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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...
September 30, 2011 The American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the APS Forum on Education are conducting an international search for a successor to the current Editor of Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research.
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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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February 9, 2011 The American Physical Society (APS) announces a new public access initiative that will give high school students and teachers in the United States full use of all online APS journals.
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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.
EDITORIALS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Gene D. Sprouse
[Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020001 (2011)] Published Mon Jul 11, 2011
ARTICLES
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
Mengesha Ayene, Jeanne Kriek, and Baylie Damtie
Quantum mechanics is often thought to be a difficult subject to understand, not only in the complexity of its mathematics but also in its conceptual foundation. In this paper we emphasize students’ depictions of the uncertainty principle and wave-particle duality of quantum events, phenomena that co... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020113 (2011)] Published Thu Nov 3, 2011
Rebecca Rosenblatt and Andrew F. Heckler
We developed an instrument to systematically investigate student conceptual understanding of the relationships between the directions of net force, velocity, and acceleration in one dimension and report on data collected on the final version of the instrument from over 650 students. Unlike previous ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020112 (2011)] Published Wed Nov 2, 2011
Guadalupe Martínez, Francisco L. Naranjo, Ángel L. Pérez, Maria Isabel Suero, and Pedro J. Pardo
This study compared the educational effects of computer simulations developed in a hyper-realistic virtual environment with the educational effects of either traditional schematic simulations or a traditional optics laboratory. The virtual environment was constructed on the basis of Java applets com... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020111 (2011)] Published Mon Oct 31, 2011
Andrew Mason and Chandralekha Singh
The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than surface features or contexts, is considered one of several proxy predictors of expertise in problem solving. With inspiration from the classic study by Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser, we assess the distribution of expertise... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020110 (2011)] Published Fri Oct 21, 2011
Lin Ding, Neville Reay, Albert Lee, and Lei Bao
It is well documented that when solving problems experts first search for underlying concepts while students tend to look for equations and previously worked examples. The overwhelming majority of end-of-chapter (EOC) problems in most introductory physics textbooks contain only material and examples... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020109 (2011)] Published Fri Oct 14, 2011
Shulamit Kapon, Uri Ganiel, and Bat Sheva Eylon
This paper describes a teaching experiment designed to examine the learning (i.e., retention of content and conceptual development) that takes place when public scientific web lectures delivered by scientists are utilized to present advanced ideas in physics to students with a high school background... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020108 (2011)] Published Mon Oct 17, 2011
Marina Milner-Bolotin, Tetyana Antimirova, Andrea Noack, and Anna Petrov
This paper examines the results of the repeated administration of the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) in a large introductory physics course at a midsize, metropolitan Canadian university. We compare the results to those obtained previously in comparable courses at the Unive... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020107 (2011)] Published Fri Sep 23, 2011
Eric Brewe
Utilizing an energy-as-substance conceptual metaphor as a central feature of the introductory physics curriculum affords students a wealth of conceptual resources for reasoning about energy conservation, storage, and transfer. This paper first establishes the utility and function of a conceptual met... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020106 (2011)] Published Thu Sep 22, 2011
Renee Michelle Goertzen, Eric Brewe, Laird H. Kramer, Leanne Wells, and David Jones
Florida International University has undergone a reform in the introductory physics classes by focusing on the laboratory component of these classes. We present results from the secondary implementation of two research-based instructional strategies: the implementation of the Learning Assistant mode... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020105 (2011)] Published Tue Sep 6, 2011
Shih-Yin Lin and Chandralekha Singh
In this study, we examine introductory physics students’ ability to perform analogical reasoning between two isomorphic problems which employ the same underlying physics principles but have different surface features. Three hundred sixty-two students from a calculus-based and an algebra-based introd... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020104 (2011)] Published Wed Aug 31, 2011
