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Science identity, encompassing perceptions of competence, interest, and recognition in science, alongside learning self-efficacy reflecting confidence to master science skills, are key drivers of outcomes. However, developmental patterns likely vary across contexts. Participants were 512 Chinese students spanning grades 1-3 who completed the Science Identity Scale and Science Learning Self-Efficacy Scale, with physics, chemistry, and biology achievement scores gathered. A Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model assessed relationships. Results substantiated psychometrics for motivational measures. The model indirectly predicting achievement via first-order discipline-specific paths explained more variance than direct second-order effects. Effects significantly varied across groups stratified by grade and region. Interest and conceptual knowledge drove physics and chemistry success, while higher-order skills enhanced biology achievement overall. However, relationships differed within subgroups, suggesting personalized motivational support needs--self-belief/competence foundations for struggling learners, conceptual development for those with high prior achievement, and intrinsic enrichment for disinterested students. Results detail complex motivational profiles underlying science achievement requiring tailored identity safety and self-efficacy scaffolding alongside conceptual and skill-building for excellence across scientific disciplines. Motivational support systems may spur more equitable and optimal science outcomes among diverse adolescent learners.

A central objective of science education is to foster a profound comprehension of fundamental scientific principles among students. Research has shown that a highly integrated knowledge structure is a key factor in achieving a deep understanding. This research has developed a friction force conceptual framework to model students' different understandings of friction force from a knowledge integration perspective. Utilizing the established conceptual framework, this study devised and implemented an evaluation of friction force among a cohort of 598 grade-10 students in China. The assessment outcomes were then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show that the conceptual framework model effectively represents the knowledge structures of students at different levels of knowledge integration, and the students' understanding of friction force can be divided into three levels: novice, intermediate, and expert. Furthermore, emphasizing the passivity of friction force can help students gain a deeper understanding of the concept of friction force, thereby forming a more comprehensive knowledge structure. This study provides an effective strategy for students to progress from novices to experts.

As humanity reaches the 5.0 industrial revolution, education plays a critical role in boosting the quality of human resources. This paper reports bibliometric research on emerging TiP during 1993-2022 in the educational field to analyse its development on any level of education during the last three decades. This study employed a Scopus database. The findings are that the trend of TiP publication in educational fields has tended to increase every year during the past three decades and conference paper became the most published document type, the USA is the country which produces the most publications; "Students" being the most occurrences keyword and total link strength. The publication of the TiP is ranked to the Quartile 1, which implies that a publication with the cited performance is a publication with credibility because the publisher has a good reputation. Researchers can find the topics most relevant to other metadata sources such as Web of Science, Publish, and Perish.

Modern society is complex and ever-changing. To adapt to this situation, the level of education must be continuously enhanced, and college students who are about to enter society are the group that needs the most attention. As a creative and effective teaching organizational form and teaching strategy, the cooperative learning method plays an important role in education and teaching. This article research aims to achieve the following two goals: (1) Compare students' learning abilities after the cooperative learning method and traditional teaching method. (2) Compare students' core competencies after the cooperative learning method and traditional teaching method. The participants in this study were students studying physics at Guangxi Normal University for Nationalities in China. It includes a control group consisting of 30 students and an experimental group consisting of 30 students. The research tool used a Likert scale question, and the data were analyzed using normal distribution and standard deviation. The research results show that students' learning ability and core competencies after the cooperative learning method are better than traditional teaching method (P<0.01).

Physical education in colleges plays an increasingly important role in cultivating high-quality innovative talent. The main factors that affect college students' approaches to learning physics remain unknown. This study examined the relationships among college engineering students' epistemic views of physics, conceptions of learning physics, and approaches to learning physics. Three previously validated questionnaires were administered to 278 undergraduate engineering students in China to examine these relationships. Structural equation modeling analysis revealed that students' epistemic views of physics led to constructivist conceptions of learning physics, i.e., learning physics as increasing knowledge, applying, understanding, and seeing in a new way. The students' constructivist conceptions of learning physics were also found to be positively associated with deep motive and deep strategy in their approaches to learning physics, while their reproductive conceptions of learning physics, i.e., learning physics by memorizing, testing, calculating, and practicing, were negatively associated with deep motive and deep strategy and positively associated with surface motive and surface strategy. These findings suggest the importance of fostering students' understanding of physics knowledge and constructivist conceptions of learning physics and de-emphasizing their reproductive conceptions of learning physics, such as memorization, testing, calculation, and practice, to ultimately promote their deep learning approaches. As physics educators understand the relationships among the above three aspects, they emphasize fertilizing students' constructive conceptions of learning physics and thus benefit the cultivation of innovative talent and promote the rapid development of science and technology in the long run.

The use of simulations to better convey abstract scientific concepts or difficult-to-observe scientific occurrences through the manipulation of variables or virtual objects has the potential to improve student science learning. However, misconceptions or extraneous load may emerge if simulation support is insufficient. In this study, we used a self-explanation strategy via question-based prompts in an online scientific simulation learning environment to improve the comprehension of junior high school students in physics concepts, engagement and motivation toward science learning, and task load. Thirty-seven seventh grade students from two junior high school classrooms in northeastern China were allocated into experimental and control groups using a quasi-experimental approach. Students in the experimental group utilized a simulation-based learning environment that incorporated self-explanation, while students in the control group used the same environment but without self-explanation integration. Additionally, sequential analytic approaches were used to examine the behavioral patterns of both groups of students throughout simulation operations and the learning process. The results showed that the students in the experimental group demonstrated significantly better learning achievement than those in the control group; furthermore, we discovered that the students in the experimental group displayed more inquiry behaviors regarding prediction, simulation operation, and explanation than did those in the control group.

