Working with approximations is a common practice in physics. This paper presents an exploratory study of student understanding of some of the elementary aspects of approximations encountered in college physics. For this purpose, a questionnaire (a set of 14 multiple-choice questions) was developed to probe how students dealt with these aspects in…

Many research results show that students often highlight "mixed-type" reasoning when tackling problematic situations and problems. This reasoning is based on the simultaneous use of common-sense and mere descriptions of facts, perceived as sufficient to build an "explanation" of observed or proposed situations and problems.…

Experimental work in the research of astronomical phenomena is often difficult or even impossible because of long-lasting processes or too distant objects and correspondingly too expensive equipment. In this paper, we present an example of observation of the Moon, which is our nearest astronomic object and therefore does not require professional…

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected the education system worldwide, which was forced to respond with a sudden shift to distance learning. While successful distance teaching requires careful thinking, planning, and the development of technological and human resources, there was no time for preparation in the current situation. Various…

Being able to contextualise and solve complex problems is a highly valued skill in STEM graduates--a skill which we strive to nurture in our students. Since its introduction into undergraduate teaching, laboratory teaching has been used to consolidate students conceptual understanding, develop their practical skills and inculcate an evidence based…

Justifications play a central role in argumentation, which is a core topic in school science education. This paper contributes to this field of research by presenting two studies in which we assess students' justifications for supporting or rejecting hypotheses in the physics lab based on self-collected, anomalous experimental data, which are…

It was planned to introduce online pre-laboratory session activities to a first-year undergraduate physics laboratory course to encourage a minimum level of student preparation for experiments outside the laboratory environment. A group of 16 and 17 year old laboratory work-experience students were tasked to define and design a pre-laboratory…

It is hard to imagine learning science without doing laboratory or fieldwork. The research work in this paper assessed the state of physics laboratory teaching and learning resources in some selected universities in the South West geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The survey was carried out in five universities namely The University of Lagos,…

Experiments in different forms can certainly be suitable tools for increasing student interest in physics. However, educators continuously discuss which forms of experimenting (if any) are the most beneficial for these purposes. At the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Prague, two different forms of physics experiments are…

States of matter are structures that we may easily encounter in the universe as well as our close environment. The plasma state is the fourth state of matter, and it has much different properties in comparison to the solid, liquid and gas states of matter. In order to understand the universe and the environment we live in better, one needs to have…

This study was carried out to investigate pre-service teachers' perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude and intentions towards the utilization of virtual laboratory package in teaching and learning of Nigerian secondary school physics concepts. Descriptive survey research was employed and 66 fourth and fifth year Physics education…

The study evaluated accessibility, flexibility, cost and learning effectiveness of researchers-developed virtual laboratory package for Nigerian secondary school physics. Based on these issues, four research questions were raised and answered. The study was a quantitative-based evaluation research. Sample for the study included 24 physics…

Science teaching and learning require knowledge about how learning takes place (cognition) and how learners interact with their surroundings (affective and sociocultural factors). The study reported on focussed on learning for understanding of Newton's second law of motion from a cognitive perspective that takes social factors into account. A…

In this study, the attitudes of physics, chemistry and biology teachers towards constructivist approach were investigated in terms of participants' demographic information (e.g. subject area, professional seniority, education, participation to in-service training or not…). In total, 1958 teachers, who are working at high schools of Turkish…

Moroccan students encounter major difficulties in the acquisition of electric phenomena. The phenomenon of resonance is not an exception. This phenomenon is ranked among the most difficult and important phenomena of wave physics. In this article, we simulated the resonance phenomenon via the PSPICE simulator. The proposed simulation allows…