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Objective: The aim of the paper is to present the results of the study of students’ attitudes towards physics and their relationship with the acquisition of concepts in physics. Subjects and Methods: Eighty-nine students of the first year of undergraduate studies in physiotherapy at the Faculty of Health Studies, University of Rijeka, participated in the study. This study was preceded by a survey of seventh and eighth grade students of an elementary school in Rijeka (N=92). The questionnaire contained statements expressing the attitude of the surveyed students towards physics. The second part of the questionnaire consisted of statements that included common misconceptions in physics. We divided the misconceptions into those that arise from the linguistic mixing of terms from everyday life and science, those that result from the use of incorrect assumptions to explain everyday experiences, and those that are based on a misunderstanding of scientific terms and concepts. Results: Students have predominantly neutral attitudes toward physics. There is a statistically significant difference in the prevalence of misconceptions according to the cause of their occurrence (chi-square; P<0.001). The most prevalent misconceptions were those arising from the identification of expressions used in everyday life and science, the so-called jargon misconceptions (58% of cases). The influence of student attitudes on the frequency of misconceptions proved statistically significant for attitudes indicating that respondents focus more on memorising data and quantitative manipulations than on successfully acquiring scientific terms and concepts. Conclusions: The application of advanced technologies in therapy and diagnostics in the context of medical care indicates an increasing need for physics knowledge among students in health and medical programmes. Students are aware of the importance of physics to their education and, for the most part, do not have negative attitudes toward physics. Certain types of misconceptions persist throughout the educational process. Therefore, the emergence of unscientific concepts should be prevented, but if they already exist, they should be identified as early as possible and active efforts should be made to eliminate them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Epistemic emotions are typically assessed as a momentary state related to a specific task, while in this study, the aim was to develop a new trait-oriented instruction in the Epistemically-Related Emotion Scales in the context of physics. The Scale measures seven well-established epistemic emotions in academic context, i.e., surprise, curiosity, enjoyment, confusion, anxiety, frustration and boredom. We conducted two studies (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) with 8th-grade students from elementary schools utilising a mixed-method approach. Qualitative analysis indicated a wide range of learning situations in physics in which students typically experience epistemic emotions. Based on those findings, we implemented newly developed trait-oriented instruction of the Scale in the quantitative study. While examining the structural validity of the Scale, the results of confirmatory factor analysis showed unexpected results (i.e., the three negative activating epistemic emotions formed one instead of three separate latent factors). Besides this, the Scale had good criterion validity. The results pointed to the important implications for the application of the Scale. Although the Scale showed adequate psychometric properties for assessing epistemic emotions in a traitoriented approach, the unexpected factorial structure of the Scale should be tested in further research to examine if the reason was the adolescent age of the participants or the results would be the same with students of different age. This study contributed to the existing literature and empirical data about students’ academic emotions by broadening the research on the important, and highly unexplored group of emotions, i.e., the epistemic emotions in a trait-oriented approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research continuously shows that interest, motivation, and engagement in learning physics decline with years of schooling. Some research show that the decline in interest in learning physics begins at the beginning of formal education in physics, so the aim of this research was to examine the determinants of motivation and engagement in learning of students who are just encountering the subject of physics. Engagement in learning is an objective manifestation of motivation, and according to most authors, it consists of behavioural (attention, concentration, and perseverance), cognitive (learning with understanding) and emotional (positive emotions during learning) aspects. According to the contextual model of school engagement, students’ motivational beliefs mediate the relationship between contextual factors and engagement in learning. Structural equation modelling was used to test the mediating role of students’ motivational beliefs (self-efficacy, interest, utility, and attainment) in the relationship between three aspects of the teacher’s motivating style (involvement, autonomy, and structure) and three aspects of engagement in learning physic (behavioural, cognitive, and emotional). The participants were 595 7th-grade students from ten elementary schools in Zagreb with an average age of 13 (51% girls). The results of the research are in line with the theoretical model, and they showed that the most important mediator was the interest in physics that mediated the relationship between teacher involvement and structure and behavioural and emotional engagement in learning physics. Self-efficacy beliefs and utility mediated the relationship between teacher provision of autonomy and cognitive engagement in physics. The results have theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to examine relations between achievement goals, learning strategies and grades in high school physics class. Achievement goals represent an important motivational construct that has been developed within the theories of the self-regulatory learning and are connected to various educational outcomes, for instance, learning strategies and grades. The study was conducted on 208 second- and third-grade grammar school students. In order to examine the above-mentioned variables, the study used: Achievement Goal Questionnaire (Elliot & McGregor, 2001) which contains 12 items and measures four achievement goals: mastery approach, mastery avoidance, performance approach, and performance avoidance; Learning Strategies Scale (Lončarić, 2014) which contains 39 items and measures three learning strategy subscales: cycles of metacognitive