Subject selection is one of the key components in the new college entrance examination system. This study analyzed the data from a sample survey of college entrance examination participants in Zhejiang Province between 2017 and 2020 using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, cross analysis, and binary logistic regression in an effort to research into the impact of family background on subject selection and academic achievements in senior secondary school students. Research findings showed that: (1) Students from families of higher social and economic status were more likely to be academically high-achieving; (2) Student family background had a significant impact on their subject selection, specifically represented by a positive effect of home economic capital on student choice of subjects requiring higher learning costs, a positive effect of family perception of the importance of mathematics, physics, and chemistry on student choice of science subjects, and a positive effect of family cultural environment on student choice of liberal arts subjects; (3) Personal factors such as gender and academic results are crucial for students' decisions on subject selection, with male and high-performing students showing preferences for science subjects.

Physics education aims to develop sophisticated thinking abilities and enhance conceptual depth, but student interest has decreased, emphasizing the importance of teacher quality in fostering success and positive attitudes. The aim of the study was to examine the physics teachers' self-efficacy, innovative teaching, and comprehensive teaching approach levels. As data collecting instruments, self-efficacy, innovative physics teaching, and comprehensive teaching approach scores were utilized. In the pilot research group, validity and reliability assessments were conducted on the scales. The primary research involved 241 physics teachers. As the measurement variables were constantly changeable, Latent Profile Analysis was utilized. The present study's results suggest that teachers have high self-perceptions in various dimensions related to teaching effectiveness, including self-efficacy, innovative teaching, and comprehensive teaching approach. These results are consistent with previous research that has shown a positive relationship between teacher self-perceptions and teaching effectiveness. Future research could explore the relationship between teacher self-perceptions and student achievement to better understand the impact of self-perceptions on student outcomes. Overall, the results of this study highlight the importance of supporting teachers' self-efficacy and providing opportunities for innovative teaching and professional development to improve comprehensive teaching approach.

Protocol-guided teaching is a student-centered instructional model in which the teacher creates the learning protocol prior to the lesson in order to direct students toward active and autonomous learning. A well-structured learning protocol is essential for the effective application of this instructional paradigm. This article evaluates the significance of protocol-guided instruction in junior secondary physics education by analyzing the learning protocol for velocity instruction. Protocol emphasizes situation-based learning and the inquiry chain method.

Student learning in simple electric circuits has been an important area in physics education research. This study builds off a previous investigation that applied the conceptual framework model to examine knowledge integration in student learning of simple electric circuits and developed a multiple-choice concept test for assessing knowledge integration in simple electric circuits. In this study, a conceptual-framework-based teaching intervention was developed and implemented in a controlled study with high school students in China to evaluate the effectiveness of the new instruction. Using the instrument developed in the previous study, a pretest, a post-test, and a delayed post-test were conducted with both groups of students. The delayed post-test was included to further evaluate knowledge retention as evidence of knowledge integration. The results suggest that the conceptual-framework-based teaching intervention was effective in promoting knowledge integration compared to the existing instruction.

Developing a deeper understanding of scientific concepts is one of the primary goals of science education. To improve students' conceptual understanding, it is necessary to explore the major characteristics of their learning process. Informed by previous work on conceptual understanding, this study focuses on the concept of evaporation, exploring the level division of students' conceptual understanding of evaporation and the development of corresponding test questions. The level-based conceptual understanding assessment was tested on 721 seventh-grade Chinese students before and after the evaporation lesson. The results of quantitative and qualitative analyses indicated that the students' conceptual understanding of evaporation could be divided into three progression levels. Students with a low level of understanding only mechanically remembered the definition of evaporation and could identify evaporation phenomena in their daily lives based on memorized examples. Students with an intermediate level of understanding grasped not only the definition of evaporation but also the factors affecting the evaporation rate. Students with a high level of understanding understood the microscopic nature of evaporation and could explain how these three factors affect the evaporation rate from a microscopic perspective. This study also provides further evidence of the value of grasping the nature of concepts in conceptual understanding.

Learning progressions (LPs) are considered to have great potential to improve pedagogical practices. However, even with LPs, teachers may still be unaware of the barriers that keep students from progressing; many are struggling with essential pedagogical strategies to support students' progression. This study thus proposed an educative LP (ELP), a framework that informs teachers about students' cognitive development and provides pedagogical strategies to facilitate learning. Specifically, we developed an ELP of scientific modelling competence (ELPoSMC), integrating LP levels, learning challenges, and model-based inquiry, to assist teachers in lesson plan critique. We implemented the ELPoSMC with novice physics teachers (n = 32) and compared teachers' lesson plan critiques with a control group (n = 40). Results indicate that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group, especially on seven out of 12 functions of ELP. Teachers' critiques addressed relationships among four elements in lesson planning: student characteristics, learning goals, teaching strategies, and curriculum materials. Experimental group were more likely to tap relationships between 'student characteristics' or 'learning goals' with other elements, while the control group tended to use 'teaching strategies' or 'curriculum materials' as a proxy for critiques. The study indicates that the ELP, compared to general LP, facilitated teachers' attention to supporting students with varying characteristics to achieve learning goals.

