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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...
February 6, 2013  The editors of the APS journals have selected 142 new Outstanding Referees for 2013, 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 2013 honorees come from 27 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 listing of all Outstanding Referees, please visit http://publish.aps.org/OutstandingReferees.
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January 2, 2013 As a service to our readers, starting January we will formally mark a small number of papers published in Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research that the editors and referees find of particular interest, importance, or clarity.
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October 16, 2012  Today ORCID opened its registry allowing researchers in all fields and from around the world to distinguish themselves by registering for their own unique identifier. APS has been a long-time supporter of ORCID and, as one of the official Launch Partners, we have updated our author profile application so that authors may register their ORCID within our database of authors and referees. Widespread adoption of ORCID identifiers will improve the scholarly record and help researchers receive proper credit for all of their contributions. To get started, simply visit the APS Author Profile application.
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July 24, 2012 I am honored to be selected as the Editor of Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (PRST-PER). I am fortunate to inherit a smooth-running operation from founding Editor Robert Beichner. Beichner established PRST-PER in 2005 to provide an archival research journal for the growing body of knowledge produced by the physics education research community.
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July 12, 2012 The American Physical Society is pleased to announce the availability of a new "Saved Search" feature on our journal platform. With Saved Searches, you can receive daily updates based on any search criteria available in our search engine. Use them to track specific keywords, the publications of your colleagues at your institution, new publications that cite your work (if your name is unique enough), and much more. You may choose to receive your updates via email or RSS feeds. To save a search, first log in using your APS Journal account, do a search, and then simply save it on the search results page. More News/Announcements
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As a service to both our readers and authors, we list a small number of papers published in Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research that the editors and referees find of particular interest, importance, or clarity. These Editors' Suggestion papers are marked with a special icon that contains the printer's mark that appeared on the covers of all sections of the Physical Review until about a decade ago. Recent Editors' Suggestions are below; a list of all Editors' Suggestions can be found via an APS journal search.
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Shih-Yin Lin, Charles Henderson, William Mamudi, Chandralekha Singh, and Edit Yerushalmi
As part of a larger study to understand instructors’ considerations regarding the learning and teaching of problem solving in an introductory physics course, we investigated beliefs of first-year graduate teaching assistants (TAs) regarding the use of example solutions in introductory physics. In pa... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010120 (2013)] Published Fri May 17, 2013
Patrick J. Enderle, Sherry A. Southerland, and Jonathon A. Grooms
The SCALE-UP studio physics class involves the physical redesign of a classroom to encourage more collaborative interactions and student-centered teaching, an approach shown to increase student learning on several different measures. However, research into the contextual issues involved in implement... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010114 (2013)] Published Wed Apr 10, 2013
Mila Kryjevskaia, MacKenzie R. Stetzer, and Paula R. L. Heron
In a previous paper that focused on the transmission of periodic waves at the boundary between two media, we documented difficulties with the basic concepts of wavelength, frequency, and propagation speed, and with the relationship v=fλ. In this paper, we report on student attempts to apply this rel... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010106 (2013)] Published Fri Feb 15, 2013
Recently published articles in Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research. See the current issues) for more.
