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Students with visual impairment have the same range of mental abilities as their sighted peers. However, these students experience academic failure, especially in courses in which visual themes are dominant, as they cannot use their sense of sight to process information sufficiently. One of the courses that students with visual impairment have the most difficulty with is science as it contains many visual materials. This study aimed to determine whether students with visual impairment can learn the concept of sound insulation using tactile documents that highlight their haptic senses. The study was implemented in a state secondary school for the visually impaired, and 4 students with visual impairment (blind) participated in the activity. It was observed that all students actively participated during the exercise. The students stated that the practice was fun, instructive, and suitable for teaching the targeted concept.

Assistive technologies are frequently used to help disabled students to access core and expanded core curricula and to improve their functional, communication and literacy skills. Non-optical low vision devices and optical and tactile graphics technologies are some of the assistive technologies used by visually impaired students in today's classrooms. In this study, we used a smartphone app, a Braille printer, and the Braille Spotdot embosser to design and develop a science activity to teach the concept of constant speed to a visually impaired student and two non-impaired peers using the 5E instructional model. The goal of the activity was to help students develop such skills as defining a problem, designing an experiment, and drawing graphs as well as to learn to compute unit rates and comprehend proportional relationships among variables.

This study aims to measure the angular velocity of a clock's second hand and the average angular velocity of a metronome using a smartphone. To determine the angular velocities, the ticking of clock's second hand and the metronome beats were recorded. The angle between the extreme left and right positions of the metronome's hand was also measured. Some free smartphone applications for these measurements, e.g. 'Grandfather Clock,' 'Metronome,' 'Protractor,' and 'Physics Toolbox Sensor Suite' were used during the study. The results revealed that the smartphone can be a reliable tool in determining the angular velocities of rotating or oscillating objects that emit sound.

This study has been conducted to investigate conceptions of learning science (COLS) and personal science teaching efficacy belief (PSTE) of Turkish preservice elementary science teachers (PSTs) and to explore the relationship between these variables. Two instruments COLS questionnaire and PSTE subscale of Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Instrument (STEBI-B) have been administered to 379 PSTs from seven different universities. Descriptive analyses have pointed out that PSTs have higher level of COLS and moderately higher level of PSTE. The results obtained from the structural equation model have revealed that the conceptions "testing," "calculate and practice," "increase of knowledge," "applying" and "understanding and seeing in a new way" have significantly predicted PSTE. We have assumed that lower level of conceptions "memorizing," "testing," and "calculate and practice" predict PSTE by negative coefficients while higher level of conceptions "increase of knowledge," "applying" and "understanding and seeing in a new way" predict by positive coefficients. However, "calculating and practicing" has positively predicted and "applying" has negatively predicted PSTE. Considering the results, adaptation of inquiry- and argumentation-based learning and teaching environments in science teacher education, creating opportunities to develop PSTs' pedagogical skills about knowledge transfer and application, and utilization of diagnostic tools to pursue PSTs' development of COLS have been suggested.

The purpose of this study was to a) investigate prospective physics teachers' views on their knowledge about new physics concepts introduced in Turkish High School Physics Curricula; b) investigate the sources of their acquired knowledge about these new physics concepts; and c) explore if there were differences in views on knowledge about these new physics concepts among prospective physics teachers of different genders, years of study and universities. A total of 98 prospective physics teachers from different two universities in the physics and physics education departments participated in this study. "Physics Concepts Knowledge Questionnaire" developed by the authors was administered to the participants. Descriptive statistics and t-test were used to analyze the data collected. No statistically significant difference was found in mean view scores of prospective physics teachers of different genders, in different years of study, and from different universities. Additionally, more than 50% of prospective physics teachers thought that they were not knowledgeable about 19 of the 32 concepts selected for this study. The results of this study also showed that prospective physics teachers did not consider themselves as knowledgeable enough especially about astronomy and sound concepts.

In recent years, smartphone sensors have been frequently used in educational demonstrations to improve students' understanding of certain physical kinematic topics. In particular, the sensors on modern smartphones enable students to use their phones as physics mini-laboratories, and they have been used to analyze objects' speeds and accelerations and to investigate the conservation of energy and magnetic field properties. As a particular example, one of the sensors on smartphones capable of being used to measure the speed and acceleration of light-emitting objects, and the value of g and spring constant, is the smartphone's light sensor. In similar fashion, we now outline how a smartphone's light sensor may be used to find the angular velocity, linear velocity, and centripetal acceleration of a light-emitting toy train moving on a circular track.