The notion of scientific visual literacy has been advocated in recent science curriculum reform documents and related learning outcomes are expected from students. However, few studies have been conducted to determine how it is tested in high-stakes examinations. This study utilized the Visualization Blooming Tool to examine the level of visual cognition involved in visual-based physics questions in the Senior High School Entrance Examination (SHSEE) in China. Content analysis was adopted as the research method and 12 sets of the SHSEE physics from four Chinese metropolises (Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou) in 2020, 2021, and 2022 were targeted. The results indicate that although all four metropolises examined the higher-order visual cognitive skills, they placed more emphasis on the levels of apply and analyze but less on evaluate and create. Moreover, the examination items required students to interpret visual representations more often than to construct them, which may be detrimental to developing students' scientific visual literacy. It is suggested that the examination of higher-order visual cognitive skills and encoded visual representation should be strengthened in future high-stakes physics examinations.

Despite the importance of undergraduate research for student learning and development, not enough work has been done to clarify its effects in different disciplinary contexts. Using data from the China College Student Survey, this research adopts Becher and Trowler's theory of discipline classification to understand the relationship between undergraduate research and students' learning outcomes in different disciplines. It indicates that first, contributing to journals/conferences correlates with students' self-reported learning outcomes in Physics, History, and Engineering, but these relationships can be explained by process-centered activities, except in Physics. Second, early-year undergraduates' learning outcomes are relatively weakly related to conducting research with faculty in pure disciplines. By contrast, such relationships are distinct in applied disciplines. Third, in soft disciplines, participating in competitions significantly correlates with more types of students' learning outcomes than conducting research with faculty, while in hard disciplines, they both play quite important roles. It makes recommendations for future research and practice, which enrich insight into how universities can best engage undergraduates in research.

In physics education, a number of studies have developed assessments of teachers' knowledge of student understanding (KSU) of specific physics concepts with modified versions of existing concept inventories, in which teachers were asked to predict the popular incorrect answers from students. The results provide useful but indirect information to make inferences about teachers' knowledge of the misconceptions that students may be using in answering the questions. To improve the assessment of teachers' KSU, a new instrument is developed using a three-tier item design. The items were adapted from 17 questions from the Force Concept Inventory on force and motion. Each item was designed in three tiers, with tier 1 asking for teachers' own answers to the question to test their content knowledge, tier 2 asking for teachers' predictions of popular students' incorrect answers, and tier 3 asking for teachers' explanations of students' incorrect answers in an open-ended form. The three-tier design captures teachers' content knowledge, predictions, and explanations in a single item to allow explicit measures of teachers' own content knowledge and their KSU on students' misconceptions. The instrument was validated with preservice physics teachers, who were master-level graduate students in a normal university in China. The assessment results also suggest that the preservice teachers' KSU of force and motion was only moderately developed, and their content knowledge was uncorrelated with their KSU. In addition, a four-level progression scale of KSU was also developed, which categorized the preservice teachers into five proficiency groups.

It is essential to establish a multi-dimensional postgraduate quality evaluation system for student assessment and training. This study aimed to explore the construction of the multiindex and hierarchical comprehensive evaluation system for postgraduate training in science and engineering based on the Context, Input, Process, Product (CIPP) model using Analytic Hierarchy Process. It involved 756 postgraduates in physics and engineering who were randomly selected via the Internet. Data were collected from the questionnaire about postgraduates' basic information. After collection, Factor Analysis was used to verify the rationality of the design of second-level and third-level indicators, and adjust the corresponding weights. On this basis, Cluster Analysis was used to classify the training quality of the postgraduates based on their scores on academic ability, basic quality, and social ability indicators. The results revealed that the index system includes 4 first-level indicators,12 second-level indicators and 36 third-level indicators, and different weights being assigned to the indicators according to their influence on the training quality of postgraduates in science and engineering. This study also provides some reference for the quality of science and engineering postgraduate training in Chinese universities by proposing relevant measures, which could be interesting also for international audience.

Special class secondary school physics teachers represent outstanding secondary school physics teachers in China. This paper analyzes the personal life histories of 13 outstanding secondary school physics teachers. We coded and analyzed the sample materials and summarized the laws of professional development of outstanding secondary school physics teachers. The study shows that cultivating outstanding secondary school physics teachers takes a relatively long time. Their professional development can be divided into five stages: the pre-service learning period, the initial adaptation period, the exploration and skill-developing period, the maturing innovation period, and the excellence and advancement period. Individuals' own efforts and continuous learning, guidance from master teachers and experts, and support from family and school play an important role in the professional growth of outstanding secondary school physics teachers. Outstanding secondary school physics teachers can apply lifelong learning, do educational research, and develop their own distinctive physics teaching styles.

Problem solving is considered one of the most critical competencies for life. However, many students may perform well in school yet cannot transfer the skills they learned in school to solve real-world problems, especially in science education. This study discusses the characteristics of the problem from the physics education perspective, based on Problem Representation Theory, and proposes a new type of problem: The Primitive Physics Problem. Moreover, the significance and contribution in promoting students' physics problem-solving ability, both theoretical and empirical, are described. Then the study develops a set of instruments that was tested on 811 students in 12th grade from 10 upper-secondary schools in China. The results showed that the new instrument had good reliability and validity. The promising application in the instruction of the Primitive Physics Problem and in measuring upper-secondary school students' problem-solving ability of the instrument is discussed.