control, deep cognitive processing, and surface cognitive processing. Class success criterion was previous year's physics grade. The relations between variables were verified by path analysis method. The study greatly confirmed anticipated relations (based on previous research). The achievement goals with approach tendencies have significantly positive effect on preferable educational outcomes. Achievement goals with avoidance tendencies are positively connected to surface processing. The results also confirmed the mediating effect of learning strategies in relation to mastery-approach goals and physics grades. This study emphasizes the necessity to direct students to learn in order to acquire the knowledge and competencies, and encourage the use of metacognitive strategies. This study, also, indicates some potential problems within the educational system (for instance, the absence of significant effect of the deep cognitive processing on the physics grades) which suggest the need for further research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Capnography is an essential part and standard monitoring tool during the perioperative period, which can be invaluable in detecting anaesthetic equipment malfunction. Case report. The atypical, "tails- up" capnographic waveform was noticed during routine surgical operation. Comprehensive physico- mathematical and graphical explanation of this complex capnographic pattern has been given, together with in- depth analysis of possible differential diagnosis and clinical significance for routine clinical practice. Conclusion. "Tails-up" capnographic trace gives early clue to diagnosing and fixing the problem of cracks in sampling line, before leading to an inadequate course of action. The understanding of the physics and physiology behind capnography is of vital importance for the analysis of capnographic waveforms, for early detection of anaesthetic equipment malfunction and for safe clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of this study was to estimate the effect of the introduction of the State Graduation Exam and selected entrance criteria on the structure of enrolled students and their achievements in the acquisition of knowledge in physics. Subjects and methods: The investigation was conducted at the University of Rijeka and included students of the Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Health Studies. The total of 779 medical students, 237 students of physiotherapy and 100 students of radiological technology in the period from the academic year 2008/2009 to 2014/2015 participated in the study. Non-parametric tests Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA and the chi-square (c2) test were used for comparison. Results: Upon the introduction of the State Graduation Exam, the ratio of students from the Primorsko-goranska County and other counties has changed. The prevalence of students from Primorsko-goranska County enrolled in the study of medicine has been decreasing steadily, and it accounted for 19.4 % in the academic year 2012/2013. In the study of physiotherapy this percentage became equal, whereas the number of students enrolled in the study of radiological technology coming from other counties has always prevailed. Upon the introduction of the State Graduation Exam, in the study of medicine, the proportion of students who have completed secondary medical school was reduced to approximately 5 %. In the study of physiotherapy the number of students coming from the secondary medical school increased, and it amounted to 75 % and 78 % in the last two academic years respectively. The percentage of students enrolled in the study of radiological technology who have completed secondary medical schools before the State Graduation Exam was 100 % and 93 %, in the academic years (2008/2009, 2009/2010), but after the introduction of the State Graduation Exam the proportions varied depending on the changes in the entrance criteria in the range of 0 % in the academic year 2014/2015 to 66 % in the academic year 2012/2013. Conclusion: Our results showed that the selection and the achievements of students in exams depended significantly on the selection of entrance criteria. However, this study was conducted only in the physics courses and a further analysis involving other courses is needed to reach the final conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the relationship between the nature and its explanans natural sciences and political concepts, their trajectories of change, showing the impact of the changes in one for the other. It shows examples from the Ancient, Medieval and Modern political thought. It particularly focuses on crucial modern divide between politics and nature, whereby in contrast with prevailing attitude in literature shows how nature and natural concepts are deeply embedded in politics and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to draw the attention to the fact that the advances in physics are connected with the advances in technology, in particular with the advances in measuring techniques. The mathematical link between physics and measuring techniques is realized using automatic control as the common mathematical core between classical mechanics and the theories of measuring instruments. The reasons for the choice of Cermelo -- Fraenkel axiomatic set theory as the most adequate metatheory for the theories of physics and theories of techniques will be given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early decades of the Auersperg Princes' Library of Ljubljana are described. The special concern is put on the Count Volf Engelbert's and his brother Prince Janez Vajkard's scientific opinions at the mid-17th century. The catalogue of Auerspergs' philosophy-physics books has been researched. The importance and value of particular items is discussed in the light of old fashion Aristotelian physics of their student days, the influences of: Protestants which they both belonged to until their teenage years; the monks of different orders; the modern Academicians, especially Galileo's dei Lincei; and the magicians as predecessors of modern science. The Library has been used as the basis for the analysis of Auerspergs' early modern interests just after they returned to the Catholic faith. Some books of the former Ljubljanian library could be traced in different libraries in USA and Europe. The Auerspergs' library has been compared with other similar European 17th century libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I deal with the sense of mechanics in general, because it studies the values of the physical law as the regulation of nature, as the determination of the sense and evidence of gnoseological and ontological implications to make up the physical theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]