This study investigates how the acceleration and speed of a light-emitting object on an inclined plane may be determined using a smartphone's light sensor. A light-emitting object was released from the top of an inclined plane and its illuminance values were detected by a smartphone's light sensor during its subsequent motion down the plane. Using the illuminance and time values recorded by the smartphone, the distances between the sensor and the light-emitting object can be calculated. From these known distance and time values, the uniform acceleration and speed of the light-emitting object at any time could also be determined. A second method was also used to determine these values, i.e. the analysis of video-recordings of the light-emitting object during its motion. The values found by these two different methods were in good agreement. Thus, this experiment demonstrates that a smartphone's light sensor can be used as a reliable instrument to determine the constant acceleration and speed of light-emitting objects.

This study aims to demonstrate how the average speed of a light-emitting toy car may be determined using a smartphone's light sensor. The freely available Android smartphone application, "AndroSensor," was used for the experiment. The classroom experiment combines complementary physics knowledge of optics and kinematics to find the average speed of a moving object. The speed of the toy car is found by determining the distance between the light-emitting toy car and the smartphone, and the time taken to travel these distances. To ensure that the average speed of the toy car calculated with the help of the AndroSensor was correct, the average speed was also calculated by analyzing video-recordings of the toy car. The resulting speeds found with these different methods were in good agreement with each other. Hence, it can be concluded that reliable measurements of the average speed of light-emitting objects can be determined with the help of the light sensor of an Android smartphone.

This study aims to explore the relationships among Turkish high school students' attitude towards physics, self-efficacy of learning physics, mathematics achievement, and physics achievement. To investigate the relationships, a unique questionnaire that identifies the attitude, self-efficacy and achievements were delivered to a total of 301 high school students. Then a hierarchical regression analysis was performed to reveal the relationships. The results of this study showed that whereas the dimensions "comprehension" and "requirement" in attitude towards physics positively and significantly predicted physics achievement, the dimensions "importance" and "interest" did not. Moreover, self-efficacy of learning physics and mathematics achievement were positive and significant predictors of physics achievement. Mathematics achievement was also the strongest positive predictor of physics achievement and this explained 18.8% of the variance in physics achievement. The students' physics achievement can be increased by developing their attitudes towards physics and self-efficacy of learning physics as well as increasing their mathematics achievement.

This study explores finding the areas of polygons with a smartphone light sensor. A square and an irregular pentagon were chosen as our polygons. During the activity, the LED light was placed at the vertices of our polygons, and the illuminance values of this LED light were detected by the smartphone light sensor. The smartphone was placed on a rotating time-lapse device, and this device was placed at the intersection point of the line segments in the polygons. These line segments were also connected to the vertices of these polygons; therefore, the square was composed of four triangles and the pentagon of five triangles. While the rotating time-lapse device was rotating around itself, it captured the maximum illuminance values of the LED light. Using these maximum illuminance values, we calculated the lengths of the line segments. In addition, we knew the period of the rotating time-lapse device and the duration elapsed between two consecutive maximum illuminance values. Thus, we could calculate the angle between two consecutive line segments. With these values, we could also calculate the areas of the triangles in the polygons. Then, the areas of these triangles were summed to obtain the areas of the square and pentagon.

Background: There are some theoretical evidences that explain the relationships between core beliefs (i.e., epistemological beliefs) and peripheral beliefs (self-efficacy in learning) in the literature. The close relationships of such type of beliefs with attitudes are also discussed by some researchers. Constructing a model that investigates these relationships by considering theoretical and empirical evidences can empower researchers to discuss these relationships more comprehensively. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among Turkish high school students' scientific epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy in learning physics and their attitudes toward physics. Sample: A total of 632 high school students participated in this study; however, 269 female and 229 male (a total of 498) high school students' data were used. Design and methods: Three distinct instruments that measure scientific epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy in learning physics and attitudes toward physics were combined into a unique questionnaire form and it was distributed to high school students. To explore the relationships among these variables, structural equation modeling was used. Results: The results showed that scientific epistemological belief dimensions uncovered by the nature of knowing (source and justification) significantly and positively related to both self-efficacy in learning physics and attitudes toward other important physics dimensions. Additionally, self-efficacy in learning physics significantly and positively predicted attitudes toward multiple physics dimensions (importance, comprehension and requirement). However, epistemological belief dimensions related to the nature of knowledge (certainty and development) did not have significant impact on self-efficacy in learning physics or attitudes toward physics. Conclusions: This study concludes that there are positive and significant relationships among Turkish high school students' scientific epistemological beliefs, self-efficacy in learning physics and their attitudes toward physics.