I share some personal thoughts on the status of Portuguese secondary education in general, and of the physics part thereof in particular, drawn from several decades of experience of organizing training activities for students and school teachers, as well as several hundred visits to secondary schools and similar numbers of interviews of secondary school students (from Portugal and elsewhere). I offer various suggestions for improving and modernising our current system.
Russell Swinburne Romine, Jonathan Schuster, Meagan Karvonen
et al.
This paper describes large, fine-grained, intentionally inclusive, research-based cognitive models called learning maps. Learning maps are the product of an intensive research synthesis process to develop formal learning models that better reflect the diversity of how learners can learn and be assessed on academic content. Students begin at different places and learn at different rates, and they may have cognitive disabilities or may face a variety of barriers that pose challenges when learning content. Learning maps provide numerous starting points and pathways by which students can acquire and demonstrate knowledge, skills, and understandings. Our work in developing learning maps relies on principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which provides a foundation of flexibility and inclusivity to accommodate students with a wide range of cognitive, linguistic, physical, and sensory profiles. In this paper, we describe learning map design, development, and both qualitative and quantitative methods for the evaluation of map structure. In addition, we offer reflections on our experiences with implementing learning maps as the cognitive architecture for assessments and educational interventions through our work on a variety of projects. With examples from these projects, we describe evidence that shows how learning maps can be useful tools for improving instruction and assessment for all learners. We identify areas where further research and inquiry could prove fruitful and conclude with a discussion of potential areas of extension and offer suggestions for the ongoing refinement of learning maps.
Shahin Hossain, Shapla Khanam, Samaa Haniya
et al.
This study presents a cross-national quantitative analysis of how university students in the United States and Bangladesh interact with Large Language Models (LLMs). Based on an online survey of 318 students, results show that LLMs enhance access to information, improve writing, and boost academic performance. However, concerns about overreliance, ethical risks, and critical thinking persist. Guided by the AI Literacy Framework, Expectancy-Value Theory, and Biggs' 3P Model, the study finds that motivational beliefs and technical competencies shape LLM engagement. Significant correlations were found between LLM use and perceived literacy benefits (r = .59, p < .001) and optimism (r = .41, p < .001). ANOVA results showed more frequent use among U.S. students (F = 7.92, p = .005) and STEM majors (F = 18.11, p < .001). Findings support the development of ethical, inclusive, and pedagogically sound frameworks for integrating LLMs in higher education.
Conrad Borchers, Xiaoyi Tian, Kristy Elizabeth Boyer
et al.
Project-based learning plays a crucial role in computing education. However, its open-ended nature makes tracking project development and assessing success challenging. We investigate how dialogue and system interaction logs predict project quality during collaborative, project-based AI learning of 94 middle school students working in pairs. We used linguistic features from dialogue transcripts and behavioral features from system logs to predict three project quality outcomes: productivity (number of training phrases), content richness (word density), and lexical variation (word diversity) of chatbot training phrases. We compared the predictive accuracy of each modality and a fusion of the modalities. Results indicate log data better predicts productivity, while dialogue data is more effective for content richness. Both modalities modestly predict lexical variation. Multimodal fusion improved predictions for productivity and lexical variation of training phrases but not content richness. These findings suggest that the value of multimodal fusion depends on the specific learning outcome. The study contributes to multimodal learning analytics by demonstrating the nuanced interplay between behavioral and linguistic data in assessing student learning progress in open-ended AI learning environments.
Generative AI has recently had a profound impact on various fields, including daily life, research, and education. To explore its efficient utilization in data-driven materials science, we organized a hackathon -- AIMHack2024 -- in July 2024. In this hackathon, researchers from fields such as materials science, information science, bioinformatics, and condensed matter physics worked together to explore how generative AI can facilitate research and education. Based on the results of the hackathon, this paper presents topics related to (1) conducting AI-assisted software trials, (2) building AI tutors for software, and (3) developing GUI applications for software. While generative AI continues to evolve rapidly, this paper provides an early record of its application in data-driven materials science and highlights strategies for integrating AI into research and education.
