Physics Education Research (PER) at OSU Physics

Physics education research is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary branch of physics which studies the processes of how people learn and teach physics. This field of research is pursued in physics departments at a number of leading graduate and research institutions across the country and has attracted funding from major governmental agencies. The results of this research provide the basis for an increasing understanding of the learning process as it applies to physics, as well as the basis for improved curriculum development and evaluation and for the integration of new technologies into the instructional process. Research in this field requires both a deep understanding of the physics content and insights into the results of the learning sciences as they apply to instructional processes in physics.

As with other fields of physics, physics education depends for its progress on both experimental and theoretical research. The Ohio State
University Physics Education Research Group has strength in both of these areas, and is pursuing them through a number of projects currently supported by the National Science Foundation.

On the experimental side, we have developed a rich knowledge base about specific difficulties that students encounter in learning physics and we apply this knowledge to create innovative curriculum, evaluation, and assessment materials that help students become better learners. On the theoretical side, an important and challenging task is the development of appropriate theoretical and mathematical models of the learning process. This work relies on, and is applied to, experimental investigations of specific aspects of student learning in a wide range of physics topics in various education settings. Our research integrates advances in neural science, cognitive science and psychology into modeling the learning process in physics and into developing the necessary measurement instruments and data analysis methods required for providing feedback in the continuing process of development and improvement of physics education.