Augmented Reality (AR) & Virtual Reality (VR) are now wide open to all fields. The objectives of this study are to analyze the comparison of trend research on the top 200 cited AR and VR publications in all areas, to identify the comparison of trend mapping visualization on AR and VR publications in Physics learning research, to compare the top 10 most productive author of the AR and VR in Physics learning research, to determine the top-cited author, subject areas and affiliation of the AR and VR in Physics learning research, to analyze the comparison of the distribution of AR and VR publications in Physics learning research. This research analyzes bibliometrics on 'AR' and 'VR' keywords as general fields and specifies it to implement AR and VR in Physics education and compare them. The metadata gathered is from the Scopus database and investigated by VOSViewer. This research shows that the trend of research in AR and VR in all fields is increasing each year. The top keywords used in AR and VR to Physics learning are 'AR' and 'VR', with total link strengths of 479 and 1,882. AR and VR can be integrated into the classroom from toddler to secondary school. Implications of the review of the top 10 cited publications require more improvement and optimization of AR and VR stability.

Students' problem-solving ability depends on their understanding of related scientific concepts. Therefore, the modeling and assessment of students' understanding of specific scientific concepts is important to promote students' problem-solving ability, as it can find students' understanding difficulties and explore breakthrough strategies accordingly. Inspired by the theory of knowledge integration and combined with the situational characteristics of science education in China, this study established a conceptual framework about buoyant force, which was applied to model students' different understandings of it. And based on the established framework, an assessment of buoyant force was designed and tested among 622 Chinese lower-secondary school students. Through the analysis of the test data and the interview outcomes, it was found that students' understanding of buoyant force could be divided into three levels of knowledge integration including novice, intermediate, and expert. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that an emphasis on the nature of buoyant force can be an effective strategy to help students achieve a deeper conceptual understanding of buoyant force, leading to a more integrated knowledge structure.

One of the primary characteristics of the holistic module learning model is task-driven learning. In this learning model, a task is a distinct activity or collection of distinct activities designed to assist students in achieving learning objectives. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effective design and implementation of task-driven learning using the composition and resolution of forces lesson as a case study. On the basis of the lesson study, the principles of task-driven learning design are summarized and some recommendations for task-driven learning implementation are made.

Triggered by the pilot of the "Gao-Kao" reform, the avoidance of physics courses in senior high school has aroused the concern of society in China. The factors that influence the motivation to learn physics are an important research topic, especially for countries that have a disciplinary-based education tradition in secondary school. However, there is a lack of instruments for evaluating secondary school students' physics learning motivation, as most motivational studies consider science learning motivation as a single construct and do not distinguish between the motivation to learn different science disciplines. Therefore, we developed an instrument for measuring physics learning motivation and used this instrument to investigate the trend of physics learning motivation from middle school to high school and how physics learning motivation was influenced by teachers, parents and peers. Adopting achievement goal theory as the theoretical foundation, we developed a survey for physics learning motivation by adapting previously validated instruments. After pilot testing, 502 middle school and senior high school students completed the survey. Statistical tests, such as factor analysis, were conducted to test the reliability and validity of the instrument. Descriptive statistics confirmed some of the findings from past research (such as an overall decline in motivation to learn science), but more detailed analysis also led to new findings. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) we investigated the relationships between students' perceptions of the environment's goal emphases, their personal goal orientations, and their engagement in physics learning in and out of school. The results showed that the students' goal orientations were influenced by teachers and parents, but primarily by their peers. Finally, we discuss possible explanations of the findings and their implications for follow-up studies and policy adjustments.

Digital game-based learning has received increased attention in education. As the key stakeholders in education, students, parents, and teachers may have different perceptions and attitudes towards game-based learning, which have a great impact on its adoption and dissemination. However, there is a lack of research examining how the perceptions of different stakeholders towards digital educational games may differ and influence each other. This study aimed to address the gap by investigating the perceptions of students, parents and teachers towards digital educational games, the differences and relationships between their perceptions, and possible sources of their perceptions. The study was conducted with 415 participants in China, a country that has tension between play and learning in its traditional values. The results reveal that most students, parents and teachers have certain experience playing mobile games, but with limited knowledge about educational digital games. Students have more positive perceptions towards digital educational games than teachers and parents, and the perceptions of teachers and parents are correlated with each other. After an introduction to an educational digital game, students' and parents' intention to recommend game-based learning increased, which, however, was not the case for teachers. Implications of the findings were discussed.

In China, the main goal of basic education curriculum reform is to develop students' key competencies. The physics teaching directed by key competencies would not only aim at the memory and reappearance of physics knowledge but also the application of physics knowledge and methods. As teachers who guide students' learning and implement teaching activities, the improvement and development of their key competencies plays an important role in the development of students. The key competencies of physics teachers consist of physics literacy, education and teaching literacy, scientific literacy, humanistic literacy, information literacy, and life-long learning ability.

Employers believe that people with the ability to work in teams can bring success to their business. Therefore, it is very essential to start cultivating students' teamwork skills in lower-secondary school to prepare students for the future. This study took "Physics in Bicycles" as an example to explore the effect of Teaching and Learning-Scrum (TL-Scrum) on students' physics achievement and team collaboration ability. It was conducted at a lower-secondary school in Changsha, China. "Physical Knowledge of Bicycles" Test and "Team Collaboration Ability" Measurement were applied to the two groups prior to and following the experiment. The experimental group (N=61) participated in TL-Scrum teaching, whereas the control group (N=58) participated without TL-Scrum teaching. The results revealed a significant difference between the two groups, with the experimental group learners performing better than the control group in the academic achievement. In addition, the results showed better positive effects of TL-Scrum on experimental group learners in team collaboration ability. Results suggested that learners achieved better academic achievements and team collaboration with the approach of TL-Scrum, which pointed to certain implications for physics teaching research, as well as in education of future physics teachers.

