Welcome to PER-Central

Welcome to PER-Central, a collection of information and resources for physics education research. Here you will find articles, theses and dissertations, research groups, curricular material, and news and events that are of interest to the PER Community. Click here to find out more about PER-Central.

Upcoming PER Events

Teaching the Process of Science

This workshop will bring together faculty, teachers, and educational researchers to share exemplary classroom and laboratory activities, examine existing research on misconceptions, and explore strategies for integrating the nature and process of science into courses. Participants will also help to develop an online collection of resources and teaching materials related to the integration of process and content in the science classroom.

PERC 2009

The uniqueness of Physics Education Research (PER) partly resides in the diverse traditions and frameworks adopted to study learning. Join us July 29-30 in Ann Arbor, MI to discuss "Physics Education Research across Paradigms" as we identify the characteristic properties of various research frameworks and the kinds of questions each can answer. By looking at the different frameworks used to study learning and the interplay between them, we hope to build bridges between the frameworks used in PER and our wider community.

Gordon Research Conferences - Physics Education Research

A meeting description is currently being developed by the Conference Chair and will be available by September 1, 2009. Please check back for updates.

Reviews in Physics Education Research

Over the past two decades, the PER community has developed a number of effective instructional strategies for calculus-based university physics classes. This review article helps to bring a set of those results to the instructional community:

The Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs (SCALE-UP) project
by R. J. Beichner, J. M. Saul, D. S. Abbott, J. J. Morse, D. L. Deardorff, R. J. Allain, S. W. Bonham, M. H. Dancy, and J. S. Risley.

Find more articles that help to bridge research and practice in Volume 1 of Reviews in PER.

Recent Forum Posts

July 1 at 6:56 PM EST
Rachel E. Scherr posted Meeting minutes, June 30, 2009 to the US - AAPT Physics Education Researc... thread.

June 23 at 9:50 PM EST
H. Vince Kuo posted Program Information to the University of North Carolina, Green... thread.

May 26 at 6:15 PM EST
Michael Wittmann posted Meeting Minutes, May 26, 2009 to the US - AAPT Physics Education Researc... thread.

April 28 at 8:22 PM EST
Michael Wittmann posted Town Hall minutes, February 14, 2009 to the US - AAPT Physics Education Researc... thread.

PER Programs

Take a look at our map of Physics Education Research (PER) programs to browse the different PER groups and their research.