El presente texto muestra el desarrollo y la evaluación de un proceso educativo con profesores de matemáticas en formación, centrado en el uso de estrategias didácticas con características inductivas, en el marco de la
asignatura Matemáticas y Física de la Licenciatura en Enseñanza de las Matemáticas de la Universidad de Colima,
México. La experiencia incluye a 19 estudiantes que han tenido formación disciplinar en matemáticas y dominan el conocimiento procedimental y el lenguaje algebraico que implica la física en los niveles básicos, pero con poco acercamiento al conocimiento conceptual, tanto de física clásica como de física moderna. Bajo este principio, el curso se centró en la reflexión y la resolución de problemas. Desde esta lógica, la propuesta incluyó buscar,
tanto el dominio procedimental como conceptual, siendo este último el objetivo central de esta investigación.
Los métodos inductivos incluyeron la utilización de materiales audiovisuales y lecturas que van en un sentido de divulgación. Los resultados de sus trabajos muestran que, sin omitir un proceso formativo de corte más tradicional, como la resolución de problemas o libros de texto de física clásicos, la incorporación de estrategias inductivas sobre las particularidades de conceptos como “movimiento” o “luz” permite una comprensión más profunda de principios fundamentales, siendo un complemento funcional para una formación más integral.
Chanisra Suebbook, Raiwada Sanguantrakul Teeracharoensub, Pongtong Puranitee
et al.
Purpose To develop a culturally and locally validated and reliable questionnaire for clinical teacher evaluation containing constructs specific to the Thai resident learning context. Methods We followed seven steps for developing questionnaires for educational research. We generated a list of good clinical teacher attributes from a literature review and focus groups. The Delphi procedure was employed to identify the desirable characteristics for residents, involving three stakeholder groups. The content validity index (CVI) of each item was calculated. The average CVI across the items was greater than 0.8, indicating an acceptable level of reliability. Residents then underwent cognitive interviews before pilot testing of the questionnaire. Construct validity was examined using exploratory factor analysis. Reliability was measured using Cronbach’s alpha analysis. Results We identified 44 key clinical teacher characteristics through a literature review and focus groups. After two rounds of the Delphi procedure (35 panelists), 23 characteristics were selected. An initial 23-item questionnaire was developed with a high CVI score. A total of 216 completed questionnaires evaluating 36 clinical teachers were analyzed. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a two-factor model within a 20-item questionnaire. The clinical facilitator domain contained 14 items. The professional identity support domain included six items. Cronbach’s alpha of the model was 0.976. Conclusion A clinical teacher evaluation questionnaire for Thai residents was developed with robust validity and reliability. This validated tool not only allows systematic assessment and improvement of clinical teaching but also provides a replicable framework for developing culturally adapted teacher evaluation instruments in other settings.
Fredy A Orjuela, Jorge Enrique García-Farieta, Héctor J Hortúa
et al.
In recent years, science simulations have become popular among educators due to their educational usefulness, availability, and potential for increasing the students' knowledge on scientific topics. In this paper, we introduce the implementation of a user-friendly simulation based on Easy Java/JavaScript Simulations (EJS) to study the problem of damped oscillations in U-tubes. Furthermore, we illustrate various advantages associated with the capabilities of EJS in terms of design and usability in order to encourage teachers to use it as an educational supplement to physics laboratories.
