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Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research
Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (PRST-PER) is a peer-reviewed online open-access journal sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS), the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the APS Forum on Education (APS FEd). The articles are published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
The journal covers the full range of experimental and theoretical research on the teaching and/or learning of physics. PRST-PER is distributed without charge and financed by publication charges to the authors or to the authors' institutions. The criteria for acceptance of articles include the high scholarly and technical standards of our other Physical Review journals. Authors may submit review articles, replication studies, and descriptions of the development and use of new assessment tools. Presentations of research techniques and methodology comparisons/critiques will be considered. More...
April 26, 2012 The American Physical Society is happy to announce that Charles Henderson of Western Michigan University has agreed to take on the Editorship of PRST-PER as Bob Beichner, founding Editor, steps down.
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February 28, 2012  The editors of the APS journals have selected 149 new Outstanding Referees for 2012, out of more than 60,000 currently active referees. Initiated in 2008, the highly selective Outstanding Referee program recognizes scientists who have been exceptionally helpful in assessing manuscripts for publication in the APS journals. Selections are based on two decades of records on the number, quality, and timeliness of referee reports. The 2012 honorees come from 31 different countries, with large contingents from the US, Germany, UK, Canada, and France. The decisions were difficult and there are many excellent referees who have yet to be recognized. By means of the program, APS expresses appreciation to all referees, whose efforts in peer review not only keep the standards of the journals at a high level, but in many cases also help authors to improve the quality and readability of their articles—even those that are not published by APS. For more information and a sortable listing of all Outstanding Referees, please visit http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees.
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July 26, 2011  The Niels Bohr Library and Archives is pleased to announce that it has digitized the complete Samuel A. Goudsmit Papers
(1921–1979, 30 linear feet, approximately 67,000 images). The Goudsmit Papers are a major international collection of correspondence, research notebooks, reports, World War II science documents, and other material of Goudsmit, a Dutch physicist who spent most of his career in the US and was involved at the cutting-edge of physics for more than 50 years. Goudsmit became Editor of Physical Review in 1951 and was responsible for launching Physical Review Letters seven years later. In 1967 he was named APS Editor-in-Chief.
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July 11, 2011 A picture is worth 170 words, not one thousand, according to APS's new length scheme that aims to ease the frustrations typically associated with estimating the length of Letters and other short papers.
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June 6, 2011 The American Physical Society is pleased to announce a refresh of all PDFs contained in the scanned portion of our Physical Review Online Archive (PROLA). APS was one of the first publishers to put our entire backfile online, completing the scanning process in May 2001. In those early days, APS opted to put our content online quickly and in an inexpensive manner that would then allow us to take advantage of any future improvements in technology. We have now completed the next step by partnering with Aquaforest. Using their Autobahn DX conversion software, we have efficiently reprocessed our entire scanned archive of approximately 250,000 articles, further compressing them and adding searchable text. Researchers will find these enhanced PDFs faster to download and much more convenient to navigate and read. APS is committed to ensuring the long-term availability and usability of all of the information that we publish. More News/Announcements
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May 13, 2011  The American Physical Society has announced that it will continue its support for the MathJax project for another year. APS was one of first organizations to become a MathJax Supporter, and is now one of the first to renew. The announcement represents an important milestone for MathJax, since support of organizations like APS over time is key to ensuring the project’s long-term success. Read More | More News/Announcements
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February 15, 2011 Authors in most Physical Review journals have a new alternative: to pay an article-processing charge whereby their accepted manuscripts will be available barrier-free and open access on publication. These manuscripts will be published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC-BY), the most permissive of the CC licenses, granting authors and others the right to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work, provided that proper credit is given. This new alternative is in addition to traditional subscription-funded publication; authors may choose one or the other for their accepted papers. Read More | More News/Announcements
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February 15, 2011 Short Papers in Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (PRST-PER) are intended for articles that either extend a previous work (by the authors or someone else) or are initial results from a larger effort that are interesting enough to merit this type of publication. In a change aimed to encourage conciseness by authors and thereby enhance readability, the PRST-PER editors and Editorial Board have lowered the length limit of Short Papers from 600 lines, which is approximately five journal pages, to four journal pages. This new limit is the same as that governing Letters published by Physical Review Letters. More Editorials
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February 15, 2011 As of 15 February 2011, authors in most Physical Review journals will have a new alternative: to pay an article-processing charge whereby their accepted manuscripts will be available barrier-free and open access on publication
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October 14, 2011
A new model explains how subterranean ice can grow into large sheets that lift the earth and damage roads and buildings.
