The American Physical Society (APS), publisher of the Physical Review journals, is joining more than 20,000 individuals and organizations across 160 countries in a commitment to improve how researchers and their contributions to the scientific record are evaluated. APS is proud to mark the 10th anniversary of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) by officially signing on to the international initiative.

Discussing the profiles of physicists from minoritized groups with high school students keeps students from such groups engaged in physics beyond school.

Synopsis on:
Geoff Potvin et al.
Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 19, 010126 (2023)

View an interview with PRX Life Lead Editor Margaret Gardel and Managing Editor Serena Bradde from the 2023 APS March Meeting for more information on the journal.

In the following special collection from Physical Review Physics Education Research, authors examine and highlight racial diversity, specifically how Black physicists and people of color navigate within the physics community at large.

Lead Editor, Charles Henderson, announces PRPER’s development of the Statistical Modeling Review Committee (SMRC) to help support high-quality statistical modeling techniques.

PRPER Lead Editor, Charles Henderson, and APS Editor in Chief, Michael Thoennessen, discuss the vital importance of offering an inclusive and welcoming environment to the physics community.

Saalih Allie is a Professor at the University of Cape Town, where he has held joint positions in the Department of Physics and the Academic Development Programme since 1986. He holds a PhD in experimental nuclear physics from the University of Cape Town and is presently Co-Director of the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP) in South Africa.

Physics is an experimental science. Instructional laboratories where students conduct experiments, analyze data, arrive at conclusions, and communicate findings have been around for over a century. Every physics department has labs of different levels: from introductory to advanced, for majors and nonmajors, with real equipment or virtual.

Physics Education Research (PER) uses various research methods classified under qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods. These approaches help researchers understand physics education phenomena and advance our efforts to produce better PER. Over time, research questions and contexts have evolved, and so have our methods. We understand it has come the time for PER scholars to examine qualitative methods in our field critically. Therefore, we urge you to contribute to the Focused Collection on Qualitative Methods in PER.

This Physical Review Physics Education Research (PRPER) Focused Collection was curated to bring to light curriculum design decisions and the factors that shape them. By making decisions about design explicit, we can better understand the contexts behind our research claims, hold curricula up to informed critique, and support new scholars as they undertake curriculum development.