Tatjana Zähringer, Raimund Girwidz, Andreas Müller
Pictures in physics education go beyond instructional functions and serve affective roles, such as attracting attention, creating fascination, and fostering engagement with the depicted content. Recognizing the importance of these affective functions highlights the need to understand and utilize aesthetic pictures in a research-based educational environment. Prior research suggests that aesthetic and affective attractiveness in pictures enhances enjoyment and engagement with the physics content. This paper offers three main contributions: Firstly, it conceptualizes and presents research-based criteria for selecting pictures perceived as aesthetically pleasing, drawing on insights from psychology and physics education research. Following these criteria, aesthetic pictures related to a given curricular content can be selected. Secondly, the paper applies these criteria to selecting pictures showing geometrical optics. It then delves into an evaluation of students' aesthetic and affective perception of the selected pictures. A validated instrument measured these responses, showing strong reliability (aesthetic perception: $α_C$ = 0.87 [0.85, 0.89]; affective perception: $α_C$ = 0.82 [0.80, 0.85]). Thirdly, it combines decorative and instructional functions in tasks and compares students' perceptions of aesthetic pictures (AP) and classroom experiment pictures (CEP) in junior high school ($N$ = 118), using a crossover design. Results indicated significantly better aesthetic and affective evaluations for APs, with large effect sizes (AP vs. CEP, aesthetic and affective perception: $d$ = 1.05 - 1.56 and 0.85 - 1.48, respectively). We conclude that the here developed and investigated criteria are useful for selecting aesthetic and affective pictures. This provides a basis for further leveraging their educational potential to create fascination and engagement in science education.
Educational scholars have analyzed various image data acquired from teaching and learning situations, such as photos that shows classroom dynamics, students' drawings with regard to the learning content, textbook illustrations, etc. Unquestioningly, most qualitative analysis of and explanation on image data have been conducted by human researchers, without machine-based automation. It was partially because most image processing artificial intelligence models were not accessible to general educational scholars or explainable due to their complex deep neural network architecture. However, the recent development of Visual Question Answering (VQA) techniques is accomplishing usable visual language models, which receive from the user a question about the given image and returns an answer, both in natural language. Particularly, GPT-4V released by OpenAI, has wide opened the state-of-the-art visual langauge model service so that VQA could be used for a variety of purposes. However, VQA and GPT-4V have not yet been applied to educational studies much. In this position paper, we suggest that GPT-4V contributes to realizing VQA for education. By 'realizing' VQA, we denote two meanings: (1) GPT-4V realizes the utilization of VQA techniques by any educational scholars without technical/accessibility barrier, and (2) GPT-4V makes educational scholars realize the usefulness of VQA to educational research. Given these, this paper aims to introduce VQA for educational studies so that it provides a milestone for educational research methodology. In this paper, chapter II reviews the development of VQA techniques, which primes with the release of GPT-4V. Chapter III reviews the use of image analysis in educational studies. Chapter IV demonstrates how GPT-4V can be used for each research usage reviewed in Chapter III, with operating prompts provided. Finally, chapter V discusses the future implications.
Jannik Henze, André Bresges, Sebastian Becker-Genschow
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in physics education enables novel approaches to data analysis and conceptual learning. A comparative analysis of AI-supported and traditional Excel-based methods reveals distinct strengths and limitations in fostering understanding of pendulum experiments. This study explores the integration of AI-assisted tools, such as a custom chatbot based on ChatGPT, and traditional Excel-based methods in physics education, revealing that while both approaches produce comparable quantitative learning gains, AI tools provide significant qualitative advantages. These include enhanced emotional engagement and higher motivation, highlighting the potential of AI to create a more positive and supportive learning environment. Adaptive AI technologies offer significant promise in supporting structured, data-intensive tasks, emphasizing the necessity for thoughtfully balanced integration into educational practices.
On January 1, 2024 at 16:10:09 JST, an Mj 7.6 earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in the southern part of the Sea of Japan. This location has been experiencing an earthquake swarm for more than three years. Here, we provide an overview of this earthquake, focusing on the slip distribution of the mainshock and its relationship with the preceding swarm. We also reexamined the source areas of other large earthquakes that occurred around the Sea of Japan in the past and compared them with the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in central Japan from 1964 to 1968. The difference between the Matsushiro earthquake swarm and the Noto earthquake swarm is the surrounding stress field. The Matsushiro earthquake swarm was a strike-slip stress field, so the cracks in the crust were oriented vertically. This allowed fluids seeped from the depths to rise and flow out to the surface. On the other hand, the Noto area was a reverse fault stress field. Therefore, the cracks in the earth's crust were oriented horizontally. Fluids flowing underground in deep areas could not rise and spread over a wide area in the horizontal plane. This may have caused a large amount of fluid to accumulate underground, triggering a large earthquake. Although our proposed mechanism does not take into account other complex geological conditions into consideration, it may provide a simple way to explain why the Noto swarm is followed by a large earthquake while other swarms are not.