EDITORIALS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
[Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010001 (2013)] Published Wed Jan 2, 2013
ARTICLES
Shih-Yin Lin, Charles Henderson, William Mamudi, Chandralekha Singh, and Edit Yerushalmi
As part of a larger study to understand instructors’ considerations regarding the learning and teaching of problem solving in an introductory physics course, we investigated beliefs of first-year graduate teaching assistants (TAs) regarding the use of example solutions in introductory physics. In pa... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010120 (2013)] Published Fri May 17, 2013
Guo-Li Chiou
Although prediction is claimed to be a prime function of mental models, to what extent students can run their mental models to make predictions of physical phenomena remains uncertain. The purpose of this study, therefore, was first to investigate 30 physics students’ mental models of heat convectio... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010119 (2013)] Published Tue May 14, 2013
J. S. Aslanides and C. M. Savage
We report on a concept inventory for special relativity: the development process, data analysis methods, and results from an introductory relativity class. The Relativity Concept Inventory tests understanding of relativistic concepts. An unusual feature is confidence testing for each question. This ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010118 (2013)] Published Thu May 9, 2013
Sapna Sharma, P. K. Ahluwalia, and S. K. Sharma
It has been established by physics education researchers that there is a correlation between the learner’s behavior, their epistemological beliefs with which they come to the classrooms, and their success in a course. This study of Indian students and teachers explores expectations and beliefs in le... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010117 (2013)] Published Tue Apr 30, 2013
Haim Eshach, Fu-Kwun Hwang, Hsin-Kai Wu, and Ying-Shao Hsu
Although there is a broad agreement among scientists and science educators that students should not only learn science, but also acquire some sense of its nature, it has been reported that undergraduate students possess an inadequate grasp of the nature of science (NOS). The study presented here exa... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010116 (2013)] Published Thu Apr 25, 2013
Katherine P. Dabney and Robert H. Tai
The underrepresentation of women in physics doctorate programs and in tenured academic positions indicates a need to evaluate what may influence their career choice and persistence. This qualitative paper examines eleven females in physics doctoral programs and professional science positions in orde... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010115 (2013)] Published Wed Apr 10, 2013
Patrick J. Enderle, Sherry A. Southerland, and Jonathon A. Grooms
The SCALE-UP studio physics class involves the physical redesign of a classroom to encourage more collaborative interactions and student-centered teaching, an approach shown to increase student learning on several different measures. However, research into the contextual issues involved in implement... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010114 (2013)] Published Wed Apr 10, 2013
Jun-ichiro Yasuda and Masa-aki Taniguchi
In this study, we evaluate the structural validity of Q.16 and Q.7 in the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). We address whether respondents who answer Q.16 and Q.7 correctly actually have an understanding of the concepts of physics tested in the questions. To examine respondents’ levels of understanding... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010113 (2013)] Published Fri Apr 5, 2013
Jon D. H. Gaffney
To address a perennial need to provide K-8 teachers with a solid foundation in science, there are many physics content courses throughout the United States. One such course is Physics and Astronomy for Teachers (PAT), which relies heavily on active-learning strategies. Although PAT is successful in ... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010112 (2013)] Published Fri Apr 5, 2013
Paul W. Irving, Mathew Sandy Martinuk, and Eleanor C. Sayre
We use epistemological framing to interpret participants’ behavior during group problem-solving sessions in an intermediate mechanics course. We are interested in how students frame discussion and in how the groups shift discussion framings. Our analysis includes two framing axes, expansive vs narro... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010111 (2013)] Published Thu Apr 4, 2013
Ping Zhang and Lin Ding
This paper reports a cross-grade comparative study of Chinese precollege students’ epistemological beliefs about physics by using the Colorado Learning Attitudes Survey about Sciences (CLASS). Our students of interest are middle and high schoolers taking traditional lecture-based physics as a mandat... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010110 (2013)] Published Mon Apr 1, 2013
Emily A. West, Cassandra A. Paul, David Webb, and Wendell H. Potter
The physics instruction at UC Davis for life science majors takes place in a long-standing reformed large-enrollment physics course in which the discussion or laboratory instructors (primarily graduate student teaching assistants) implement the interactive-engagement (IE) elements of the course. Bec... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010109 (2013)] Published Fri Mar 22, 2013
Ying Chen, Paul W. Irving, and Eleanor C. Sayre
Previous research into problem solving in physics resulted in researchers introducing six epistemic games to describe the organizational structures of locally coherent resources. We present a new epistemic game—the “answer-making epistemic game”—which was identified in this paper through the analysi... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010108 (2013)] Published Thu Mar 14, 2013