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Recently published articles in Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research. See the current issues) for more.
ARTICLES
Pasi Nieminen, Antti Savinainen, and Jouni Viiri
Previous physics education research has raised the question of “hidden variables” behind students’ success in learning certain concepts. In the context of the force concept, it has been suggested that students’ reasoning ability is one such variable. Strong positive correlations between students’ pr... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010123 (2012)] Published Wed May 16, 2012
Adrian M. Madsen, Adam M. Larson, Lester C. Loschky, and N. Sanjay Rebello
This study investigated how visual attention differed between those who correctly versus incorrectly answered introductory physics problems. We recorded eye movements of 24 individuals on six different conceptual physics problems where the necessary information to solve the problem was contained in ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010122 (2012)] Published Fri May 11, 2012
Fred Goldberg, Edward Price, Stephen Robinson, Danielle Boyd-Harlow, and Michael McKean
We report on the adaptation of the small enrollment, lab and discussion based physical science course, Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (PSET), for a large-enrollment, lecture-style setting. Like PSET, the new Learning Physical Science (LEPS) curriculum was designed around specific principles ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010121 (2012)] Published Wed May 9, 2012
Kimberley Kreutzer and Andrew Boudreaux
Gender differences in student learning in the introductory, calculus-based electricity and magnetism course were assessed by administering the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism pre- and postcourse. As expected, male students outgained females in traditionally taught sections as well as ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010120 (2012)] Published Fri May 4, 2012
Guangtian Zhu and Chandralekha Singh
We describe the development and implementation of research-based learning tools such as the Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorials and peer-instruction tools to reduce students’ common difficulties with issues related to measurement in quantum mechanics. A preliminary evaluation shows that these lea... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010118 (2012)] Published Thu Apr 19, 2012
Guangtian Zhu and Chandralekha Singh
We describe the difficulties that advanced undergraduate and graduate students have with quantum measurement within the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics. We explore the possible origins of these difficulties by analyzing student responses to questions from both surveys and interviews. Re... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010117 (2012)] Published Thu Apr 19, 2012
Eleanor C. Sayre, Scott V. Franklin, Stephanie Dymek, Jessica Clark, and Yifei Sun
We present data from a between-student study on student response to questions on Newton’s third law given in two introductory calculus-based physics classes (Mechanics and Electromagnetism) at a large northeastern university. Construction of a response curve reveals subtle dynamics in student learni... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010116 (2012)] Published Tue Apr 10, 2012
Madelen Bodin
Solving physics problem in university physics education using a computational approach requires knowledge and skills in several domains, for example, physics, mathematics, programming, and modeling. These competences are in turn related to students’ beliefs about the domains as well as about learnin... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010115 (2012)] Published Tue Apr 10, 2012
John Stewart, Gay Stewart, and Jennifer Taylor
Student use of out-of-class time was measured for four years in the introductory second-semester calculus-based physics course at the University of Arkansas. Two versions of the course were presented during the time of the measurement. In both versions, the total out-of-class time a student invested... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010114 (2012)] Published Wed Apr 4, 2012
Jacquelyn J. Chini, Adrian Madsen, Elizabeth Gire, N. Sanjay Rebello, and Sadhana Puntambekar
Recent research results have failed to support the conventionally held belief that students learn physics best from hands-on experiences with physical equipment. Rather, studies have found that students who perform similar experiments with computer simulations perform as well or better on measures o... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010113 (2012)] Published Wed Apr 4, 2012
Jessica Watkins, Janet E. Coffey, Edward F. Redish, and Todd J. Cooke
Educators and policy makers have advocated for reform of undergraduate biology education, calling for greater integration of mathematics and physics in the biology curriculum. While these calls reflect the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of biology research, crossing disciplinary boundaries in... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010112 (2012)] Published Wed Apr 4, 2012
Rachel E. Pepper, Stephanie V. Chasteen, Steven J. Pollock, and Katherine K. Perkins
We discuss common difficulties in upper-division electricity and magnetism (E&M) in the areas of Gauss’s law, vector calculus, and electric potential using both quantitative and qualitative evidence. We also show that many of these topical difficulties may be tied to student difficulties with ma... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010111 (2012)] Published Tue Mar 27, 2012
Claudio Fazio, Benedetto Di Paola, and Ivan Guastella
In this paper we discuss a study on the approaches to modeling of students of the 4-year elementary school teacher program at the University of Palermo, Italy. The answers to a specially designed questionnaire are analyzed on the basis of an a priori analysis made using a general scheme of reference... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010110 (2012)] Published Thu Mar 15, 2012