Geophysics. Cosmic physics, Dynamic and structural geology
A UserWay study in 2021 indicates that an annual global e-commerce revenue loss of approximately $16 billion can be attributed to inaccessible websites and applications. According to the 2023 WebAIM study, only 3.7% of the world's top one million website homepages are fully accessible. This shows that many software developers use poor coding practices that don't adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This research centers on software professionals and their role in addressing accessibility. This work seeks to understand (a) who within the software development community actively practices accessibility, (b) when and how accessibility is considered in the software development lifecycle, (c) the various challenges encountered in building accessible software, and (d) the resources required by software professionals to enhance product accessibility. Our survey of 269 software professionals from India sheds light on the pressing need for accessibility education within the software industry. A substantial majority (69.9%, N=269) of respondents express the need for training materials, workshops, and bootcamps to enhance their accessibility skills. We present a list of actionable recommendations that can be implemented within the industry to promote accessibility awareness and skills. We also open source our raw data for further research, encouraging continued exploration in this domain.
For the past 100 years, Turkishwomen have had the opportunity to obtain an education and enter the labor force due to the democratic regime established in 1923. Despite some economic and social barriers, they have taken advantage of these opportunities and advanced in their careers to some extent. However, as with all women around the world, they face barriers in their career paths. This study aims to analyze the scientific research studies on the glass ceiling syndrome conducted in Türkiye to gain detailed insights into people’s perception of the glass ceiling and capture their perspectives on the factors that contribute to it. This is a meta-synthesis study aimed at conducting a systematic review of selected qualitative studies and integrating their findings. A systematic search was conducted across local academic databases, namely, Dergipark and Tubitak Ulakbim-Equal. MAXQDA2022 software was used to code and analyze the articles. The factors forming glass ceiling defined by the studies were renamed as 18 subthemes in total and classified under three themes: (1) personal factors, (2) sociocultural factors and (3) organizational factors. Although the role of motherhood and work life balance was found to be the most frequently referred factor, some current research revealed that not only women but also men experience this syndrome in Türkiye, despite the patriarchal culture of the country. The study’s limitations are noted, and the implications and future research directions are discussed.
Malikasab Bagawan, Suresh T. Dundur, Rajesh Gurani
et al.
AbstractElastomers are the class of materials that are widely used in a variety of industrial, commercial, and consumer applications due to their unique mechanical properties, including high elasticity, high flexibility, and high resilience. However, there are many challenges in machining of elastomers such as poor surface finish, build up of heat, degradation of elastomers, etc. To overcome these challenges, cryogenic cooling assistance has been introduced as a means of improving the machinability of elastomers. This paper presents a soft computing approach for optimizing the surface roughness and cutting force during turning of elastomers under different lubrication conditions. Three types of elastomers, namely Nitrile Rubber (NBR), Polyurethane Rubber (PU), and Neoprene Rubber (CR), are studied, and a cryogenic fluid delivery system is employed to improve the machining process. Taguchi’s L27 array is used to vary the input parameters, and a Back-Propagation Artificial Neural Network (BPANN) model is developed to predict the cutting force and surface roughness. The cutting force and surface roughness are analyzed under different cooling conditions, cutting speeds, feeds, and depths of cut for various elastomers. The results show that changes in cutting conditions significantly affect the cutting force and that the type of lubrication used affects the cutting force by altering the material’s physical properties. Cutting force is significantly influenced by cutting conditions, and NBR requires the highest cutting force compared to PU and CR. Further, at a cutting speed of 55 m/min, a feed of 0.11 mm/rev, and a depth of cut of 0.25 mm, the cutting force for NBR (85.1 N), while for PU (75.1 N) and CR (80.3 N), respectively. Finally, with LN2 lubrication conditions, the Cutting Force decreased by 45% and Surface Roughness decreased by 16.9%. This study provides insights into the factors affecting the elastomer machining process, which can be useful for optimizing the machining process parameters and improving machining efficiency.