Thomas Wemyss and Paul van Kampen
We have investigated the various approaches taken by first-year university students (n≈550) when asked to determine the direction of motion, the constancy of speed, and a numerical value of the speed of an object at a point on a numerical linear distance-time graph. We investigated the prevalence of... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010107 (2013)] Published Fri Feb 15, 2013
Mila Kryjevskaia, MacKenzie R. Stetzer, and Paula R. L. Heron
In a previous paper that focused on the transmission of periodic waves at the boundary between two media, we documented difficulties with the basic concepts of wavelength, frequency, and propagation speed, and with the relationship v=fλ. In this paper, we report on student attempts to apply this rel... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010106 (2013)] Published Fri Feb 15, 2013
Michael M. Hull, Eric Kuo, Ayush Gupta, and Andrew Elby
Much research in engineering and physics education has focused on improving students’ problem-solving skills. This research has led to the development of step-by-step problem-solving strategies and grading rubrics to assess a student’s expertise in solving problems using these strategies. These rubr... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010105 (2013)] Published Mon Feb 11, 2013
Antti Savinainen, Asko Mäkynen, Pasi Nieminen, and Jouni Viiri
Earlier research has shown that after physics instruction, many students have difficulties with the force concept, and with constructing free-body diagrams (FBDs). It has been suggested that treating forces as interactions could help students to identify forces as well as to construct the correct FB... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010104 (2013)] Published Thu Jan 24, 2013
Raluca E. Teodorescu, Cornelius Bennhold, Gerald Feldman, and Larry Medsker
This paper describes research on a classification of physics problems in the context of introductory physics courses. This classification, called the Taxonomy of Introductory Physics Problems (TIPP), relates physics problems to the cognitive processes required to solve them. TIPP was created in orde... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010103 (2013)] Published Thu Jan 10, 2013
V. Nivalainen, M. A. Asikainen, and P. E. Hirvonen
This study explores third-year preservice physics teachers’ (n=32) views concerning the objectives of practical work at school and university. Content analysis of their essays about practical work revealed not only the objectives of the practical work undertaken but also how they had experienced tea... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010102 (2013)] Published Mon Jan 7, 2013
Guangtian Zhu and Chandralekha Singh
We describe the difficulties advanced undergraduate and graduate students have with concepts related to addition of angular momentum in quantum mechanics. We also describe the development and implementation of a research-based learning tool, Quantum Interactive Learning Tutorial (QuILT), to reduce t... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 9, 010101 (2013)] Published Mon Jan 7, 2013
Anthony J. Bendinelli and M. Marder
We use visualization to find patterns in educational data. We represent student scores from high-stakes exams as flow vectors in fluids, define two types of streamlines and trajectories, and show that differences between streamlines and trajectories are due to regression to the mean. This issue is s... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 020119 (2012)] Published Fri Dec 21, 2012
Andrew Pawl, Analia Barrantes, David E. Pritchard, and Rudolph Mitchell
We have given a group of 56 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) seniors who took mechanics as freshmen a written test similar to the final exam they took in their freshman course as well as the Mechanics Baseline Test (MBT) and the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS). St... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 020118 (2012)] Published Mon Dec 10, 2012
Mieke De Cock
In this paper, we examine student success on three variants of a test item given in different representational formats (verbal, pictorial, and graphical), with an isomorphic problem statement. We confirm results from recent papers where it is mentioned that physics students’ problem-solving competen... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 020117 (2012)] Published Thu Nov 15, 2012
Steven F. Wolf, Daniel P. Dougherty, and Gerd Kortemeyer
A seminal study by Chi et al. firmly established the paradigm that novices categorize physics problems by “surface features” (e.g., “incline,” “pendulum,” “projectile motion,” etc.), while experts use “deep structure” (e.g., “energy conservation,” “Newton 2,” etc.). Yet, efforts to replicate the stu... [Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 8, 020116 (2012)] Published Mon Nov 12, 2012
Papers recently accepted for publication in Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (view more).
ARTICLES
Maja Planinic, Lana Ivanjek, Ana Susac, and Zeljka Milin-Sipus
Accepted Thu May 16, 2013
Adrian Madsen, Amy Rouinfar, Adam M. Larson, Lester C. Loschky, and N. Sanjay Rebello
Accepted Thu May 16, 2013
Bashirah Ibrahim and N. Sanjay Rebello
Accepted Tue May 14, 2013
Angela M. Kelly
Accepted Tue May 14, 2013
Rachel E. Scherr, Hunter G. Close, Eleanor W. Close, Virginia J. Flood, Sarah B. McKagan, Amy D. Robertson, Lane Seeley, Michael C. Wittmann, and Stamatis Vokos
Accepted Mon Apr 22, 2013
Edit Yerushalmi and Bat-Sheva Eylon
Accepted Mon Oct 22, 2012
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