Edgar D. Corpuz and N. Sanjay Rebello
Our previous research showed that students’ mental models of friction at the atomic level are significantly influenced by their macroscopic ideas. For most students, friction is due to the meshing of bumps and valleys and rubbing of atoms. The aforementioned results motivated us to further investiga... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020103 (2011)] Published Tue Jul 26, 2011
Edgar D. Corpuz and N. Sanjay Rebello
In this paper, we discuss the first phase of a multiphase study aimed at investigating the dynamics of students’ knowledge construction in the context of unfamiliar physical phenomenon—microscopic friction. The first phase of this study involved the investigation of the variations in students’ menta... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020102 (2011)] Published Tue Jul 26, 2011
Apisit Tongchai, Manjula Devi Sharma, Ian D. Johnston, Kwan Arayathanitkul, and Chernchok Soankwan
We recently developed a multiple-choice conceptual survey in mechanical waves. The development, evaluation, and demonstration of the use of the survey were reported elsewhere [ A. Tongchai et al. Int. J. Sci. Educ. 31 2437 (2009)]. We administered the survey to 902 students from seven different gro... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 020101 (2011)] Published Fri Jul 22, 2011
James Day and Doug Bonn
The Concise Data Processing Assessment (CDPA) was developed to probe student abilities related to the nature of measurement and uncertainty and to handling data. The diagnostic is a ten question, multiple-choice test that can be used as both a pre-test and post-test. A key component of the developme... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 010114 (2011)] Published Wed Jun 29, 2011
Dong-Hai Nguyen and N. Sanjay Rebello
This study investigates the common difficulties that students in introductory physics experience when solving problems involving integration in the context of electricity. We conducted teaching-learning interviews with 15 students in a second-semester calculus-based introductory physics course on se... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 010113 (2011)] Published Tue Jun 28, 2011
Dong-Hai Nguyen and N. Sanjay Rebello
This study investigates how students understand and apply the area under the curve concept and the integral-area relation in solving introductory physics problems. We interviewed 20 students in the first semester and 15 students from the same cohort in the second semester of a calculus-based physics... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 010112 (2011)] Published Tue Jun 28, 2011
U. Wutchana and N. Emarat
The Maryland Physics Expectations (MPEX) survey was designed to probe students’ expectations about their understanding of the process of learning physics and the structure of physics knowledge—cognitive expectations. This survey was administered to first-year university students in Thailand in the f... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 010111 (2011)] Published Fri Jun 24, 2011
Vanes Mesic and Hasnija Muratovic
Large-scale assessments of student achievement in physics are often approached with an intention to discriminate students based on the attained level of their physics competencies. Therefore, for purposes of test design, it is important that items display an acceptable discriminatory behavior. To th... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 010110 (2011)] Published Fri Jun 10, 2011
Christine Lindstrøm and Manjula D. Sharma
In 2006 a new type of tutorial, called Map Meeting, was successfully trialled with novice first year physics students at the University of Sydney, Australia. Subsequently, in first semester 2007 a large-scale experiment was carried out with 262 students who were allocated either to the strongly scaf... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 010109 (2011)] Published Fri Jun 3, 2011
John R. Thompson, Warren M. Christensen, and Michael C. Wittmann
We describe courses designed to help future teachers reflect on and discuss both physics content and student knowledge thereof. We use three kinds of activities: reading and discussing the literature, experiencing research-based curricular materials, and learning to use the basic research methods of... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 7, 010108 (2011)] Published Fri May 20, 2011
Papers recently accepted for publication in Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (view more).
ARTICLES
Jessica Watkins, Janet E. Coffey, Edward F. Redish, and Todd J. Cooke
Accepted Wed Jan 25, 2012
Claudio Fazio, Benedetto Di Paola, and Ivan Guastella
Accepted Mon Jan 23, 2012
Sevda Yerdelen-Damar, Andrew Elby, and Ali Eryilmaz
Accepted Mon Jan 23, 2012
Mirko Marušić and Josip Sliško
Accepted Mon Jan 23, 2012
J. Christopher Moore and Louis J. Rubbo
Accepted Mon Jan 23, 2012
Thomas J. Bing and Edward F. Redish
Accepted Fri Jan 20, 2012
Balasubrahmanya Hegde and B. N. Meera
Accepted Wed Dec 28, 2011
Homeyra R. Sadaghiani
Accepted Fri Dec 16, 2011
Beth A. Lindsey, Leonardo Hsu, Homeyra Sadaghiani, Jack W. Taylor, and Karen Cummings
Accepted Thu Nov 17, 2011
Ning Ding and Egbert G. Harskamp
Accepted Mon Nov 1, 2010
All Accepted Papers
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