Zhuzhu Qin,1,* Xinxin Ye,2,* Huanju Liu,3 Yining Tao,4 Xutong Zheng,1 Yanxia Zhong,5 Danfeng Chen,1 Wan Ye,6 Chenju Zhan7 1School of Nursing, Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Fuzhou, Fujian, China; 2Department of Sports and Exercise Science, College of Education, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China; 3Women’s Hospital and Institute of Genetics, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China; 4Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; 5Department of Nursing, Shijiazhuang Medical College, Shijiazhuang, China; 6Department of Nursing, Xiamen Medical College, Xiamen, Fujian, China; 7Department of Nursing, Mindong Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, Ningde, China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Wan Ye, Department of Nursing, Xiamen Medical College, Xiamen, Fujian, China, Tel +86 13806086169, Email 200600010142@xmmc.edu.cn Chenju Zhan, Department of Nursing, Mindong Hospital Affiliated to Fujian Medical University, No. 89 HeShan Road, Fuan City, Fujian Province, 355000, China, Tel +86 13809562183, Email zhanchenju@yeah.netObjective: This study investigated factors influencing the knowledge, attitudes, practice profiles, and vaccination intentions among Chinese nursing students and nursing interns toward the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination.Materials and Methods: The multicenter cross-sectional study was based on a self-reported questionnaire collecting information among nursing students and nursing interns from three major geographic regions of China, and the sample was selected by consecutive sampling. The questionnaire was developed by knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) theory. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression were used for statistical analysis.Results: A total of 3180 nursing students and interns (effective rate: 99.8%) from six Chinese provinces were polled. The vaccine hesitation rate was 9.65% (307/3180), 2230 participants (70.1%) had gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, and 643 participants (67.7%) had indicated a readiness to be vaccinated. The results showed that older age, higher academic background, perfect vaccine management, others’ recommendations, influenza vaccination history, epidemic under control, knowledge of vaccines or intervals, and vaccine knowledge training were associated with higher vaccination rates. Conversely, vaccine hesitancy was caused by a perceived lack of physical need, uncertainty about vaccination requirements, and fear of vaccination.Conclusion: This study provided population-based estimates of COVID-19 vaccine uptake intention among mainland Chinese nursing students and interns. Factors such as age, education, vaccine knowledge, and attitudes influence COVID-19 vaccine behaviour. Relevant authorities should understand the barriers to COVID-19 vaccination from knowledge, attitude and practice, which is significant for formulating effective response strategies in future global public health crises.Graphical Abstract: Keywords: COVID-19, vaccine, knowledge, attitudes, practice, nursing students and interns
The pursuit of knowledge in particle physics requires constant learning. As new tools become available, new theories are developed, and physicists search for new answers with ever-evolving methods. However, it is the case that formal educational systems serve as the primary training grounds for particle physicists. Graduate school (and undergraduate school to a lesser extent) is where researchers learn most of the technical skills required for research, develop scientific problem-solving abilities, learn how to establish themselves in their field, and begin developing their career. It is unfortunate, then, that the skills gained by physicists during their formal education are often mismatched with the skills actually required for a successful career in physics. We performed a survey of the U.S. particle physics community to determine the missing elements of graduate and undergraduate education and to gauge how to bridge these gaps. In this contributed paper, part of the 2021-22 Snowmass Community Planning Exercise, we report the results of this survey. We also recommend several specific community actions to improve the quality of particle physics education; the "community" here refers to physics departments, national labs, professional societies, funding agencies, and individual physicists.