The notion of science identity has been widely discussed in the field of science education in recent years. Many research studies have focused on students' science identity in a general sense in spite of the fact that students are usually exposed to discipline-specific science courses in high school. We argue that it is more appropriate to explore high school students' disciplinary identities in natural sciences (i.e. physics, chemistry and biology). A quantitative approach was used to investigate high school students' disciplinary identities among three science subjects and explore the effects of these identities on students' intentions to major in college science programs. An instrument addressing three disciplinary identities was administered to 510 students from 10 science classes in seven high schools in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, China. The major findings indicate that high school students had the lowest identity in physics among the three disciplines. Moreover, physics identity was found to be a significant indicator that had the strongest effect on students' intentions to choose science-related college programs, while biology identity was a non-significant indicator with the weakest effect on intended selection of a college science program. The results of this study have practical implications for enhancing high school students' science identities.

The history of science has a unique value to teaching, and textbooks play an important role in permeating the history of science in science courses. This study aims to compare the presentation of history of science in two versions of high school physics textbooks in China. We selected the 2019 edition of the national and local textbooks as samples. The revised Leite's checklist is used to conduct statistics and comparative analysis on the history of science content in the two versions of textbooks, referred to as the PEP and Luke versions described in more detail in the paper. The results show that, in terms of the quantity and presentation of the history of science, the PEP version contains more history of science, while the Luke version presents the historical content more intuitively. In terms of the type and organization of the history of science, the Luke version describes scientists and the type of evolution in more detail. In the presentation of the history of science, both of the two versions of textbooks are mainly based on texts written by textbook authors, supplemented by pictures of scientists and instruments. In the description of the contexts of the history of science, both tend to use the scientific context to present the history of science. In terms of the status of the history of science content, it mostly acts as a fundamental role in the Luke version while plays a complementary one in the PEP version. As for the learning activities related to the history of science, both tend to set up normal-level activities. The two versions of textbooks are relatively poor in the internal consistency of the textbooks with respect to the historical information and interdisciplinary activity design. Only Compulsory Book 1 of PEP version has the content of history of science as bibliography, and both of the two versions of textbooks seldom have history of science books as its bibliography.

Work and mechanical energy is a fundamental topic in introductory physics. Studies in existing literature have shown that students have difficulties in understanding work and mechanical energy, particularly the topic of work-energy theorem. To study students' knowledge integration in learning work and mechanical energy, a conceptual framework model of work and mechanical energy was developed and applied to guide the design of an assessment for measuring students' level of knowledge integration. Using the assessment, qualitative and quantitative data were collected in two high schools in an eastern Chinese city. The results reveal that the conceptual framework model can effectively represent the students' knowledge structures at different levels of knowledge integration. In addition, the assessment is shown effective in identifying unique features of knowledge integration, including context dependence and fragmentation of knowledge components, memorization-based problem-solving strategies, and lack of meaningful connections between work and change in kinetic energy. The conceptual framework of work and mechanical energy and assessment results can provide useful information to facilitate instructional designs to promote knowledge integration.

Background: Although there is an increasing recognition of the importance of critical thinking in science education across the world, the relevant research literature is extremely thin. There is an urgent need to generate more empirical evidence. Purpose: We examined two essential issues concerning critical thinking (the relationship between students' and teachers' critical thinking as well as the relationship between critical thinking and science achievement) in the context of physics education. Sample: We utilized data from the 2017 (Chinese) Program for Regional Assessment of Basic Education Quality with 46,820 students under 547 teachers from 128 schools. Design and methods: We developed multiple membership multilevel models to account for students from different schools and under multiple teachers (in each school). Results: After control over student, teacher, and school characteristics, although Chinese eighth graders demonstrated statistically significant critical thinking, there was not any statistically significant relationship between students' and teachers' critical thinking. With the same control, there was a statistically significant relationship between students' critical thinking and students' physics achievement among Chinese eighth graders. Meanwhile, there was not any statistically significant relationship between teachers' critical thinking and students' physics achievement (over and above the relationship between students' critical thinking and students' physics achievement). Conclusion: We suggest that critical thinking may need to become an essential and explicit outcome of science education to help establish a relationship between students' and teachers' critical thinking and promote the correlation between critical thinking of students and teachers and students' science achievement.

Students hold a variety of initial (mis)conceptions that are inconsistent with scientific knowledge and hinder their physics learning. The initial (mis)conceptions could coexist with the scientific ones, even after a conceptual change. Inhibitory control may help overcome initial (mis)conceptions. This study investigated if and how inhibitory control can overcome position-velocity indiscrimination (PVI), a common kinematics misconception. We designed a negative priming paradigm with various prime-probe item pairs. College physics majors had to judge if the items describing the instant that two locomotives have the same velocity were correct. When congruent probes (same position-same velocity) were followed by incongruent primes (same position-different velocity), participants performed worse than when neutral primes (i.e., not passing points) were presented beforehand. The result verified a typical negative priming effect, indicating that inhibitory control is involved in overcoming the PVI misconception. Congruent probes preceded by incongruent primes implicitly triggering the PVI misperception had a lower negative priming effect than explicitly activating it. The results indicated that inhibitory control was needed to overcome the PVI misconception, and the explicit activation of the misconception required more inhibitory control.

