physics students are more critical and skeptical in the philosophical tradition of 'Scientific skepticism', than 1st year students. This is done by…

Calls for renewal of physics education include more varied learning activities and increased focus on qualitative understanding and history and philosophy of science (HPS) aspects. We have studied an innovative approach implementing such features in quantum physics in traditional upper secondary physics classrooms in Norway. Data consists of 11…

Teaching and learning of quantum physics at secondary level is an active field of research. One important challenge is finding ways to promote understanding of quantum concepts without the mathematical formalism that is embedded in quantum mechanics but unavailable on the secondary level. We investigated Norwegian secondary students' (N = 291)…

The most common way to grade students in courses at university and university college level is to use final written exams. The aim of final exams is generally to provide a reliable and a valid measurement of the extent to which a student has achieved the learning outcomes for the course. A source of uncertainty in grading students based on an exam…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into unknown territories of closed schools and remote teaching, and gave teachers a range of new experiences with physics teaching. We studied these experiences by using survey responses from 85 upper secondary physics teachers in Norway. We found that home-school physics instruction was characterised by a…