Balasubrahmanya Hegde and B. N. Meera
A perceived difficulty is associated with physics problem solving from a learner’s viewpoint, arising out of a multitude of reasons. In this paper, we have examined the microstructure of students’ thought processes during physics problem solving by combining the analysis of responses to multiple-cho... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010109 (2012)] Published Fri Mar 9, 2012
Madelen Bodin and Mikael Winberg
Numerical problem solving in classical mechanics in university physics education offers a learning situation where students have many possibilities of control and creativity. In this study, expertlike beliefs about physics and learning physics together with prior knowledge were the most important pr... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010108 (2012)] Published Wed Feb 29, 2012
Mirko Marušić and Josip Sliško
During a one-semester-long research project with high school students, we deployed and gauged efficiency of two different reform teaching methods: reading, presenting, and questioning (RPQ) and experimenting and discussion (ED). In this paper we report on changes in students’ attitudes and beliefs a... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010107 (2012)] Published Wed Feb 15, 2012
J. Christopher Moore and Louis J. Rubbo
We have found that non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors taking either a conceptual physics or astronomy course at two regional comprehensive institutions score significantly lower preinstruction on the Lawson’s Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) in comparis... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010106 (2012)] Published Wed Feb 15, 2012
Thomas J. Bing and Edward F. Redish
Physics students can encounter difficulties in physics problem solving as a result of failing to use knowledge that they have but do not perceive as relevant or appropriate. In previous work we have demonstrated that some of these difficulties may be epistemological. Students may limit the kinds of ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010105 (2012)] Published Fri Feb 10, 2012
Sevda Yerdelen-Damar, Andrew Elby, and Ali Eryilmaz
This study explored how researchers’ views about the form of students’ epistemologies influence how the researchers develop and refine surveys and how they interpret survey results. After running standard statistical analyses on 505 physics students’ responses to the Turkish version of the Maryland ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010104 (2012)] Published Wed Feb 8, 2012
Homeyra R. Sadaghiani
We have investigated the impact of using multimedia learning modules (MLM) on the learning of students enrolled in introductory physics courses at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. One hundred fifty-nine students were randomly registered in two sections of an introductory mechanics co... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010103 (2012)] Published Fri Feb 3, 2012
Beth A. Lindsey, Leonardo Hsu, Homeyra Sadaghiani, Jack W. Taylor, and Karen Cummings
Recent publications have documented positive attitudinal shifts on the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) among students enrolled in courses with an explicit epistemological focus. We now report positive attitudinal shifts in classes using the Physics by Inquiry (PbI) curriculu... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010102 (2012)] Published Mon Jan 30, 2012
Eric Brewe, Laird Kramer, and Vashti Sawtelle
Developing a sense of community among students is one of the three pillars of an overall reform effort to increase participation in physics, and the sciences more broadly, at Florida International University. The emergence of a research and learning community, embedded within a course reform effort,... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 010101 (2012)] Published Thu Jan 12, 2012
C. Slezak, K. M. Koenig, R. J. Endorf, and G. A. Braun
This paper examines the educational impact of the implementation of the tutorial activity “Changes in Energy and Momentum” from The Tutorials in Introductory Physics in five different instructional settings. These settings include (1) a completely computer-based learning environment and (2) use of c... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020116 (2011)] Published Thu Dec 29, 2011
David P. Smith and Paul van Kampen
We have investigated preservice science teachers’ qualitative understanding of circuits consisting of multiple batteries in single and multiple loops using a pretest and post-test method and classroom observations. We found that most students were unable to explain the effects of adding batteries in... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020115 (2011)] Published Tue Nov 15, 2011
Simon P. Bates, Ross K. Galloway, Claire Loptson, and Katherine A. Slaughter
We present results of a pseudolongitudinal study of attitudes and beliefs about physics from different cohort groups ranging from final-year high school students in the UK to physics faculty (N=637), using the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) instrument. In terms of overall d... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020114 (2011)] Published Tue Nov 8, 2011
Papers recently accepted for publication in Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (view more).
ARTICLES
Steven F. Wolf, Daniel P. Dougherty, and Gerd Kortemeyer
Accepted Wed Apr 18, 2012
Joshua Von Korff and N. Sanjay Rebello
Accepted Mon Apr 2, 2012
Pasi Nieminen, Antti Savinainen, and Jouni Viiri
Accepted Thu Mar 22, 2012
Ning Ding and Egbert G. Harskamp
Accepted Mon Nov 1, 2010
Short Papers
Warren M. Christensen and John R. Thompson
Accepted Tue Apr 24, 2012
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