A significant proportion of universities throughout the world switched from conventional face-to-face course delivery to emergency remote teaching (ERT) in response to the pervasive COVID-19 outbreak. A series of challenges are faced by both teachers and students as a result of the rapid and abrupt switch to ERT. Within the context of ERT, physics courses encounter certain challenges in contrast to certain liberal arts courses. In particular, this study sought to determine whether physics students and nonphysics students had diverse levels of flow experience and cognitive load when applying ERT during the global pandemic period. Furthermore, this study examined whether ERT for physics students varied depending on gender and educational level. Following the completion of their ERT courses at the end of both the Spring semester of 2020 and the Fall semester of 2022, a total of 1073 participants, including both physics majors and nonphysics majors, participated in our research. From the result, physics students had better performance in the flow experience encompassing its three constructs: enjoyment, engagement, and control. Physics students demonstrated a higher germane cognitive load and a lower extraneous cognitive load when compared to nonphysics students. Moreover, a considerably higher extraneous cognitive load was observed among male physics students than among their female counterparts during the ERT. Nonetheless, physics students at undergraduate and graduate levels did not significantly differ in their flow experiences or cognitive load. Overall, physics majors had a more positive perception of their ERT learning experience, and the impact of ERT on physics students was significantly less detrimental.

To explore the self-efficacy and physics identity of students across various physics career trajectories, as well as to delve into the motivations of male and female students in choosing to major in physics and pursue teaching, we conducted a survey within the Department of Physics at East China Normal University. This institution offers undergraduate physics programs with both teaching and nonteaching trajectories. The teaching trajectory caters to preservice teachers who will receive certifications to teach physics at the middle or high school level upon completing their degree. A total of 266 undergraduate students participated in the survey, ensuring a balanced representation of both genders and both teaching and nonteaching trajectories. A gender disparity was evident for self-efficacy, while no such gap emerged for physics identity. Conversely, distinct disparities emerged between different career trajectories, with significant differences observed in physics identity between students in the teaching and nonteaching trajectories. A predominant motivation for majoring in physics was "interest," and the top two reasons for choosing the teaching career were consistent for both genders, with women assigning higher priority to job security.

Augmented reality (AR) recently shows great potential to facilitate students' learning, especially their learning performance and motivation. However, few studies considered learners' emotional factors such as learning anxiety, which may influence the learning results. This study aims to explore how different experimental conditions (AR & Non-AR) may affect the learning performance and motivation of students with different levels of learning anxiety. An AR-based magnetism experimental tool entitled "MagAR" was proposed to support junior high school students' physics learning. The results indicated that, when compared to traditional experimental materials, AR can effectively improve students' learning performance and motivation. Moreover, regardless of their anxiety, students in AR condition performed better on transfer test than those in Non-AR group. AR can also significantly motivate students with high anxiety. Besides, all students hold a positive attitude towards MagAR.

Argumentation scaffolding can be used to enhance the formulation of logical arguments as well as the performance of such arguments. This study presents a web-based synchronized scientific argumentation environment integrated with prompt scaffolding to support simulation-based physics learning for elementary school students. To investigate the effects of prompt argumentation scaffolding, two sixth-grade classes totaling fifty-five students worked in small groups to complete a simulation-based physics learning activity regarding the principle of leverage. One class was allocated to an experimental group that received prompt argumentation scaffolding, whereas the other class was assigned to be the control group not receiving prompts. Learning achievements such as science conceptual understanding and scientific explanation skills were examined, and lag sequential analysis (LSA) was used to compare the argumentative behavioral patterns of the two groups. The results showed that the students in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group in terms of their capacity to produce scientific explanations, though no significant difference in their understanding of physical concepts. Furthermore, the LSA results revealed that the experimental group demonstrated more coherent, evidence-based arguments and conscious reasoning, whereas the control group displayed more of a conversational tone and was unstructured in its debates with others.

Achieving knowledge integration for deep learning requires students to develop well-connected knowledge structures through the central idea of a concept. However, a number of studies on student learning in momentum have revealed persistent difficulties in understanding its fundamental concept, particularly in relating net force, time, and change in momentum with each other. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a teaching intervention based on the conceptual framework of momentum that targets knowledge integration. The evaluation outcomes of the intervention provide encouraging evidence suggesting that the conceptual framework model can be a valuable guide to the development of instruction for promoting knowledge integration and deep learning.

Microteaching practice is an important part of Pre-Service Physics Teacher (PsPT) Training Program adopting different approaches to inspire the acquisition of teaching skills by prospective teachers. Using psychomotor domain aspect of revised Bloom's taxonomy to explore microteaching practice as it relates to physics teaching, this research examined the significant influences of the two approaches (Nigeria and China) identified on the teaching skill of PsPT and suggests the best ways of improving the teaching skill of PsPT through micro-teaching practices. Data were collected using the mixed-method research design of administering descriptive survey questionnaire on final year PsPT while a structured interview question was used to interview the teachers. It was found that the two approaches had significant influences on the teaching skill acquisition of PsPT through microteaching practices with respect to physics as a subject that requires motor skill, and that this can be improved through micro-teaching by a combination of theory with practice. Also, physics teacher educators need to focus on developing PsPTs' psychomotor domain in line with time reform in microteaching practices to accommodate more time for PsPTs' to master the subject concept of physics as a psycho motive subject.