Green building technologies (GBTs) have gained significant momentum as a result of the environmental, energy management and societal problems within the building sector. The insulated block/eco-block is a GBT, which consists of an insulation material that prevents hot/cold air to enter inside buildings, conserve energy and improve indoor comfort in comparison to conventional block. However, conventional building techniques are still dominant in developing countries due to a lack of people's knowledge about GBT, poor interaction with building experts and low support from policymakers. Public acceptance of the eco-block technology is essential for its successful introduction into society. This paper is the first one to systematically review 45 peer-reviewed articles in this field of study with a focus on eco-block. Recent publications have extended theoretical models like (TPB, TAM, DOI, VBN and UTAUT) to study green building consumption. Lack of subjective knowledge about eco-block, lack of trust in the suppliers of eco-block, high price sensitivity, poor education and low-income households are recognised as the major barriers to the technology adoption. The contribution of the paper lies in establishing an original adoption decision framework that groups together a set of (contextual factors, psychological factors and demographic factors) to fill the research gap. The adoption framework could eventually assist the construction experts to analyse the different stages involved in the residents' decision to adopt the eco-block building technology. The paper culminates with a discussion on the application of the conceptual framework as a reference in future GBT usage.
Renewable energy sources, Environmental engineering
Porcine epidemic diarrhoea virus (PEDV) is a member of the genus Alphacoronavirus in the family Coronaviridae. It causes acute watery diarrhoea and vomiting in piglets with high a mortality rate. Currently, the GII genotype, PEDV, possesses a high separation rate in wild strains and is usually reported in immunity failure cases, which indicates a need for a portable and sensitive detection method. Here, reverse transcription–recombinase aided amplification (RT-RAA) was combined with the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR)/Cas12a system to establish a multiplexable, rapid and portable detection platform for PEDV. The CRISPR RNA (crRNA) against Spike (S) gene of GII PEDV specifically were added into the protocol. This system is suitable for different experimental conditions, including ultra-sensitive fluorescence, visual, UV light, or flow strip detection. Moreover, it exhibits high sensitivity and specificity and can detect at least 100 copies of the target gene in each reaction. The CRISPR/Cas12a detection platform requires less time and represents a rapid, reliable and practical tool for the rapid diagnosis of GII genotype PEDV.
Oyun üzerine yapılan pek çok çalışmanın sonucunda erken çocukluk döneminde oyunun önemi kabul edilmiştir. Ancak oyun, son yıllarda, birçok ülkede sadece iç mekanda gerçekleşen bir süreç gibi algılanmaktadır. Dolayısıyla oyunu destekleyen ve oyun için elverişli ortamlara ilişkin düzenlemelerin ve ölçütlerin çoğu, iç mekan gözetilerek yapılmaktadır. Bu durumun doğal bir sonucu olarak erken çocukluk eğitimi kurumlarının dış mekanları ve dış mekan oyunlarını inceleyen çalışmalar çarpıcı sonuçlar ortaya koymuşlardır. Örneğin bu çalışmalar, dış mekanların çoğunlukla çocukları işlevsel/fonksiyonel oyuna yönlendiren ve fiziksel gelişimi destekleyen sabit oyun donanımlarından oluştuğunu ve serbest parçalar (loose parts) olarak belirtilebilecek, çocuğun kendi ilgi ve gereksinimleri doğrultusunda, amacına uygun veya amacı dışında kullanabileceği materyallerden yoksun oyun alanları olduğunu belirtmişlerdir. Bu nedenle dış mekanların, sahip olduğu potansiyeli ortaya çıkarabilecek biçimde ve yapı-inşa oyunları, dramatik oyunlar, kurallı oyunlar, birlikte oyun, işbirlikçi oyun gibi oyunlara yönelik olarak tasarlanmasına gereksinim vardır. Ancak yapılacak tasarım kadar tasarımın etkililiğini arttıracak veya azaltacak etkenlerin belirlenip gerekli düzenlemelerin yapılması da önemlidir. Bu nedenle bu çalışmada var olan bilgi birikiminden yararlanılarak dünyada ve Türkiye’de dış mekanlar ve dış mekan oyunlarına ilişkin çalışmaların sentezlenmesi amaçlanmış ve bu sentez doğrultusunda gerek tasarımcılara gerekse araştırmacı ve uygulayıcılara rehber olması düşünülen birtakım temel ilkeler ortaya koyulmuştur.