280 research outputs found
Gender, Context, and Physics Assessment
A persistent gender gap exists on one of the most commonly-used physics conceptual tests, the Force Concept Inventory. The test includes many stereotypically male contexts such as hockey, rockets, and cannonballs. A revised version of the test was created using stereotypically female contexts and both versions were randomly administered to 300 college students. While the total correct score did not change for men and women, significant results were discovered when test questions were examined individually. Results suggest that context can affect performance on a physics assessment for both men and women. One implication for instructors is that they should be aware of how their examples and problems can elicit different performance among women and men
Oneota ground stone technology in the Central Des Moines River Valley of Iowa
The intent of this study is to analyze the ground stone artifacts (manos and grinding slabs) from 14 late prehistoric sites in the Central Des Moines River Valley of Iowa. This was done to address the relative reliance on maize agriculture during the Moingona Oneota Phase. In total, ground stone artifacts from 11 Moingona Phase Oneota sites were analyzed, as well as ground stone tools from two Middle Woodland sites and one Late Woodland site, for comparative purposes. Based on design theory models and recent research on the correlation between the size and design of ground stone tools and the intensification of agriculture, it appears an overwhelming majority of Oneota manos and grinding slabs are of expedient design. This supports the hypothesis that Moingona Phase Oneota groups were only partially reliant on maize agriculture, with a subsistence base that relied on a mixture of hunting, gathering, and farming
Perceptions of academic benefits of work-integrated learning among West Virginia community and technical college students
Global research notes the academic benefits of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) to be higher academic achievement and faster degree completion rates. Past studies have been chiefly conducted at baccalaureate degree granting institutions. The purpose of this descriptive, nonexperimental, post-facto study is to determine whether the West Virginia WIL programs delivered through community and technical colleges yield the same academic benefits that have been reported in the extant research concerning baccalaureate schools. The population of this study was to be 572 business and information technology majors at ten West Virginia community and technical colleges. Student-level data by classification of instructional programs (CIP) codes were analyzed that had been previously collected through the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s annual census for academic years 2011-2012, 2012 -2013, and 2013-2014. WIL experience data distribution throughout the population of the study, however, was skewed substantially and required a more normally distributed sample for purposes of analysis. A reduced sample, comprised of 117 participants enrolled at New River Community and Technical College, Pierpont Community and Technical College, and West Virginia Northern Community College during the same period, provided a more even distribution. The findings suggest WIL experiences did not have a significant effect on cumulative GPA or on demonstrated time-to-degree in the two-year graduation period, nor on the years to degree variable, for this sample. WIL experiences did appear to have a significant effect on demonstrated time-to-degree in the three-year graduation period, however. The lack of a conclusive determination that WIL has an effect on grade point average (GPA) for community college students could spur a reconsideration of the field’s understanding of the academic benefits of WIL experiences for researchers and professional practitioners
Holding safely : guidance for residential child care practitioners and managers about physically restraining children and young people
Residential child care is intensive and at times very diffificult work. Staff in residential childcare, therefore, need training, advice, supervision and support in undertaking this demanding work, since they are often doing the hardest of social care jobs. This good practice guidance has been commissioned to assist practitioners in working out policies and practices for restraining children and young people where no other appropriate options are available
Coordination of Mathematics and Physical Resources by Physics Graduate Students
We investigate the dynamics of how graduate students coordinate their
mathematics and physics knowledge within the context of solving a homework
problem for a plasma physics survey course. Students were asked to obtain the
complex dielectric function for a plasma with a specified distribution function
and find the roots of that expression. While all the 16 participating students
obtained the dielectric function correctly in one of two equivalent
expressions, roughly half of them (7 of 16) failed to compute the roots
correctly. All seven took the same initial step that led them to the incorrect
answer. We note a perfect correlation between the specific expression of
dielectric function obtained and the student's success in solving for the
roots. We analyze student responses in terms of a resources framework and
suggest routes for future research.Comment: 4 page
The Dynamics of Students' Behaviors and Reasoning during Collaborative Physics Tutorial Sessions
We investigate the dynamics of student behaviors (posture, gesture, vocal
register, visual focus) and the substance of their reasoning during
collaborative work on inquiry-based physics tutorials. Scherr has characterized
student activity during tutorials as observable clusters of behaviors separated
by sharp transitions, and has argued that these behavioral modes reflect
students' epistemological framing of what they are doing, i.e., their sense of
what is taking place with respect to knowledge. We analyze students' verbal
reasoning during several tutorial sessions using the framework of Russ, and
find a strong correlation between certain behavioral modes and the scientific
quality of students' explanations. We suggest that this is due to a dynamic
coupling of how students behave, how they frame an activity, and how they
reason during that activity. This analysis supports the earlier claims of a
dynamic between behavior and epistemology. We discuss implications for research
and instruction.Comment: 4 pages, PERC 200
Hubble Space Telescope Near-IR Transmission Spectroscopy of the Super-Earth HD 97658b
Recent results from the Kepler mission indicate that super-Earths (planets
with masses between 1-10 times that of the Earth) are the most common kind of
planet around nearby Sun-like stars. These planets have no direct solar system
analogue, and are currently one of the least well-understood classes of
extrasolar planets. Many super-Earths have average densities that are
consistent with a broad range of bulk compositions, including both
water-dominated worlds and rocky planets covered by a thick hydrogen and helium
atmosphere. Measurements of the transmission spectra of these planets offer the
opportunity to resolve this degeneracy by directly constraining the scale
heights and corresponding mean molecular weights of their atmospheres. We
present Hubble Space Telescope near-infrared spectroscopy of two transits of
the newly discovered transiting super-Earth HD 97658b. We use the Wide Field
Camera 3's scanning mode to measure the wavelength-dependent transit depth in
thirty individual bandpasses. Our averaged differential transmission spectrum
has a median 1 sigma uncertainty of 23 ppm in individual bins, making this the
most precise observation of an exoplanetary transmission spectrum obtained with
WFC3 to date. Our data are inconsistent with a cloud-free solar metallicity
atmosphere at the 10 sigma level. They are consistent at the 0.4 sigma level
with a flat line model, as well as effectively flat models corresponding to a
metal-rich atmosphere or a solar metallicity atmosphere with a cloud or haze
layer located at pressures of 10 mbar or higher.Comment: ApJ in press; revised version includes an updated orbital ephemeris
for the plane
A Precise Water Abundance Measurement for the Hot Jupiter WASP-43b
The water abundance in a planetary atmosphere provides a key constraint on
the planet's primordial origins because water ice is expected to play an
important role in the core accretion model of planet formation. However, the
water content of the Solar System giant planets is not well known because water
is sequestered in clouds deep in their atmospheres. By contrast, short-period
exoplanets have such high temperatures that their atmospheres have water in the
gas phase, making it possible to measure the water abundance for these objects.
We present a precise determination of the water abundance in the atmosphere of
the 2 short-period exoplanet WASP-43b based on thermal
emission and transmission spectroscopy measurements obtained with the Hubble
Space Telescope. We find the water content is consistent with the value
expected in a solar composition gas at planetary temperatures (0.4-3.5x solar
at 1 confidence). The metallicity of WASP-43b's atmosphere suggested
by this result extends the trend observed in the Solar System of lower metal
enrichment for higher planet masses.Comment: Accepted to ApJL; this version contains three supplemental figures
that are not included in the published paper. See also our companion paper
"Thermal structure of an exoplanet atmosphere from phase-resolved emission
spectroscopy" by Stevenson et a
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