In recent years, game-based learning has attracted much attention in education; however, the effectiveness of game-based learning is still not solidly confirmed. In the present research, a game-based learning in the physics domain with guides provided direct and immediate feedback. The research was conducted among three different groups: the traditional group, the educational video group, and the game-based learning group. The result showed that the game-based learning group performed the best among the three groups, followed by the educational video group, and the traditional group performed the worst. Students in the game-based learning group were enrolled into an interview to study which types of guides enhanced students' game-based learning. From the interview, the prompts and the interactive characteristic of the game-based learning environment took the first two places. In addition, students benefited from the features of game-based learning including task requirements for execution, the tip prompt function, the feedback mechanism, and the story settings. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate applicable guides into the design of game-based learning according to students' perspectives for providing engaging learning experience.

Students' epistemologies of experimental physics refer to how they understand the role of experimentation as well as the experimental operation and design and communication of results in physics. This research aimed to find whether students in inquiry-based physics laboratory activities show more expert-like epistemologies of experimental physics and better course performance relative to courses using cookbook guided laboratory activities. The participants consisted of two classes of students in a Chinese university. They were divided into control group and experimental group. The experimental group was taught with inquiry-based teaching, while the control group was using cookbook teaching. Each group was taught by the same lecturer. Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey for Experimental Physics were used to investigate students' epistemologies about the nature of experimental physics. It was found that students in a traditional cookbook guided laboratory showed significant negative shifts on personal epistemologies, and in contrast, students' epistemologies of experimental physics in inquiry-based laboratory had been significantly improved. The increase of scores in the control group was higher than the experiment group on experimental physics learning performance. The results were slightly different from other studies, some possible explanations were given.

Stratified teaching is an effective method and means to implement teaching students per their aptitude. Domestic and foreign scholars have carried out many experimental and quasiexperimental studies to observe the impact of stratified teaching on students' academic performance, but the results are quite different. So, can stratified teaching effectively help Chinese students improve their academic performance? How big is its impact? Which model is more suitable for Chinese students? To answer these questions, this article uses meta-analysis to quantitatively analyze 22 Chinese studies on the impact of Stratified teaching on student academic performance. We found that (i) stratified teaching has a positive effect on students' academic performance, and the overall combined effect size is 0.53; (ii) among the seven subjects of mathematics, English, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, and information technology, stratified teaching has had a positive effect on their learning. Stratified teaching's order of effect on different subjects was English > Physics > Geography > Information Technology > Mathematics > Biology > Chemistry; (iii) stratified teaching is suitable for students of different sizes of classrooms. However, the smaller the number of students in the classroom, the better the learning effect, and (iv) stratified teaching is more suitable for improving their learning in the mobile learning system.

Practical work is a distinctive feature of school science and has close associations with scientific experiment and scientific methods as well. In this study, the nature of practical work was examined in the view of the diversity of scientific methods. Based on an analytical framework derived from Brandon's matrix consisting of four categories of scientific methods, this study was purported to understand how the diversity of scientific methods is represented in practical work in science textbooks. The targets of analysis were various kinds of practical work compiled in nine textbooks of biology, chemistry, and physics used in the stage of junior high school (Grades 7-9) in China. A major finding is that the four categories of scientific methods are distributed discrepantly within each of the three subject-based science textbooks. Another important finding is that non-manipulative parameter measurement (NPM) is the predominant scientific method, whether in physics, chemistry, or biology textbooks. Except for this shared feature, the percentages of the other three are varied across the three science subjects. The results of this study have provided implications for the design of practical work in science textbooks. It is suggested that further studies can be conducted to display the change of the nature of practical work over a period of time and compare the nature of practical work in science textbooks used in different regions and countries in the view of the diversity of scientific methods.

High-stakes testing (HST) is critical in the educational system of East-Asian countries like China, and the ongoing standards-based reform in many Western countries like the USA. HST has been criticized for corrupting an educational system through means like disengaging students from authentic learning. It seems that students' affective learning would be promoted if HST were abandoned. In this study, we used the mixed-method approach to investigate this hypothetical question by comparing the physics identity of high-school students in an HST-oriented educational context and college students who have transferred from an HST-oriented context to an almost HST-free one in China. We administered a physics identity survey with 108 students from two physics classes in a key high school and 233 undergraduate physics majors in a top-tier university who were separated by Gaokao as the most life-shaping test in China. We also interviewed sample participants about their physics learning. The data show the freshmen in college had a significantly higher average physics identity than the high-school students did. In the undergraduate physics program, the average physics identity had a deteriorating pattern from the freshmen, sophomores, to juniors. From high school to college, the students' intention of pursuing physics as a major or career was similarly low. Differently, the students' perception of lecturing changed, so did their self-discipline. Together, the findings suggested that simply discarding HST would not promote students' affective learning. An alternative was needed to replace the extrinsic pressure from HST, which could be either students' intrinsic engine of learning or another rewarding or coercive system.

Visual representation in school textbooks plays an important role for physics teaching and learning. The integration of graphics with text has drawn attention of physics educators in recent years due to the close relationship between graphics and relevant text. The purpose of this study is to examine visual representation of optical content in three physics textbooks commonly used in China and Singapore. Based on a revised version of graphical analysis protocol, this study focuses on two aspects of visual representation: (1) presentation of graphics; and (2) integration of graphics with corresponding text. The content analysis approach was adopted as the research methodology with 115 graphics taken from the three physics textbooks being the analysis target. The results show that the three textbooks had considerable differences in terms of graphical presentations and that they contained a small percentage of high systematical representations. On integration of graphics with text, each textbook was found to be unique. Based on the results of this study, some recommendations are provided for visual representation in physics textbooks so as to enhance the effectiveness of textbooks on teaching and learning, such as highlighting physical and semantic integration of text with graphics.

