A new data-driven study casts serious doubt on the stereotype that male students perform better than female students in science — specifically, physics. A team of researchers in the Department of Physics and Astronomy analyzed both the midterm exam scores and final grades of more than 10,000 Texas A&M students enrolled in four introductory physics…

Engineers demonstrate how a testing strategy they call ‘distanced online testing’ can effectively reduce students’ ability to receive help from one another in order to score higher on a test taken at individual homes during social distancing. In research published today in npj Science of Learning, engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrate how a testing…

The topic of electricity often poses difficulties for many secondary school students in physics lessons. Researchers have now developed and empirically evaluated a new, intuitive curriculum as part of a major comparative study. The result: not only do secondary school students gain a better conceptual understanding of electric circuits, but teachers also perceive the curriculum…

The increase in online education has allowed a new type of teacher to emerge — an artificial one. But just how accepting students are of an artificial instructor remains to be seen. That’s why researchers are working to examine student perceptions of artificial intelligence-based teachers. That’s why researchers at the University of Central Florida’s Nicholson…

Mathematics — it’s the subject some kids love to hate. Yet despite its lack of popularity, mathematics is critical for a STEM-capable workforce and vital for current and future productivity. New research finds that boosting student confidence in mathematics is pivotal to greater engagement with the subject. In a new study by the University of…

A new mathematical model has been developed to identify the number of days students could attend school to allow them a better learning experience while mitigating infections of COVID-19. Published in Physicsa D journal, the study shows that blended models, with almost periodic alternations of in-class and remote teaching days or weeks, would be ideal.…

A new review highlights the potential of machine learning—a subset of artificial intelligence — in science education. Based on a review of 47 studies, investigators developed a framework to conceptualize machine learning applications in science assessment. The article aims to examine how machine learning has revolutionized the capacity of science assessment in terms of tapping…

A Danish university lecturer experiments with banning screens in discussion lessons. A new study looks at the results, which include greater student presence, improved engagement and deeper learning. At a time when much of instruction is performed digitally and university lecture halls are often illuminated by a sea of laptops, it can be difficult to…

Increasing gender diversity has been a long-sought goal across many of the sciences, and interventions and programs to attract more women into fields like physics and math often happen at the undergraduate level. But is representation enough to improve gender diversity in science? In a new study, researchers say there’s more to the story: They’ve…

Researchers have found that the reason there are more undergraduate men than women majoring in physics, engineering and computer science is not because men are higher achievers. On the contrary, the scholars found that men with very low high-school GPAs in math and science and very low SAT math scores were choosing these math-intensive majors…