Physical Review Physics Education Research

When students leave physics exam problems blank, assigning a grade of zero may unintentionally exacerbate equity gaps; this retrospective study shows that uncompleted test item rates vary significantly by students’ race/ethnicity and first-generation status.

A new study evaluating nearly 1,000 handwritten physics exam solutions reveals that while out-of-the-box text embeddings can cluster similar responses, they rely too heavily on surface features to be used for automated grading.

High school students’ willingness to use generative AI for physics learning depends not only on how easy and useful they find the technology, but heavily relies on their subject-specific confidence, values, and perceived costs regarding physics itself.

A comprehensive cross-cohort study reveals that most students’ interest in physics is driven by relatable contexts rather than the content itself, offering educators a clear framework to design more engaging lessons.

Using in-depth, task-based think-aloud interviews and 3D materials, researchers uncover the specific, often hidden alternative mental models high school students use to explain the Sun’s apparent motion.

By introducing a unified “Encoding-Evolution-Readout-Estimation” schema, this study demonstrates how to successfully bridge classical and quantum concepts to cultivate cross-disciplinary measurement literacy in physics and engineering students.

Through think-aloud interviews, this study explores how students learn quantum computing, identifying three key cognitive resources they activate and occasionally misapply when reasoning about the CNOT gate.

An evaluation of introductory physics courses utilizing SCALE-UP, ISLE, and Tutorials finds no clear relationship between an instructor’s fidelity of implementation—measured via classroom observation networks—and their students’ conceptual learning gains.

Interviews with physicists teaching a master’s program reveal a framework for the math-physics interplay, highlighting how mathematical conflicts can drive scientific discovery.

Moving beyond the traditional coherence-versus-fragmentation debate, this study shows that combining cognitive and sociocultural theoretical models creates a richer, highly nuanced map of a student’s evolving understanding of the Earth-Moon-Sun system.

Distance-learning students in astrophysics and space science report that online team-working activities provide valuable preparation for future employment, despite experiencing anxieties about unequal contributions and participation in group assessments.

A field study of ninth-grade physics students shows that interactive AI chatbots and tiered support significantly reduce perceived cognitive load compared to traditional textbook explanations.

Discover how physics teaching assistants frequently overestimate the conceptual errors of introductory students and how this impacts classroom instruction.

The first comprehensive map of the U.S. graduate quantum curriculum reveals that while core quantum topics are highly standardized, access to essential Quantum Field Theory courses is largely dependent on a program’s size and research classification.

Generative AI-mediated Socratic dialogue enhances critical thinking in kinematics, driving consistent improvements in student rubric scores and self-efficacy.

An in-depth phenomenological analysis of an online project-based physics course reveals how preservice teachers’ individual character traits deeply shape their self-efficacy and professional growth.

A case study using the Physics Measurement Questionnaire reveals that while preceding a closed-response question with an open-response prompt does not alter students’ final selections, the two formats measure fundamentally different aspects of student reasoning.