This study is to examine the effects of AR Game-based science learning on students' engagement, learning performance, and satisfaction towards physics learning. Based on the marker-based AR technology, an Augmented Reality Game-based Science Learning (ARGSL) system was designed and developed to support students' physics learning. A quasi-experimental design with two experimental groups and a control group was implemented. The sample of the study included 155 seventh graders from a middle school in eastern China. Results supported that the ARGSL enhanced students learning interaction, performance, and satisfaction compared with the game-based and book-based learning methods. The semi-structured interviews found that the AR technology was widely accepted by students for its usefulness, realness, interest, and interactivity. The AR visualized the virtual magnetic field which makes the difficult physics concept easy to understand. The challenges caused by the AR also give us some implications for AR-supported science education.

We report on the study of student difficulties regarding a heat engine in the context of a Stirling cycle by the method of measurement. An in-class test about a Stirling engine with a regenerator was taken by three classes, and the students were asked to perform one of the most basic activities--calculate the efficiency of the heat engine. Our data indicate that quite a few students have not developed a robust conceptual understanding of basic engineering knowledge of the heat engine. Notably, the error ratio of the class given a simple tutorial of engineering knowledge is smaller than those of the other two classes by more than 20%. In addition, both the written answers and post-test interviews show that most of the students cannot associate Carnot's theorem with a Stirling cycle. Our results suggest that both scientific and engineering knowledge are important and should be included in instructional approaches, especially in the thermodynamics course taught in the countries and regions with a tradition of not paying much attention to experimental education or engineering training.

In science education, it is vital for teachers to consider students' academic and emotional needs. Teachers' prediction of students' learning states has been commonly regarded as an indicator to measure that competence to understand students. This study aimed to explore the outcome and the process of prediction to reflect teachers' pedagogical content knowledge. The study was to detect the differences in preservice teachers' eye movement behaviors with eye-tracking technology between the prediction group and nonprediction group. The prediction group predicted the option students will most likely choose for a given question, while the nonprediction group solved the problems on their own. The result showed that preservice teachers in the prediction group were more considerate of students' ideas and review the information among different areas of interest when they were required to detect the problem from the perspective of students. In the prediction group, preservice teachers with positive prediction focused more on the correct option repeatedly, while those with negative prediction tended to inspect carefully within each incorrect option. In addition, successful and unsuccessful problem solvers in the nonprediction group responded to problems in a different manner, in which successful problem solvers paid more attention to inspecting information from options, including both correct option and incorrect options.

Astronomy is considered by many to be a gateway science owing to its ability to inspire curiosity in everyone irrespective of age, culture, or general inclination towards science. Currently, where there is a global push to get more students engaged in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, astronomy provides an invaluable conduit to achieve this shift. This paper highlights the results of a study which has reviewed the presence and extent to which astronomy has been incorporated into the school curriculum of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) member countries. In addition, two others strong in astronomy research, China and South Africa, are included together with the International Baccalaureate Diploma science curriculum. A total of 52 curricula from 37 countries were reviewed. The results reveal that astronomy and its related topics are prevalent in at least one grade in all curricula. Of the 52 curricula, 44 of them had astronomy-related topics in grade 6, 40 introduced astronomy-related topics in grade 1, whilst 14 had astronomy-related topics explicitly mentioned in all grades. At all year levels, celestial motion is the dominant content area; however, topics such as stars, physics, cosmology, and planetary science become much more frequent as a proportion towards the higher year levels. The most common keywords employed in the curricula related to basic astronomy concepts were the Earth, Sun, Moon, and stars, all with a high frequency of use. There is hardly any focus on Indigenous Astronomy or the role of prominent women astronomers. Relational textual analysis using Leximancer revealed that all the major concepts could be encompassed within two broad themes: Earth and Physics. Astronomy and Physics are often seen as different domains, with astronomy content being more facts based, than based on concepts.

The ability to predict students' ideas or performances is commonly recognized as an indicator to measure teachers' knowledge of student learning difficulties. This research focuses on identifying pre-service science teachers' knowledge of student learning difficulties on Mechanics, as well as comparing pre-service science teachers' predictions to student reasoning on the causes of their learning difficulties. The populations consist of 479 pre-service science teachers and 1,020 students taking physics as a separate science course. Two versions of the questionnaires are designed, with teacher- and student- oriented questions separately. From the results, inconsistencies are observed between two groups of populations. Pre-service science teachers either over- or under-predict student learning difficulties in some special domains. The results show that the physics content knowledge factor attracts great attention from both students and pre-service science teachers as the cause of student learning difficulties. The research results are important for pre-service science teachers to realize the gap between their own perspectives and students' actual learning difficulties.

In order to analyse whether or not the characteristic of scientific inquiry activities of textbooks in China satisfy the requirements of China's new curriculum reforms, content analysis method was adopted to analyze scientific inquiry activities in junior middle school physical textbooks (grade 8) of five editions authorized by the Chinese Ministry of Education. The results show that the inquiry activities in the five versions of textbooks in China cannot meet the requirements of authentic scientific inquiry regardless of the degree of openness or operationality of cognitive processes and are not conducive to develop students' scientific inquiry skills and scientific reasoning skills. The authors of science textbooks should take note of the latest insights from the world of academia and develop some new authentic scientific inquiry tasks to update textbooks in a prompt manner in order to improve the students' abilities of scientific inquiry. For the textbook reviewers, the present research not only provides them with specific findings, but also provides them with a method to evaluate textbooks.